A Problem with Embedded Videos
By leelefever on March 17, 2008 - 4:41pm.
Here's a scenario:
- You create a video and upload it to a host like You Tube.
- People like it and want to share it on their blog.
- They grab the embed code and paste it into their blog.
- Sweet - your video is on multiple blogs!
- Then, you realize that the video has an error you need to correct.
- To do this, you need to delete the current video and upload a new one.
- Ack! When you delete a video, the embedded players stop working
- The bloggers now have a broken links and don't know why.
So, you're stuck - either you leave up bad content, or break the links to your blogger friends.
I bring this up for two reasons:
1. Be aware. A video is different than a blog post. It's not a consistent page that's editable. A corrected video is an entirely new piece of content with a new URL, comments, etc. Because most hosts don't allow replacement videos, you may find that embedded players lock you in to content you want to change.
2. This is fixable by the hosts. As usual, Vimeo is ahead of the curve and allows video replacements. With Vimeo, you can upload a replacement video that will begin playing in an existing embedded player with the same comments, etc. Blip.tv and You Tube and most others do not allow replacements, as far as I know. [Update: Mike Hudack sez Blip does allow replacements through the "edit" page.]
It should also be noted that the replacement option is something that could be abused by unethical producers, so this may explain why it has not been adopted so far.
Very often I have broken
Very often I have broken links describing here!
It is an even bigger issue!
I agree that this is an issue. I think it becomes an even larger problem when the publisher is publishing large libraries of content. Over the course of years, the branding can become quite dated.
For instance, if you publish videos with the spaghetti cooking method - throw it against the refrigerator and see what sticks - you may not put a huge amount of time and effort into branding the content. If the content becomes successful, you may want to expand upon that and build out the brand.
Castfire allows the publisher to separate the content into segments and update each over time. It is the same concept as a website CMS - separate the content from the branding, assets, promotion, copyright, etc. The long term value of content is extremely important!
blip.tv allows video replacements as well
Hey there,
Just wanted to let you know that blip.tv allows video replacements. Just click "Edit" on your video and then do the replacement. It may take a few minutes for your change to take effect while cache expires, but once that's done your video will have been replaced.
Voila!
Sweet!
Thanks for clearing that up Mike. I looked all over the Blip site for evidence of the ability to replace the video, but didn't see anything. I think this is an important feature and one that you might consider calling out. It's not something I would have experimented with otherwise.
Thanks for great info
I am doing more and more video and so I love hearing any tips re: video - is there a way to have you video link back to your blog from say you-tube - this is my biggest frustration - I have the video on my blog but when I up load to youtube it is standalone and not connected to my blog anymore - especially when there is content regarding it too - Is there a way around this so that it's somehome linked to your blog - like when people like to your blog "content" it send you to that original page. I know it may be a "dumb question" but you guys are the best- thanks for indulging a newbie:)
Don't push that upload button too quickly...
Hi there, just came across the whole commoncraft thing and am very impressed. I posted about you on my visual storytelling blog today actually and of course I included a youtube clip.
As I dabble in animation and film-stuff myself I know how hard it is to see something out there that has flaws in it.
I do think however that the responsibility mainly lies with us as creators. Surely we shouldn't release stuff before we're satisfied it's "complete". Personally I'm never 100% satisfied and there's always a small graphic or transition that could need some perfection.
I think George Lucas said it best though: "Movies are never finished, they're just abandoned." This means that when you actually push that "submit"-button you better mean it...
On second thoughts it sounds strange that George Lucas should be the one to make this point, as he seems to love returning to his earlier works.
Unethical producers?
I really like Blip.tv - the quality of their re-transmission is the best I've seen so far.
I guess one of my skills is not being able to think with a "criminal mind" but how would an unethical producer misuse the "replacement video" feature?
unethical behaviour
Someone could post a video about something compelling, causing the bloggers to embed the video on their blog. Once the video is embedded, the unethical producer could replace the video with an advertisement without letting anyone know. Hope that makes sense.
Youtube
Google should definitely do something about this. Having bloggers false advertise on their without knowing it shouldn't be allowed. You would think with the genius behind google/youtube they would figure something out to fix this problem.
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