Easily Jazz Up Your Site with Embedded Video Clips

'Don't know about you, but this year I sensed the conclusive sea change to video as The fundamental medium of communication. (I can just hear the incredulous cries: "Dude! Like, get with it, man -- that's really old news!" But, look, I'm a writer -- what do you expect?)

Obviously, most people have long turned to TV for most of their information input, as sad but true as that is. But what's really tipped the scales this year is Internet video: YouTube and all its clones, where we can now be the Producers instead of just the prodigious swallowers of footage.

Why "sad" but true? Because movies are naturally superior at conveying emotional information, but a far smaller pipe where thoughts and ideas are concerned. We may live by the former, being the "feeling machines" we are, but we need the latter to build things.

But I digress. YouTube's wonderful, genius stroke is to allow you to embed a video on your site, where viewers can watch it without leaving your page even though it's stored on YT. Like this:



(This is something I just put together for Dodge Street, a music club in nearby Salem, Mass., adding it to their site -- which is not otherwise my work, thank you! -- after first getting their video "ingested" from an older analog camcorder. I will post something more erudite as soon as such becomes available.)

There's nothing like moving pictures with sound to make an impression on humans. This YouTubian technique just makes it so easy, and you don't have to store bulky video files on your own server, or send those coveted eyeballs to another site to see your clips.

(Related, here:)
"What will make the Web universal is video"