The Social Path

How to make a YouTube clip look better on your site.

This post actually began as an e-mail to a client, who was curious about the best way to embed a YouTube clip in a website. I whipped up some examples, and I thought I'd share.

A lot of people — bloggers, developers, videographers — say they don't like using YouTube to host videos, because they feel "the videos don't look good." But what many don't realize is that you can change quite a bit about how a YouTube clip appears on a blog, site or Facebook tab simply by tweaking some code.

YouTube offers a whole host of "parameters" that you can change in the coding of your embedded video clip. Some are subtle. Some are dramatic. But each can be a huge help in the right situation.

Changing these parameters lets you:

• Remove the "related videos" display, which can often be awkward and very unrelated.

• Prevent the title of the video from appearing on the clip (cleaning up the appearance a bit)

• Force the video to play in high definition on any browser instead of defaulting to a lower quality.

• Get rid of YouTube's player contols altogether, making your clip minimalst in the extreme.

Best of all, even a coding-ignorant rhubarb farmer like myself can use these parameters. Just copy and paste YouTube's embed code from a video page, drop it into your site or blog, and add the parameters onto the video link in the HTML.

Example: I want to post this clip on my blog. When I'm watching the video on YouTube, I click "Embed" just below the player. I use the "Custom" size option and tell it my blog is 460 pixels wide. YouTube does the math for me (huzzah!) and creates a code that looks like this:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="460" height="289" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fxs970FMYIo" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The result?

Standard YouTube embedded clip:

Looks OK. But I don't want the video title cluttering up my embedded clip. And I don't want to risk the "unrelated videos" being skeevy. So I'll turn off both.

I just find the video link in the HTML code and add a ? symbol, followed by the codes I want to use from YouTube's list of parameters, in this case "HD", "rel" (related videos) and "showinfo". Just use a semicolon (with no spaces) to separate them.

So the code becomes:

<span style="background-color: #fdeee0;"><iframe width="460" title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fxs970FMYIo?HD=1;rel=0;showinfo=0" height="289" frameborder="0"></iframe>

And the result:

YouTube clip set to show HD, with no title and no related videos:

Still not minimalist enough for you? No worries. You can pull out the nuclear option. 

"Controls" is a parameter that lets you turn off the YouTube control bar at the bottom of each clip, replacing it with ... well, nothing. You can play or pause the clip by clicking on it, but that's it.

For this option, the code becomes:

<span style="background-color: #fdeee0;"><iframe width="460" title="YouTube video player" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/fxs970FMYIo?HD=1;rel=0;showinfo=0;controls=0" height="289" frameborder="0"></iframe>

What you get: A maximum canvas, with minimal clutter.

Obviously, you pay a cost for using this approach. Namely, you lose the ability to rewind, fast-forward or click through to watch the video on YouTube. But hey, beauty has its price.

I'm not saying any one of these three options is best. In fact, there are dozens of options to play with. But hopefully these examples help you see the flexibility of YouTube and how you can occasionally bend the world's largest video service to your whims.

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

 

How to design for social media: An up-to-date tutorial.

I'm no designer, to be sure, but the design limitations of social media seem to come up a whole lot in my life. So I decided to put together an updated set of specs and examples for how businesses can brand their presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Take a look, and definitely share your own thoughts and examples in the comments:

How to design for social media

View more presentations from David Griner.

Big thanks to Jeremy Flint for inviting me to speak at the Internet Professionals Society of Alabama, where I debuted this presentation last week.

And a huge thanks to the brilliant Valeria Maltoni of ConversationAgent.com, whose blog post on "How social media is like sharecropping" has (obviously) stuck with me for a year and half.

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

What people really think about social media sites.

We all have our own opinions of social sites like Facebook and Twitter, but how can you tell if you're in the majority? Here's one way I decided to try and find out.

Brand Tags, created by digital innovator Noah Brier, asks visitors to look at a company's logo, then type in the first word that comes to mind. Below, you'll find the results for some of the Web's most popular social resources. The larger the word, the more often it was used to describe that site.

      

      

      

So what do you think? Pretty fair summaries? Or does it seem like these sites have some brand image work to do?

David Griner is a social media strategist for Luckie and Company and contributing editor for Adweek’s blog, AdFreak.com. You can reach him by e-mail or on Twitter.

