Wordpress – Page 4 – Just thoughts

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.

[Update … two links which provide a better way to do this – Inserting Picasa slideshows and The gigya shortcode 3 – inserting Flash]

[Further Update for Blogger and for responsive slideshows – create Slideshow in Lightroom, export as Video and upload to Vimeo]

There are two methods of embedding slideshows within a blog, both using Vodpod; one enables you to take the embed code from the slide-sharing site (this includes Flickr as well, I believe, but has only be tested so far with Picasa) and generate the code for your WordPress blog without any hosting. The second requires you to have a Vodpod account, in which case you can host the video or slideshow there and get greater control over the hosting and showing of your videos.

I will focus on the first method as that’s the easiest to get started with.

Method 1:
You first of all need to get a “Post to WordPress” button for your browser from the Vodpod site. This allows you to capture any video you see anywhere that uses Flash with embed code, and post it to your WordPress blog. It can be found with instructions here.

So assuming we’re dealing with a Picasa Album (public or restricted – it shouldn’t make a difference as you’ll have made the blog have the same restrictions as the album) open the album and press the “Link to this album > Embed slideshow” and make your selections for size, captions and autoplay from the pop up box and then copy the embed code that’s been generated.

Now press the “Post to WordPress” button you’ve setup in your browser and do the following:

1. Paste the embed code into the box under the heading “Video Preview”;
2. Uncheck the box “Save to Collections”;
3. Supply your WordPress Blog Details and the name of the blog post you wish to create (if they haven’t already been saved);
4. Decide whether you want to Publish immediately, or (perhaps better) “Send to blog editor”.

Your WordPress Blog will open in the editor and you can now add to the post, make further edits and finally … publish. And that’s just about it!

Method 2:
The starting point here is obtaining a Vodpod account – it’s free. It’s a good idea to do some housekeeping before you get started, for instance going to “Settings > Collections” and setting up at least one Collection (perhaps your default one) as Hidden. Some of the details of your Profile will have been created when you registered, but you can come here to change, or add to it, as required.

You then need to get the “Add to Vodpod” button and add it to your browser – this can be found here and is described here [although his URL may change as the text refers to the beta release version].

Using this button you can then grab videos – again using the embed code as required – and store them in your Vodpod space and during the save process you can share them to Facebook, Twitter or your blog which can be any of WordPress or Blogger. Have fun!

Showing your Vodpod videos in a WordPress sidebar widget.
Won’t dwell on this one; all the instructions are here and for customising it – here. You will also need the information that’s stored here to complete the sidebar.

Tag: Wordpress

Embedding a Picasa Slideshow in a WordPress Blog

[Update … two links which provide a better way to do this – Inserting Picasa slideshows and The gigya shortcode 3 – inserting Flash]