Strategic call-out that's intelligently designed for stupid RSS readers...
Don’t lose a video viewer via those pesky RSS Readers again!
Your content is important – every single piece of it! This includes both the content via copy as well as the rich media that you create day in and day out! There should be nothing that’s stopping your faithful readers to consume and engage with your content, right?
Unfortunately something that’s severely lacking innovation (and significant advancements) is in the area of RSS feed interpretation via RSS Readers. In other words, many of the RSS readers that your community is using (like Google Reader and many others) do not read your feeds with 100% accuracy, especially when it comes to formatting and rich media like video.
The problem? You’ll be scanning through your RSS feeds and suddenly you’ll see a huge blank spot in your reader where a video should be. Or you won’t even see a video at all! Doh!
Here’s a good example (from one of my personal blogs no less!):
Video embedded in a WordPress post.
As you can see above there is a video embedded in this post. If you’re on the actual blog you’d be able to see it.
But, if I was subscribed to this blog and walked through my reader it doesn’t show up! Look below:
RSS feed video embed fail!
Doh! You see that big blank spot where the video should be? There’s no video that’s actually showing! My readers would completely miss out on the video and it just looks like the post is incomplete.
It essentially makes me look a little unprofessional as well, right?
We can’t afford to not have our videos show up and if they don’t we need at least a graceful fall-back so that your readers can get to the awesome videos that you’ve spent time and energy creating, right?!
We’ve got a solution for you…
An Intelligent (and Quick) RSS Video Embed
What Tom and I have created is a very simple and elegant solution that’ll not only speed up your efforts to embed videos from the two top and most popular video sharing services (YouTube and Vimeo) but also intelligently create a fall-back solution if your readers are using a RSS feed reader application that can’t seem to interpret your videos well.
Intelligent and simple!
It simply adds a small button in a very familiar spot and allows you to automatically insert a video link that will then insert a shortcode into your post.
Click it and this pops up:
Easy!
It then inserts the shortcode into the post for you:
Simple, right?
But that’s just the start! This not only auto-embeds the video for you but also adjust the width of the video to the settings you’ve already established via your WordPress Settings.
This not only saves you time having to fiddle with the width and the height with your embeds but gets it right every single time for your blog!
But, that’s not where the magic happens because in your visitors RSS feed reader it creates a beautiful fall-back that’ll give them not only a notice that there is a video on this post but also a direct link to the post itself so that you can capture their attention and their engagement (as well as for them to see the video!).
Check it out:
Elegant and simple. Don't lose a video viewer again!
Click for a larger view! Sweet, right?
Here’s another look in the Safari browser:
Safari browser RSS video embed fall-back.
As you can see it’ll put the text where the video should be so that you can get to it!
Here are the features in a nutshell:
- Quickly lets you add videos to your blog posts with a click of a button.
- No setup necessary – works right out of the box! Install and go!
- Embeds shortcode into your post with your video settings! No need to mess with width or height!
- Intelligently manages video embeds in your visitors RSS feed readers.
- Creates graceful fall-back notifying your readers that there is a video in this post with a link back to the direct post for easy viewing!
Enough said, right?
Love to know your thoughts!
Do you find yourself overwhelmed with your awesomeness?? Every day dude! Yeah, you rock!
haha! @moretom gets most of the credit here..!
Hey John! I really need a better commenting system on my blog… I want to be able to put Disqus on my site, but I don’t know how. I use webs.com for my site so it is a little different than WordPress.
I am sure I can get it on my site, but I don’t know how. I am a little confused when it comes to pasting the code into the webpage…where do I paste it with out it showing HTML everywherE?
I appreciate your help! Thanks!
ah… you need to move to wordpress. ask them if they have an exporter.
Wow John – you rock bro!
sure thing milan!
Sweet!
you too. are sweet.
Also, if this is not possible, I will swicth to WordPress. Is there a way I can transfer all of my posts over to there?
Yes!
Thanks brother. Doubt I will roll up my sleeves and use it but it seems like a great thing for most folks.
what’s stopping you? just curious.
I like that..I’m my next video post I will see if this works..
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
sweet. let me know how it works.
Awesome!
Downloaded & uploaded. Will test out later.
Thank you!
Do you think you’ll ever have Tentblogger merchandise? I’m thinking coffee mugs or some killer stickers would be awesomesauce.
dude. … that would be so fly. you keep reminding me and i’m going to have to do it… but not sure what i’d have on them…?
Was looking for a plugin like this yesterday and found nothing… this is just what I needed. Thanks John. Although it doesn’t work for me. The icon in the edit post screen shows up as a missing image and clicking it does nothing. Mac/Chrome & Safari. Here’s a screenshot: http://cl.ly/5aTr
do you have cacheing on?
