Create a Video Site for Free—Yes, Free—With JW Showcase

Create a video website without writing any code and without spending a dollar. That's the promise of JW Showcase, which was announced today.

JW Showcase is a new tool created by JW Player, the video solutions company. While you'll need to have a JW Player account to use it, it even works with JW Player's free level of service.

With Showcase, brands can create standalone video websites or create video-heavy sections for their existing sites. Those pages can be branded with your own logo and footer text. JW Showcase uses templates for fast site creation, and comes with two default themes: Light and Dark. If you have a CSS developer in-house, you can modify the themes to your liking. You can also add your own HTML metatags for improved search engine discovery.

To create a site, visit the Getting Started page on the Showcase Github Wiki. It walks you through the steps of creating an account, uploading videos, creating a player, then creating your own customized Showcase pages. Once you've configured the Showcase application, simply upload the files and directories to your web server and you'll have a video site.

"With JW Showcase, we wanted to empower publishers of any skill level to create mobile-optimized video web apps in minutes by simply copying a few files to their server or Amazon S3 bucket," says John Luther, JW Player's senior vice president of product strategy. "At the same time, we know that developers often need to customize apps to meet specific requirements, so we built Showcase on the popular AngularJS framework and made the code free and open-source."

"Free" is always good for the budget, and JW Showcase offers an easy, affordable way for brands to create video microsites in a hurry.

"Brands and agencies leverage Showcase by creating video galleries of relevant content tailored to their targeted audiences," explains Chris Mahl, president of JW Player. "This type of customization increases viewer engagement, creates new channels, and ultimately drives revenues."

A sample video page created with JW Showcase

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net