YouTube (www.youtube.com)

Synopsis: The biggest, but not necessarily the best, YouTube is in a state of transition. Originally, this massive site featured work from amateur auteurs that could be categorized as the world's funniest—or dumbest—home videos. It has also proved useful as a portal for homespun broadcast journalists posting clips of world events and disasters. However, as YouTube seeks ways beyond advertising to monetize its material, commercial videos such as teasers and trailers from CBS, are becoming a mainstay.

Still, YouTube makes it relatively easy to share or broadcast a video. Uploads work reliably, although it can take a long time to process and post a video (up to 30 minutes for a 3 minute clip). YouTube's major virtue—aside from boasting the largest potential viewership online—is that it contains a slew of privacy and usage controls for contributors. You can make a video public or private, allow or disallow comments (depending on how thick your skin is), preclude people from rating your work, and even prevent external sites from embedding your video.

Logline: Still the tops for those seeking the largest possible audience or for videographers who want to control how their material is used online.

Google Video (video.google.com)

Synopsis: Initially conceived as a way to search for videos and purchase programs, the sharing side of Google Video is a no-nonsense experience. With a Google account you go straight to an upload page, add descriptive information, and choose to make your contribution public or keep it unlisted. Once your video is online, you can easily post it to a Blogger, MySpace, LiveJournal or TypePad page or embed it in a Web site.

Google's efforts in online video have been misdirected (and marred by poor streaming video quality) but now that the company owns YouTube more people may tune in.

Unfortunately, Google has taken the barebones approach a step too far in some areas. For example, there's no progress bar to indicate how your upload is proceeding and there are none of the multitudinous sharing options offered by YouTube. Google did rank first in one category, however: it yielded the poorest quality video we witnessed from any sharing site.

Logline : Amateurish design, poor video quality and Google's purchase of YouTube point to the imminent demise of this site.

Yahoo Video (video.yahoo.com)

Synopsis: “Be discovered” touts the sharing side of Yahoo's video portal. But don't count on it. This site is so poorly organized and its features so minimal that it screams “afterthought.”

There's no option to make your video private, for example, so families looking to share videos of their kids with relatives should beware. Moreover, videos are broken out into just a handful of categories, and ironically Yahoo's video search engine is virtually useless. It could not locate one video we posted even using the clip's title and all of its tags, making it rather difficult for people to find or share videos.

What was not difficult was finding violations of Yahoo's policies online. Like other sites, Yahoo states that it will not permit adult material to be posted—but rather than burying that information in the fine print of a terms of service agreement (like most sites) it takes the somewhat paranoid precaution of warning you right up front before you upload material. There's probably a good reason for that: in spite of the warnings, we found naked bodies on the site without even trying (again, parents beware).

One positive point: it took less than 10 minutes for us to upload and view a 3-minute clip online.

Logline: Definitely not ready for prime time.

AOL Video (video.aol.com)

Synopsis: Looking to become America's online video portal, AOL has by far the friendliest, most expertly designed video Web site. It emphasizes commercial videos and classic TV shows like F Troop —many of which you can watch for free. There are also shows like Blue's Clues to rent and movies to purchase. Sharing amateur videos is secondary, but unlike Yahoo, AOL has sought out partners who are experts in video sharing to help out.

AOL Video, as the arm of a major media company, is angling to become a mainstream video portal featuring classic TV, celebrity clips, downloadable movies--and amateur contributions.

For example, to upload a clip to a section dubbed Uncut Video, users must first download and install VideoEgg's Windows software. This extra step ran afoul of some of our test system's security settings—AOL was the only one to do so--but once those obstacles were overcome we discovered the software was easy and helpful. It allows users to not only upload files but also record video directly from a Web cam, connected camcorder or mobile device—a handy option.

Also offered via AOL Video is the opportunity to sell your videos online using Brightcove's service (see profile under Business Opportunities).

One major weakness is the lack of privacy settings, so once a video is uploaded, there's no turning back: everyone can see it.

Logline : Taking baby steps but has the potential to mature.