Thanks for the heads up, Justin – just checked in an update for the plugin. It should show up in your admin panel in roughly 15 minutes
.
one sec. pushing update. one small folder name…
hmm… in ff I get a text link that doesn’t work and in chrome I get a broken image that doesn’t work
Already on it – see here!
oops sorry – I didn’t refresh the post before commenting :-/
The thing I dislike most about importing Facebook Notes from my blog is that you lose all your video embeds from your content. It’ll be nice not to have to add the fallback link to my posts manually.
sweet! i thought about this usecase!
Sweet.
Any tips for transitioning from another embedding plug-in?
I’ve been using Video Embedder (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/video-embedder/) for quite a while and have a ton of posts that use the “[youtube]Vhwrfhv-YKs[/youtube]” format for embedding.
I think I smell some regex in my future.
Eh, not easily.
Dunno how comfortable you are with SQL but you could run query like:
select * from wp_posts where post_content like ‘%[youtube]%’;
That should return all the posts that have the embed code. One step closer, perhaps?
ugh. yah…..
That’s a pretty sweet plug-in!
hope it works for you!
Cool. Another great Tentblogger plugin! Love them!
thanks adam!
Awesome. This is just what I needed. My grandparents are subscribed to get my personal blog via email to get baby updates, but I just realized they weren’t seeing any of the videos so I was putting manual links in the posts. This is perfect!
Thanks!
sure thing brett!
weird – it’s sizing the iframe to 43% on the height… I don’t see that in my media settings…
FYI: the vimeo embed part of the plugin is hard-coding the height instead of using the get_embed_height() function.
That’s by design. If you stick with the most popular WordPress embed sizes (which is square), then Vimeo letter boxes the content.
To provide compatibility that’s consistent with the majority, we opted to do that. A future version will likely offer a toggle function for this.
At any rate, appreciate the feedback, Herb!
hmm… well it was squishing mine to about an inch high…
here’s a screenshot:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1854247/tentblogger-vid-embed-test.png
We ended up deciding to roll with the get_embed_height() function.
Update should be pushed out soon.
Awesome!
Any way to get this working with WordPress’ built-in ability to embed videos? That would rock my face off!
Since v2.9, WP automatically embeds YT and Vimeo videos (and more via oEmbed) when you place the URL to the video on a separate line in your post.
I guess until then, I’ll have to add a step to my posts when embedding videos.
Great plug-in!
um, it’s not much more than what you need to do with v2.9… just click the button, copy and paste (as you normally would) and now you have added benefits of awesomeness.
Yeah, but it’s one extra click!
And honestly, right now I don’t know if my brain can take one more click! :/
But, it’s an awesome click – and your RSS reading public will thank you that they won’t be missing out
Yes. There is quite a bit of awesome sauce in this plug-in!
true!!!!
very cool, downloading now.
wah wah.
John, you have pure awesomesauce running through your veins! This came out just in time! I was planning on doing my first video tomorrow, “Month In Review”. Just a way of thanking my top commenters, highlighting the most popular posts and sharing some previews for the following month. So glad you created this!
sweet! rock it!
OK, this is awesome! Thanks so much!
sure thing jordan!
Wow, this is great John. Thanks for your great insight.
insight… or plugin?
#Win.
at least i think so.
Downloaded. Installed. Used. Didn’t work. Not sure what went wrong. Oh well.
Ok, looked at it a bit closer, and for some reason, the plugin was stripping out part of the video embed code.
Here is the video I was pointing to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYLMTvxOaeE
(A Classic! If you haven’t seen it, watch it. You will laugh.)
When I copied this into the Tentblogger plugin, here is the code that got put into my post:
[tentblogger-youtube BYLMT]
So it was removing the vxOaeE. Not sure why. Once I added these letters back in, it worked fine.
Noted. Will have this patched in a future version.
The new update fixed the problem, now it works. Thanks for getting that fixed so quickly. However, now that I’m able to see it I’m afraid I won’t be using it. When adding a Vimeo video it adds a 3 inch letterbox on the top and bottom of the video – not sure why, but I can’t fix it because there are no settings or options for the plugin. Can you add height and width settings, or allow us to paste in the embed code instead of just the url?
Justin – check out this post.
We’re trying to encourage good blogging practices and this plugin will pull settings from the embed settings
.
I love it! Just installed it and made my first use of it – and a video! – for my about page =D
sweet! thanks for using it!
Downloaded. Thanks!
I noticed this feature used on Michael Hyatt’s blog a while ago and have been looking for it ever since. Thanks for making this available, John!
i believe michael custom created his without a plugin.
This is great! I am using the Standard Theme as well so 570 on the width makes a lot of sense, but I was wondering why you have your height set to 600? It seems that I have had better luck using 570 by 320 (16 by 9) or 570 by 430 (4 by 3) in the WordPress media embed default settings. Just curious if I am missing something.
bad screenshot. try. 360.
