Online video clips can now not only form a part of news articles and spark conversations, they can be the very essence which drives debate. And YouTube’s new ‘As Seen On’ feature is a clever way to keep that dialog going.
Embedding YouTube Videos
As anyone who spends any time browsing the Web, and by virtue of the fact you’re reading this I suspect that includes you, will know, YouTube videos pop up everywhere, with websites embedding them to tell, or merely garnish, a story.
Our sister site WebTVHub is entirely made up of video posts, most of which use YouTube as their source. Embedding YouTube videos is so easy that anyone can do it, and everyone does.
YouTube has now decided to keep track of which videos certain sites and blogs are embedding with a new ‘As Seen On’ feature.
‘As Seen On’ YouTube
‘As Seen On’ is detailed in a YouTube Blog post. Essentially ‘As Seen On’ collates the videos embedded on various sites around the Web and posts them all in one place.
Sites such as TechCrunch, The Huffington Post, and Boing Boing have been given their own ‘As Seen On’ pages on YouTube, but it isn’t exactly clear how owners of other, maybe less-trafficked sites, can have their own sites included. It looks like it’s a feature only open to YouTube admins to control.
The ultimate point of ‘As Seen On’ is to help further the conversation being had around these videos. Embedded YouTube clips often form the backbone of an article and drive the debate being had. So this is another way to bring a social networking element into these videos.
Conclusions
‘As Seen On’ is a clever idea. My only issue with it is the fact that the websites and blogs that are part of it are being chosen by faceless admins rather than included for the right reasons. Should the number of people who read a particular site be the most important criteria?
