Vimeo – Just thoughts

[This post was updated 8th June, 2012 to reflect my better understanding of how Blogger/blogspot can work with Google+]

It’s not immediately apparent what the best way of sharing videos with a restricted set of people is. Probably the easiest way of doing this was Posterous, but it’s future must be now in doubt following it’s acquisition by Twitter, so for sharing family videos it’s worth examining alternatives. You can of course host them on a service such as Vimeo or YouTube, or embed them in a blog post, and there are advantages and disadvantages of whatever approach you take. However, with Google+ you have the ability to define a Circle of the people you wish to see a video and then share that video with just them, either as a link to the clip hosted on YouTube or Vimeo, or from the video you’ve uploaded to Google+ Photos.

Before I discuss how you do this, it’s worth just mentioning my experience of using both of the two main blogging platforms – WordPress and Blogger – with embedded video. Until recently I thought there was really only one workable solution – WordPress but that’s all changed for me now.

With Blogger and its Private Blogs I thought you needed to add by invite, named people, but now I’ve realised and tested a Private Blog with Anyone able to read it. Your blog and its posts are not listed on Blogger and cannot be searched by name, post or content by any search engine – just what you want for a Private blog. Moreover when you go to Publish a post a Google+ Share box pops up which allows you to publish the post (with a separate commentary in Google+) to whoever you chose. Just what you want especially as YouTube videos and Vimeo videos can be embedded easily in Blogger posts as long as you list your blogspot domain in the list of permitted domains for embedding (see next para).

WordPress allows Password Protected posts which means that you can host a video on Vimeo (I have a subscription to Vimeo Plus) and restrict it’s visibility to being embedded on a defined set of domains as well as making it unavailable for viewing on Vimeo itself. You can then Password Protect the blog post where you’ve embedded the video clip and only people who know the password can see the post. In many ways this is similar to the result achieved with Posterous.

Of course you can also use Vimeo as the vehicle for sharing and Password Protect the videos there and achieve the same result, but I prefer to use Vimeo as a hosting platform only, not as another social network. Unfortunately YouTube doesn’t provide Password Protection of videos, but does provide the Unlisted option (a bit like the way Blogger does it) which does make sharing on Google+ such a good option and that is why I discuss that option, and using it with Google+, below.

It is worth mentioning that if you do want to make absolutely sure that your video is only visible to the people you share it with then you should Lock the Post, so do remember to do that for guaranteed restricted viewing!

Firstly, I will describe the process of sharing videos from an iPhone, and will then turn to how I do the same using a Flip Ultra HD and a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ10. The process is probably similar for any smartphone, camcorder and digital camera with video capabilities.

Posting an iPhone video to Google+ for restricted viewing

This is the easiest and most straightforward workflow, it’s only real disadvantage is that it is not designed to allow the video to be subsequently shared in any other way than through Google+. There are two ways of doing it – the second is the easiest, but probably most people would use the first option.

Option1: Upload to Google+ Photos from Photos > Camera Roll on the iPhone

i) open Google+, select Post;

ii) choose Photos > Camera Roll and the video you want to share;

iii) select Circle or people you want to share the video with, and provide text for Post and press Post.

Option 2: Post directly to Google+ from camera

i) open Google+, select Camera;

ii) take video, select Use to use this video in your Post;

iii) select Circle or people you want to share the video with, and provide text for Post and press Post.

Posting an iPhone video to YouTube for restricted viewing on Google+

This use case requires that you use either a desktop browser with YouTube (the iOS YouTube app does not allow sharing on Google+ … yet), or access YouTube from the iPhone’s Safari!! I tend to use the first option, but if you don’t have access to another system you’ll need to use the rather convoluted method described in the second option.

Option 1: Using a desktop browser with YouTube

i) take video and then from Photos > Albums > Camera Roll select video clip from Album;

ii) select Send to YouTube, complete all parts of Publish Video screen, including selecting Standard or High Definition, and most importantly selecting Unlisted so that anyone who has the link to the video can see it, but it is not searchable, or findable on YouTube;

iii) press Publish button and after it’s been published to YouTube – press Close button;

iv) open Google+ on desktop, start a new post and Add your video clip from “Your YouTube videos” option;

v) complete Status Update text and choose Circle(s) or People you want to share the video with and Share the post.

Option 2: Using iPhone’s Safari with YouTube to post to Google+

i) take video and then from Photos > Albums > Camera Roll select video clip from Album;

iii) press Publish button and after it’s been published to YouTube – press Close button;

iv) open your YouTube account in Safari on the iPhone, select video and press < button to show options;

v) press Share and then select Google+ from “Share this Video” options.

Some other thoughts. You might wish to do a little bit of editing before posting. The iMovie app could help you there because it allows publishing to YouTube and Vimeo as well from the app. It costs £2.99 from the App Store and integrates well with iMovie on the Mac.

If you can’t be bothered to do an upload of your video, you can switch on Instant Upload in Google+ which will upload videos and photos taken on your iPhone to a Private Google+ folder. This can be set to only upload when connected to WiFi, or over the Mobile Network as well. It takes place when Google+ is active and for a short time afterwards. You can then access the videos by going to Photos within the Google+ app, and selecting them … “From your phone” and sharing them.

I wrote this some time ago, but never published it, perhaps I knew what was in the pipeline. There will be a sequel … that’s a promise. Here’s the problem (ie the user requirement).

I want to create a family blog for family members of very mixed IT ability and inclination. They are (believe it or not) NOT IT-geeks. I’ve tried several ways of engaging with them, emploring to comment upon blog posts, allowing the authorship to a shared private blog – so that they don’t need to set their own up. Put loads of “useful” information up, including commentary on family photos stored and linked to on Picasa, but to no avail. How can I increase the engagement with this activity? [Please don’t ask the question … “is this a desirable activity?” … that’s not allowed!]

It would appear that video (of grandchildren, of distant parents) is a hook. Is something that wakes them up to the value of social media. But how do you share videos on the internet and keep them private?

You need a video-serving solution, there’s several to choose from – YouTube, viddler or vimeo for instance – but you need to be able to keep the video private, to be shared to just a group of people (your family). After looking at YouTube, decided to experiment with viddler. The upload is fast, as is the encoding and the quality of streaming is good. You can set the default upload save to be private and then share it afterwards – if you want to. However, if you want to embed the video on your blog, you can’t unless you make the video public! In the end I plumped for Vimeo Plus – paying a subscription for the level of privacy I wanted with the ability to embed videos which run on mobile devices (including iOS) as well.

Then there’s Posterous, a really easy to use blogging service that even your granny could use (if they are on email that is). Set yourself (and all your other family members) up with an account(s) on Posterous and you have a way of sharing each others’ videos privately. PLUS, if you install the browser button “Share on Posterous” with Firefox, you can then go to your viddler or vimeo video and using the button, embed it in a Posterous blog post. If as a family you agree to use the same password for your Posterous blogs you can then watch and share securely.

All that’s needed for the serious (or should it be serial) blogger like me is to setup the links to the Posterous video-blogs on your private blog (ie Blogger or WordPress) and you have an integrated solution. Indeed, it might even be possible to send the embedded video from Posterous to your Blogger/Wordpress private blog as it has an interface that posts out to other social media applications as well as accepting in by simple email.

So, give Posterous a look for your “family blog” even if you aren’t interested in videos.