Ever since its launch, Patreon has been gaining popularity as a convenient platform that allows artists and creators to share exclusive content with their fans. Now, Patreon is expanding further by building its very own video hosting platform and video player. This will allow creators to upload and share video files natively from Patreon without leaving the platform.
This announcement comes from Patreon CEO Jack Conte, who made revealed the company’s plans to launch their own video hosting service in a recent interview. Currently, Patreon creators will need to rely on third-party platforms such as YouTube and Vimeo to upload and share videos with their patrons. They can also upload video files through Patreon but they are limited to files that are less than 200 MB.
With this new addition, Patreon aims to become more self-reliant and attempt to discourage users from using YouTube to share their videos. However, there hasn’t been much in terms of additional information about the video hosting platform or a specific release date as of yet. It is also unclear if Patreon will include similar features to other platforms and even generate ad revenue for content creators or not.
The company has been trying to expand to include more content and their partnership with Acast to distribute podcasts is a great example of that. Conte stated that “we already host podcasts, and now we’re starting to host video, as well”. He then followed up by saying that they hope to help creators share content no matter their medium or upload format. This will be accomplished by building a “horizontal architecture” that includes any type of content and media.
Conte will also be meeting up with many executives to launch The Creator Economy podcast with other tech experts such as Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The podcast will be free to watch and won’t turn ads, making it accessible to anyone. They plan to discuss the different tools that creators use which could be linked to the upcoming video hosting platform from Patreon. The podcast is expected to have 12 episodes and will release seasonally.
Hopefully, we’ll get some more information about Patreon’s video hosting platform on the Podcast or via an upcoming announcement from the company. The platform is already popular among Youtubers so this move definitely makes sense for both the company and creators.
