Coconut is Zencoder’s main competitor
Zencoder is a cloud encoding service launched for the first time in 2010. It is a web-based video encoder that provides syndication through online service APIs, it offers ingest and facilitates video transcoding. Primarily designed as an open source video player, Zencoder was developed with CSS, Javascript and HTML.
Zencoder History
In 2008, partnering with On2 Technologies, Zencoder built Flix Cloud before being independently established two years later. This provided the software developers with numerous contacts of customers in the market to facilitate the establishment of an informed startup founder. The best way Zencoder found to penetrate the market was through engineers rather than via business developers. In essence, Zencoder initially sold their designs strictly to software developers.
After partnering with On2Technologies in 2008 Zencoder came up with Flix Cloud as earlier stated. The software itself was officially released in April 2009 before being closed down the following year when Google acquired On2Technologies. It is in this same year that Zencoder launched as an independent transcoding service.
In the following year Zencoder was acquired by Brightcove, a Boston based video company. It however, continues to run as an independent cloud encoding service within the organization.
Zencoder Competitors
Coconut is one of Zencoder’s main competitors and does offer a wide range of exclusive features:
- - More than 50% cheaper offering only USD $0.015 per minute for HD outputs
- - Unlimited free tests thanks to FREE plan environment
- - 24/7 email/phone support with real human beings, no forum
- - Unlimited transcoding pipelines to avoid queue times
- - A powerful API for HLS, MPEG-DASH, Video Preview
- - Unlimited API Calls
- - Unlimited simultaneous jobs
- - Unlimited simultaneous downloads
- - No file size limits
- - Lighting-fast encoding up to 10 times faster
- - Fast and easy integration with any CDN
- - 10 years of experience in cloud video encoding
Coconut has been a success due to several advantages it has over its competitors, including Zencoder. Guided by Customer Development, developers of Coconut became aware of the fact that startups are based on hypothesis rather than facts. Startups are what distinguish emerging companies from established ones that execute their mandate based on proven business models. Prior to writing the first code line Coconut consulted various customers to determine the exact needs of the targeted market.
The emphasis developers made in designing Coconut was on the happiness of the customer. They aimed at making the experience of their users so exciting that they would ultimately share their experience. This involved two components, first they maximized performance of the service. This was achieved by improving the video and audio quality to the point of optimum resolution, moreover, they increased the processing speed of the service and finally equipped it with superior reliability enabling it to execute a variety of video files. The second step involved customer support. This was achieved by placing one of Coconut's knowledgeable engineers among the support team who has followed the developing stack of the software. Coconut support is readily available to respond to customers' queries within minutes unlike many other support services provided for other programs.
Zencoder In A Nutshell
Zencoder is a good video transcoding service too. Based on market data collected, Zencoder was still ranked as a good video encoder in the market. The trend reveals that Zencoder is a useful piece of freeware that covers a certain range of consumer needs in as far as video encoding is concerned.
Selling the design to engineers was a good venture because Zencoder developers, being engineers themselves, knew the language of their consumers and were able to reach out to them. It was easy to know exactly what the engineer would want and the best way to approach them.