Doesn’t appear to work when embedding more than 1 YouTube video into a single post… at least not for me.
i’ll take a look. i haven’t had problems so far with this… thanks daniel.
I’m getting a tall, narrow embed. Doesn’t look to shiny on my site. Using StandardTheme 2.6.
adjust your embed size in your media settings
Thanks…guess I should have read a few comments above. Doh!
I love this. You made it visible in Google Reader and you simplified the embed code. Thanks a ton!
sure thing!
dope
i think so.
My impression was that the embed settings would do a maximum of say 570 x 600, so it wouldn’t make the video any wider than 570 pixels if it was shot long ways or taller than 600 if it was shown tall ways. Is that not correct?
This plugin is just embedding it in a 570 x 600 box with black on the top and bottom. If I set it to 570 x 320 I’m good on the wide shots, but I have some videos from my phone I shot in portrait so it shrinks it to 320 pixels tall and puts black bars on the sides.
Any way to make it adjust to a max of 570 wide or a max of 600 tall and not put the black bars?
Thanks guys. I appreciate the work and realize it is a free plugin. I can always manually embed my portrait oriented videos.
we’re going to take a look at some more dynamic options… but i’ve got 570 by 360 i believe.
Ok, thanks. 570 by 360 or 320 works great for wide format videos, just not ones shot in portrait orientation. Thanks again for all the plugins and great info!
brett,
yeah. it’s not perfect. will look to make this more dynamic. thanks for sticking with me!
Hello,
I wonder if I might ask a question? I used to be able to copy embed code from YouTube and insert it directly into the html part of my post. But recently I am unable to do that. I upgraded to the latest version of wp and not things have changed. Now when I paste the code and switch over to the visual I see a large box with a smaller box with an ‘x’ in it. I wzs going to download your plugin to possible correct this issue, but I thought I had better ask it this will solve the problem or perhaps there is something else I should do first or instead. What would you suggest?
Thank you
Hello, I have a question. Until recently, I was able to copy and past Youtube embed code from YouTude and insert them into my post. I would past the code under the html screen then I would switch back to visual and see the video. Now when I do that I see a large box with a smaller box with an ‘x’ in it. The only recent change to my configuration is that I upgraded to the new wordpress version. I was going to install your plugin to resolve the problem but I thought I should inquire first if this would solve the problem.
Thank You
hmm. not sure. did you resolve this?
Thanks for this handy plug-in. I’m installing it now!
sure thing adam! enjoy!
Thanks for the plugin! Any chance we can get an update that allows video-quality selection in the post?
andy,
great thought. let me look into this.
Hi John, awesome work on this plugin!
Might you have any thoughts on how to display the default youtube thumbnails in place of the video when the video cannot be displayed? Specifically, I’m trying to figure out how to display videos, or perhaps the default youtube video clip thumbnail, into MailChimp’s RSS campaign type. Any help would turn this from an awesome plugin into the BestPluginEver!
wow. that would be outside the scope of this plugin. i have to imagine there are some plugins out there already, right?
You’d think so, wouldn’t you :/
I’ll report back if I find any.
John,
I installed your Video Embed Plugin on my site but am unable to get it working.
First off, I tried to go without the plugin, but for some reason, I cannot get video to embed on my sites without the use of one. I know that you wrote the post about wordpress being able to handle this but again for some strange reason it doesn’t work for me.
Hence I was using the Viper Video plugin but opted for yours.
That being said, I installed it but it wouldn’t play the video in firefox and it google chrome it displayed the tentblogger short code for the video rather than the video itself.
I uninstalled the plugin and tried to use the viper video plugin and cannot get anything to display.
That being said, I’m not sure what the deal is.
Any advice would be appreciated.
The post is here:
http://www.mattfraser.name/how-to-find-your-google-analytics-code-from-with-the-dashboard
i see the video.
I just started using this and love how easy it is, however, when I added a link back into a blog that was now not showing it, I have a very skiny video. Is that something that needs to be changed on the plugin side or the theme side?
http://tentblogger.com/wordpress-settings/
see comment below too april!
Hi John,
I’m with April – it show us but it is a tall mini window.
http://www.splatyouth.net/?p=1096&preview=true
Take a look
i can’t see previews…! unless i’m user of your blog! but, you’ll have to change the media settings…
http://tentblogger.com/wordpress-settings/
Is anyone else having problems with this plugin today? I just tried it on my personal blog brenna.co and it wouldn’t load the video properly.
hmm. nope.
Hi, I have just installed this plugin. But the video doesnt show. Is it a cashing problem? The code shows corrctly in the post. Kind regards Claes
might be a caching issue.
Hi, I have just installed this plugin. But the video doesnt show. Is it a cashing problem? The code shows corrctly in the post. Kind regards Claes
URL http://boardtests.com/2010/11/fanatic-hawk-120-test-2010-2011/
mine is working fine. do you have caching?