Day 22: Learn 5 things you didn't know about YouTube.

Throughout January, The Social Path is running daily tips on how to improve your social life — online, at least. Click here to learn more.

Watching and sharing videos is the single most popular social activity on the Internet. And roughly two-thirds of that clip consumption occurs on YouTube.

But strangely, few people bother to look under the hood and see what YouTube has to offer, both in terms of viewing and hosting video.

So to help you know your YouTube, here are a few fun facts that might make your video experience a little more useful:

Did you know you can...?

1. Find out if your clips contain copyrighted material.

Simply log in and go to your Account Settings. If any of your clips include known copyrighted material (ie, if you set your wedding video to the tune of "Danger Zone"), you'll see a note that says: "You have videos that may contain content that is owned by someone else. Please review these videos."

Don't worry, this doesn't mean some record label knee-breaker is going to come after you. It doesn't even  mean your clip is going to get yanked off YouTube, but it does let you know that you're at the mercy of the copyright holder. So make sure you have a backup copy of these videos on your hard drive just in case they get pulled. (You can download your clips back from YouTube in the My Videos section.)

YouTube does generally operate under a "three strikes" system, so if you've been notified of a copyright-related takedown on your account in the past, you might want to check whether your account is "in good standing." If you're not, you'll see a description of videos that have been removed:

2. Specify which type of ads you want to see.

Advertising is an inevitable aspect of YouTube, a server-crushing megasite that requires massive investment by Google just to stay afloat. But hey, at least you can decide which categories of targeted ads you want to see.

Just go to Ad Preferences and deselect any categories you never want to see ads for:

You can even add more specific categories of ads, like "Dancing" or "Wildlife" by clicking the "Add interests" button at the bottom of the list!

What good is this feature? To be honest, I'm really not sure, although I suppose it could make the ads you're forced to watch seem a little more palatable. But I'm guessing you'd rather....

3. Opt out of targeted (cookie-based) advertising.

If you're tired of Google tracking your video habits and using them to hit you with related advertising, just hit the big blue Opt out button on the Advertising Privacy page.

The bad news? You'll still watch ads. They'll just be generic messages aimed at anybody, not someone with your interests or viewing habits.

Personally, I like seeing local ads on YouTube clips, and I don't get too worked up about tracking cookies, so I'm still opted in. But it's worth knowing that you always have the option.

4. Force YouTube to show you HD when available.

Luckily, YouTube defaults to a viewing option that sets your video quality "dynamically based on the current connection speed." So if you're on your grandma's dial-up, YouTube will load clips at low resolution.

But if you're a quality-first kind of person, you might want to go ahead and force all videos to top quality, even if it means waiting a bit longer for them to load.

5. Link your YouTube activity to Facebook or Twitter.

First off, let me say I doubt that your friends want to know every time you rate a video or subscribe to a channel, so you might not want to blast the entire YouTube firehose into your other social networks.

But if you're selective with your picks for favorite videos, or you just want folks to know when you've posted a new clip, YouTube's Activity Sharing options might prove useful.

These tips are just a small sample of the options available within YouTube. I hope they've at least inspired you to poke around within the site a bit more and learn how you can make the world's most popular video site answer to you.

Estimated time needed: 10-20 minutes.
Benefits: A streamlined and personalized YouTube experience.

The day the viral music died.

If you were to make a list of the top viral video superstars, Chicago rock band OK Go would be near the top. Their incredibly choreographed video for Here It Goes Again has reaped an astounding 49 million views on YouTube, vaulting the band from obscurity to Grammy-winning stardom.

But that was 2006. Now the band is racing the infuriating reality of 2010.

In an open letter to their fans this week, OK Go had to explain why no one is allowed to embed the band's new YouTube video, This Too Shall Pass, on a blog or social network. Essentially, the very model of sharing that made the band a success is now barred to them due to record label revenue deals with YouTube.

It's an incredible and incredibly frustrating read, a face-palming case study in how corporate desperation is one of the most self-destructive forces in the modern marketplace.

You should read the entire thing over on Gizmodo, but here are some of the most enlightening bits:

We've been flooded with complaints recently because our YouTube videos can't be embedded on websites, and in certain countries can't be seen at all. And we want you to know: we hear you, and we're sorry. We wish there was something we could do. Believe us, we want you to pass our videos around more than you do, but, crazy as it may seem, it's now far harder for bands to make videos accessible online than it was four years ago.

