Putting Video Content on Your Blog or Myspace

So you've managed to create some video content for your blog or Myspace; the question is now: how do I get this cool thing: book trailer, music video, movie trailer, or just random video blog onto my blog or Myspace? If you're fairly experienced in the area of website design and digital video, this is not a problem. Depending on what type of program you're using to create your website and your server limitations, (where your website is stored on the Internet), there are plenty of options for the Internet-web design savvy for getting their video content on their website. For example, my personal website is hosted at www.geocities.com, and I use a program called Sitebuilder that goes with my paid package that easily allows me to embed my video into my page wherever I want it, position and size it as I'd like, and then the program automatically uploads everything to my web server all by itself.

However, for all those who hear the words 'bandwidth', 'server', 'embed', 'ftp upload', and are convinced they're hearing Greek, there's an easier way to get that video up on either your blog or Myspace. When you upload video to Myspace, special "codes", (don't worry, this won't be as painful as it sounds), are provided that you can simply cut and paste into your blog or Myspace, allowing you to share your video content on your personal corner of the web.

I'm not going to cover HOW to create a Myspace page, or go over other the design options for Myspace - I've written a related article about that here. We're also not going to cover the actual creation of video files and picture slideshows here, because there are many different tutorials and programs out there to help you accomplish this; and many of the programs are free, such as Windows XP's standard Windows Movie Maker. For now, we're going to assume you've got your video content ready to go, and just need a way to get it up there on your corner of cyberspace.

In addition, I'm not going to cover putting the video on your personal website, if only because there are SO many different types of website design programs, packages, and server bandwidth (there's that Greek again) limitations, it would be impossible for me touch on all those possibilities.

Posting Video On Myspace: Log into your profile and click on 'Add/Change Video'. You'll be taken to a tabbed page that shows 'featured videos', 'all videos', 'your videos', and 'upload'. If you have no videos, choose 'upload'. You'll then have a variety of forms to fill out, describing and categorizing yourvideo, because uploading your video to Myspace also opens your video to the Myspace community. After filing out these fields, click 'Browse', find the content on your computer and select it, and then click upload. You'll be greeted with the standard upload progress bar, and you can go out and bake cookies or something while you wait for your video to upload (While you're at it, I've got a hankering for some white chocolate/macadamia nut cookies, myself...).

After you've done that, the video should show up under the tab 'My Videos' as a thumbnail. Click on the thumbnail, and it'll take you to a page that will not only play the video for you, but also the codes necessary for posting this video on your Myspace profile page. Right under the playing video is a field filled with all sorts of code, and it's labeled "Video Code". You don't really need to be able to read this code, just understand that it's all important and needs to be cut and pasted exactly. Take your cursor in there, right-click and select 'select-all', and copy everything there. Then, go back to your main profile page by clicking 'Home' in the upper left hand corner.

Once there, click 'edit profile'. After doing this, select the field you want to paste the code into. I'd say the best two places for beginners would be in either "About Me", or "I'd Like to Meet...". After staying away from any text you've written in there, (for some tips on simple HTML formatting and typing, check out Boogie Jack.com), and paste your code into the field. When you do that, you can click 'preview section', to get an idea of what it will look like on your site. When you're satisfied with the results, click 'Save all changes' at the top.

Now, here's the cool thing - on Myspace, you can post this code into the bulletin feature, and bulletin your video or book trailer or whatever to all your friends. Just go back to your home section, select 'post bulletin', and paste the code right into the bulletin area. Voila! Instant video bulletin to all your Myspace friends.

**Shoutlife note: for folks with a Shoutlife account, (see an earlier article I wrote about this Myspace Alternative), their bulletins, blogs, and profile fields all work the same way, so while Shoutlife doesn't have the option for uploading video at the moment, you can post the code here, and generate your video - HOWEVER - be aware that the title of your video, lit in blue above the video, is a link back to Myspace Videos.

Posting Your Myspace Video On Your Blogger Blog: Once again, there are so many different types of blogs and blog services, it's hard to cover them all. For simplicity's sake, we'll focus on Blogger, but for folks proficient using other blogs: there's usually an option allowing you to edit your HTML template, or to click 'edit HTML' for your blog post. That's where you would post your Myspace code.

There's two ways to post your video on your Blogger blog:

Creating a Video Blog Entry: The easiest way would be to log into your 'Dashboard' control, click on the 'New Post' option, and create a video blog entry. Now, don't just go ahead and post the code into the blog field right away, because all you're going to get is a bunch of code when you publish, and that's it. That's because Blogger's - and many other blog programs - default text field is like a word processing program, and not HTML functional. In simple language, to get the codes to work, before entering or typing anything, select the 'Edit HTML' tab. Paste your Myspace video code, select 'Publish', and you've posted your video blog for the day.

Putting Fixed Video Into Your Blog Template: The drawback to just creating a video post is that, as all you diehard bloggers know, each entry pushes other entries down and eventually off the page. If you're doing a week-long series of videos or a video diary, the above method is actually the perfect way to order your videos and let the blog do all the archiving of your video for you. However, let's say the only video you want to post is your book trailer or video trailer, or something you want there all the time. You're going to need to roll up your sleeves and plunge into the template to do that.

As you're entering a post oBlogger, there are three tabs on the top: 'Posting', 'Settings'; and 'Templates'. Select 'Template', and you'll be taken to a layout of what your blog looks like. This is a new function of Blogger, and it makes things much easier. Select 'Add Page Element' on the right and it'll bring up a pop-up window that'll display a whole list of page elements you might want to add to your blog. For the video, you'll want to select: "HTML/Javascript", and click 'Add to Blog' underneath. This while take you to two fields: one asking for a title, the other a space for the code. Give it a title, paste the code, and when you hit "Save Changes", you're going to have a video fixed in that place on your blog for as long as you want it there.

****NOTE: for you meticulous, attention to detail, anal-retentive folks - like myself - you're probably going to want to change the size of the video in this case, because if not, it'll spread your blog all over the place. Honestly, this is also just good common sense, because the easier it is to read your page, the more likely folks are going to stay around. Changing the size of the video is actually pretty easy, so hold onto your hats, strap yourself in, and get ready to enter into the wonderful world of HTML!

Look for the dimensions of the video in the code; it will look something like this: width="430" height="346". That's what you'll need to alter the size of this video post. Just keep ratios in mind, (2:1 and all that), play with the size numbers, and generate a size that will work well with your blog. Just make sure not to alter any other parts of the code, or it won't work right. Best to copy the code into an open page of Word Pad, just to have an uncorrupted version to default back to.

There you go: certainly not the definitive word on posting video content on the web, but some starter info that can get your feet wet. Check back soon for a nifty How-To on creating promotional CD's for novels and other works using PowerPoint 2003.