It doesn’t appear the video is loaded when you preview a post. Is that true or is something not working correctly?
it should work via preview. do you have caching?
I figured out how to use it. What wasn’t clear was that it doesn’t actually embed the video AND the RSS notice. I learned that today when I posted a video.
cool!
Awesome! You rock dude!
sure thing mike!
Thanks man! Preciate this!
of course! my pleasure!
John, thanks for the plugin. I’ve been having a problem with it on two sperate blogs with youtube videos. For some reason when I embed the video with you plugin the video stretches really tall and very thin distorting the whole thing. This has happened on both blogs. Am I doing something wrong?
have you checked the video settings in wordpress?
Wow, that was it! Thanks!
That was it! Thanks!
sweet!
great plug in….is there an easy way to center it…thanks
you could customize the code a bit if you’d like. or just put /center/ tags.
John the plugin doesn’t seem to be working for me. When I click the camera button nothing pops up and when I use the short code it doesn’t work either.
Is the plugin still working with the new version of wordpress?
it should be working. I’ll double check.
it’s working on my installs.
Do the Reading RSS settings need to be set to FULL Text rather than excerpt for this to work?
I see the text that reads “Can’t see the video in your RSS reader or email? Click here” but it doesn’t link to anything, and this only works when it’s set on “Full text”.
Thanks!
yes. you’ll want that anyway. excerpts stink!
Well no. The posts are very image heavy and the excerpt it set up to only show the first image in the post. I would also like it to show the video.
HOWEVER, that aside, it still only prints out the text of CLICK HERE but doesn’t create a link. Suggestions?
show me a screenshot.
Is there a way to set auto play to the embeds/shortcode?
Thanks!
not in this plugin!
Awesome plugin, John. The best part of the plugin is that it just… works!
It’s always nice when things work as advertised and us bloggers can just focus on the content writing.
sweet! enjoy!
I was going to give you 120%, but then I noticed while everything works on Chrome and Ffx, IE shows a dreaded black square where the video should be (but plays sound). See the first article in http://www.skyworks.co.uk/blog/ Any ideas?
did you fix this? media settings.
I did not. Can you explain ‘media settings’? It is only in IE that the problem occurs.
Had another look. Still cannot see how media settings would affect just IE. If you can’t help me it looks like I’ll have to abandon your plugin and go back to the old way of doing things. sniff.
You are an internet SUPERHERO =)
#LOL. not.
Hi John,
I just installed this plugin on my new Standard Theme site and it works great. My question is for my old site (educlaytion.com) which is also on Standard Theme now but was on WordPress.com for about 3 years. When I install this video plugin on that site, what will happen to all the videos that I had added to posts using the WP.com add video button?
hmm. you may have to go back and edit them.
When I post my feed -
http://feeds.feedburner.com/thargy
Into feedvalidator.org it warns about potentially dangerous content (I tried to copy here but your host blocked the post!) the content is generated by your shortcode.
Such warnings mess up the notoriously fickle Google reader (which is happening for me). Mainly, you’re not allowed IFrames in RSS (I think you should use enclosures instead) and there’s a dangerous style (I think it’s the width 100% on the message you add).
hmm. interesting. the video embed helps with sharing a link when it can’t be seen.
Hey guys, I’m kinda new to wordpress and web design in general, and i love how simple your plugin is. However, I am having an issue with the settings page. It won’t show up in my settings menu, and the video player is showing up all screwy on the page. The height is way to much, and the width is a little to small. I can’t edit these setting without the setting page unfortunately. Also, I was wondering if there is a way to run something like a playlist for vimeo?
screenshot of settings?
Love this plugin. But it seems to have trouble with certain URLs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAvDtPz33w0
becomes
[tentblogger-youtube KA]
which I had to hand-edit to
[tentblogger-youtube KAvDtPz33w0]
Hi John,
Any way to make this rss feed video plugin retroactive to the videos I’ve already posted on my site without deleting and reposting them?
John,installed the tentblogger Vimeo plugin and customized the video size for the front page 590 x 333 –its about milking goats on http://sharonglasgow.com/. [tentblogger-vimeo 44214395] Using feeblitz to send the feeds. When i recieved the blog feed, the video did not show, just the link to see it on the blog.
This is the souce code from feedblitz’s feed:
Can’t see the video in your RSS reader or email? Click Here!
anything i need to do? thanks, peace+- Dale
Hello -
This plug-in is exactly what I need – desperately – however it doesn’t seem to be working at all. I”m using 3.4.2.
The shortcode link comes up with nothing on the blog – on the rss feed I get the “Can’t see the video in your RSS reader or email? Click Here!” but the ‘click here’ words have no hyperlink.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Wow! the plugin rocks! However, I was expecting to see the video been played on Youtube and not on my blog. All the same thanks a lot, more power to your elbow!