...

The labels are hurting and they need every penny they can find, so they've demanded a piece of the action. They got all huffy a couple years ago and threatened all sorts of legal terror and eventually all four majors struck deals with YouTube which pay them tiny, tiny sums of money every time one of their videos gets played.

Seems like a fair enough solution, right? YouTube gets to keep the content, and the labels get some income. The catch: the software that pays out those tiny sums doesn't pay if a video is embedded. This means our label doesn't get their hard-won share of the pie if our video is played on your blog, so (surprise, surprise) they won't let us be on your blog.

....

So we've got this ridiculous situation where the machinery of the old system is frantically trying to contort and reshape and rewire itself to run without actually selling music. It's like a car trying to figure out how to run without gas, or a fish trying to learn to breath air.

...

With or without this embedding problem, we'll never get 50 zillion views on a YouTube video again. That moment – the dawn of internet video – is gone. The internet isn't as anarchic as it was then. Now there are Madison Avenue firms that specialize in "viral marketing" and the success of our videos is now taught in business school.

...

So, for now, here's the bottom line: EMI won't let us let you embed our YouTube videos. It's a decision that bums us out. We've argued with them a lot about it, but we also understand why they're doing it. They're aware that their rules make it harder for people to watch and share our videos, but, while our duty is to our music and our fans, theirs is to their shareholders, and they believe they're doing the right thing.

Of course, since this is a YouTube issue, the band points out that you're welcome to share their video via sites like Vimeo, which I've gone ahead and done below:

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

Hat tip to my friend Bill for letting me know about this, and to Gizmodo for posting the full transcript.

How fast is social media growing? This fast.

Here's a pretty incredible gadget by media innovator Gary Hayes:

Pretty hypnotic, isn't it?

If you're reading this post from e-mail or RSS feed and can't see the graphic, be sure to click through the headline to the original post.

Hat tip to Aaron Velthoven on Twitter.

Day 7: Check in on your YouTube channel.

Throughout January, The Social Path is running daily tips on how to improve your social life — online, at least. Click here to learn more.

In late 2009, YouTube forcibly switched all its users to the new channel format, a look that I find great for corporate purposes but pretty annoying for the average user.

While debate continues about the switch, there's little you can really do at this point except make the most of what YouTube hath wrought.

Essentially, YouTube made its channels feel more like channels, instead of just jumbled piles of boxes. You can watch dozens of videos without ever leaving one YouTube channel, where the old format would generally just steer you to specific video pages.

While I personally think the new change made it a bit more difficult to share videos easily, there's no denying that it's aesthetically a better look.

Before we dive into design issues, here's a quick comparison of the before and after. I'm randomly using ExploreMinnesota as an example, just because I happened to have a pre-change screenshot of their channel.

 

and then...

As you can see, profile information really got the shaft, with your bio info getting kicked below the fold. Again, it's more like a channel, and less like a social network profile.

So here's the real question for those of you already using YouTube: Have you gone back and checked your channel since it got switched over to the new format? If not, you're probably going to want to make some design tweaks.

Editing the new channel is pretty self-explanatory, though please note that some of the most important settings (font colors, background image, etc.) are hidden under "show advanced options" in the "Themes and Colors" tab.

Two other important points about the background image:

1. It's a pretty big pain in the butt. The image size limitation is preposterously small (256K) for the width of background image you'd likely want to use. That's why I went pretty minimal with Luckie's agency channel, the before and after of which are shown at the top of this post.

2. If you want to actually see your background image, be sure to change the two Transparency settings, which will make the channel's frames as translucent as you'd like.

The good news is that you probably won't need a comprehensive redesign. Just tweak your colors and select which info (subscribers, favorites, etc.) you want featured on your channel.

Again, I'm not totally enamored with the new look of YouTube channels, but I will say that it's a cleaner way to watch videos, and it really does open up more design options for those who want their channels to look a little more professional.

For example, I love the look of the channel we created for The Alabama Tourism Department:

If you're an active YouTube user who's been playing with the new channel format for a while now — or you learn something helpful while giving it a shot today — I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Estimated time needed: 30-45 minutes
Benefits: A cleaner, more professional look for your YouTube presence.

Coming tomorrow:Time to start segmenting all those "friends" on Facebook.