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Including A Video In Your Blog

Video content, like music (audio content), can provide education and enjoyment to your readers, when properly included in your blog. Video, also like music, can be a problem, when improperly included. If played without warning, as part of your blog, video content can be a worse problem than music that plays automatically.

Just as it's not in your best interest, as a blog publisher, to include music that plays automatically, it's even less in your best interest to include a video that plays automatically.

Most video content includes audio content - music and / or non music.

Music playing, when a blog loads, is annoying. A video is more annoying.

Music that automatically plays, when a blog loads, is annoying. Audio content from a video that automatically plays, and contains loud (non musical) sounds, will be more annoying than music. Videos, playing in a shared environment like a library, will be even less welcome than music.

Besides the annoyance issue, video content will use more bandwidth when playing. The "picture" in a video will require substantially more network resources than a simple music track.

Loading YouTube, which by definition contains videos, is one thing.

If you load a typical YouTube page, you might expect to see the video as the page loads. YouTube serves video content.


Anybody who clicks on a link with "youtube.com" should expect to find video content. Anybody who clicks on a link to your blog won't be expecting video content, to the same extent.

YouTube content generally does not play until selected.

YouTube generally packages their content, to not play automatically. Older YouTube code included a video player, accessed as part of your blog or website.

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Q62dija6bsM?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Q62dija6bsM?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

Newer YouTube code includes a video player, accessed as part of their website, and embedded in your website as an iframe.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Q62dija6bsM" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen></iframe>

Check the embed code, before installing on your blog.

Neither version of code includes the setting to play the video automatically. But, check Embed code, before installing it in your blog, if you care about your readers.
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Q62dija6bsM?fs=1&hl=en_US&autoplay=true"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Q62dija6bsM?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385" autoplay="true"></embed></object>
or
<iframe title="YouTube video player" class="youtube-player" type="text/html" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Q62dija6bsM" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen autoplay></iframe>

If you seeChange it to
autoplay=1autoplay=0
autoplay=trueautoplay=false
autoplay 

Your readers will thank you.

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