Cool YouTube Tip Allows Interesting Mashups
A neat way to put some YouTube video snippets together, with a simple extension that was probably always there if not completely obvious. We’ve already found a way to use if for mundane training, but the creative possibilities boggle the mind.
Donn Felker’s recent blog post included details on how to specify a start point in a YouTube video with an imbedded url parameter. This may be a shortcut alternative to the start described in YouTube’s API, but works just as well.
Starting at some reasonably arbitrary point is all right, but it would be better if there is some way to specify the run length as easily as another imbedded url parameter. Doing so would allow some interesting mashups to be done, with almost no limit on some entertaining and unusual productions that could be made at virtually no cost.
We saw this as a way to quickly answer product questions by threading applicable pieces of material we’ve already generated. We use Camtasia Studio to make all of our product videos. These tend to cover a lot of material, so wading through one to find a two second nugget is not an option for us or the customer. But, we do have an accurate timeline, and of course the script, which makes locating something pertinent fairly easy.
The only thing need is a way to stop each mashup portion, but this is tricky without a very convenient imbedded url parameter. YouTube/Google’s published API has some…unusual ways to accomplish this, but this requires javascript with its impedimenta, but doing it in Flex turns out to be a lot easier. It may even be a new product for us, although I imagine several people, at least, have already gotten there ahead of us.
No doubt the next election cycle will bring forth some amazing examples of this technology. Who would have thought?
Tags: adobe flex, mashup, open API, youtube