YouTube Redesigns Video Page with parts of AJAX

Before months end this past March, You-tube launched a new design to its website and its claiming to be one of the biggest redesigns in YouTube history. Some of the features include a new see more videos function, which should make it possible to load a horizontal grid of all the videos uploaded by a particular user.

This feature will use AJAX technology so in terms users do not have to reload pages so they can look through additional videos. Here is the list of new changes listed by newteevee.com:

• A drop-down menu above the video reveals a horizontal scroll bar offering access to all videos of a particular uploader.
• Logged-in users find an option to control their video queue right next to the video they’re currently watching, complete with an option to turn autoplay on or off.
• The grey box next to the video that used to offer info, URL and embed code is gone. There’s now an embed button below each video, along with other sharing options. Info about the clip is also right below the actual video.
• A new subscription button as well as a customizable logo above the video is supposed to offer uploaders more recognition.
• The five-star rating system is gone. Most users apparently only used it to make fairly binary choices, voting on a video with either one or five stars, so the new video page simply features a thumbs-up and a thumbs-down button to express likes and dislikes.
• Users that haven’t logged in simply get to see a really, really long list of clips.
• The masthead of the page is cleaned up, with various links to channel and show pages gone.

Pictures of Before and After

This relates to my iteration because in my individual iteration #3 I used a ajax application for video's to show up on my webpage.

No Plug in Required

There is a new video player out for the web. HTML 5 is now available on Vimeo and YouTube. It allows you to view a video with out any plug in being installed on your computer. It is currently still in beta testing and is only compatible with a couple browsers at this point. Those browsers are Chrome, ChromeFrame on Internet Explorer and Safari at this point.

It appears that not every one on the net is happy about this development. Vimeo spokesperson Brad Daugherty said "Almost every thread on the Internet about HTML 5 devolves into some kind of flamewar. Please don't comment here extolling the virtues of open source or unencumbered codecs,". Deborah Szajngarten, director of Marketing and Communications at Vimeo points out this is only a test at this time and their goal was to provide the video community with the best tools out there.

So what are the other reasons that are railing against this change. I mean how could a User-Friendly plug in free player be a bad thing. If you are Adobe or Microsoft, you would be thinking other wise. Videos are big business. Both companies want to keep their footholds in this business via their propriety platform.


The article writer thinks that by the end of the year there will be more devices like the IPhone that doesn't support flash will be introduced to the game and the war will be on.

Mash-ups

I’ve spent a great deal of time on programmableweb.com, searching for different API’s to try to “mash-up.” The problem is I don’t know exactly how it works, at least not well enough to plan a four way mash up past a rough visualization phase. So far, I’ve been thinking that I’d like to do something with movie or videogame ratings from metacritic.com and imbd.com and map locations out with Google maps. Also I saw that there was an API for the bluebook information on used cars. I might be able to make some kind of used car finder with Google maps and eBay/craigslist/ bluebook information.

After a discussion about API’s and mash-ups with my brother, I realized that none of these ideas are very original. And that leads to my question for this blog; how original do our mash-ups have to be? I mean mash ups are a relatively new thing, but a lot of them have been done already. I don’t want to strait up copy an existing mash up. This is my first experience with the technique, I don’t think my end product is going to get me snatched up by Google, so do I have to worry about being that original?

I also have seen two mash-ups (I think) that I think are really neat one, synchtube.com, allows two or more people to watch YouTube videos together by mashing up a chat feature with YouTube. I think this would be a great feature for GTalk. The other is funny and is sort of a mash up (again, I think) involving the combination of the same API twice. With youtubedoubler.com, one can get that eerie effect playing Wizard of Oz with Dark Side of the Moon with different YouTube videos. The example I saw, and promptly posted on my Facebook, was of an Usher song accompanied by a noisy goat.

How to embed a Youtube video into blogger

Embedding a video into blogger is actually quite simple. First, find your desired video on youtube. Mine is located at: www.youtube.com On your youtube page, find the embed box underneath the videos description. Caution: there is a url box above the embed box. Don't copy the url! That will simply make a link to your video and not embed it in your page.

Copy this text and then return to blogger. Create a new post and paste your embed text in the edit html tab on your post. The edit html tab is above the edit window for your post on the right hand side. You can click on compose to return to a 'rich editor' formate.

You should be all set! Here is my example below. This is from my first mountain biking race. Sadly you cannot find me in this video, as the author only tracked their friends in their video. I did make it down that hill though!