June 16, 2009 • 12:01 am 0
Did you know you can have Vodpod automatically bookmark videos you share in Twitter?
Yep, it’s a rhetorical question.
Just go to the blog importer, choose “Twitter” from the drop-down and enter your username. You can see it in action on this vodpodder’s account.
Lori Gregory now has an archive of the videos she’s been sharing on Twitter. Nice, simple, cool.
Filed under: Collecting Tools, Tips, Tricks, Hacks
June 15, 2009 • 12:30 pm 10
Vodpod is simply best way to collect and to keep track of your favorite videos on the web.
We have three powerful tools for collecting videos: a browser button; search; and a “blog importer” that automatically collects videos you post to your blog, share on Twitter, or favorite on YouTube.
You can collect videos from any site that offers Flash video and an embed code so enable sharing. Nearly 10,000 different sites at this point.
Once you’ve collected some videos, we make it easy to publish your collection anywhere you like. You’ll find widgets for your blog; applications for Facebook and Twitter; an API that lets you build most anything you’d like; a variety of RSS feeds, including ones so you can watch your collection on Boxee; and finally a simple, fun way to build your own video site, called Vodspot.
Filed under: Basics, Collecting Tools, FAQs, Welcome
February 10, 2009 • 6:39 pm 0
We love Twitter.
We built in support for Twitter back when Vodpod was just a few weeks old and Twitter had been public a mere four to five months. You can read recriprocal posts on the Twitter blog and Vodpod blog.
That initial service — which automatically sent a tweet whenever you added a video using Vodpod — has more or less existed ever since. But we know some people want more pinpoint control — they don’t want to send a tweet every time they collect a video.
So we’ve just added a simple new way to send a tweet about a video when you use our bookmark button (you can also use the “Share” functionality on any video page on Vodpod). It makes it incredibly easy to share a video with just three quick clicks. Here is how it works.
1. You’re surfing the Net, and you see a video you want to collect, or Tweet, or both. So you click the Share Videos button on your browser (more here if you’re a newbie) and choose the “Post to Site” tab:
2. You’re a Twitterer, so you click the Twitter button (the first time you do this, we’ll need you to enter your Twitter username and password):
3. And then type in your Tweet. We give you a handy character count, and you don’t have to worry about getting a shortened URL — we do that for you!
So, just three clicks to let your friends know about a video you like. No fuss about copying URLs or getting a shortened URL. Simple, eh?
Twitterers, please give it a try and let us know if there is anything we could do to make it better.
Oh, if you’re a Twitterer, be sure to follow us.
Filed under: Collecting Tools, For Your Blog, News
May 28, 2008 • 5:38 pm 2
While you can use our great browser extension to collect videos from 1000s of sites, there are sadly a few sites that present problems.
One is MSNBC. The good news: MSNBC is starting to put up a lot of great video. The bad news: it’s hard to collect, or post to your blog.
Here is the solution. First, click the “e-mail” link under the video and copy the URL contained in the e-mail message. The URL in the e-mail message should look something like this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26662997#26662997
Then, paste that URL into your browser, click our Vodpod browser button, and add the video to your Vodpod collection, your blog, or your favorite social network.
It’s not elegant, but it works. And, we’ll try to coordinate with the folks at MSNBC to make this more seamless going forward.
Filed under: Collecting Tools, Tips, Tricks, Hacks
April 28, 2008 • 7:19 pm 1
We have an amazing community of 1000s of video curators here at Vodpod, collecting videos on almost every topic imaginable, from 100s of countries around the globe.
And we firmly believe one of the best ways to find new videos is by “following” other members in our community.
When you “follow” someone on Vodpod, you track their activity in the news feed on your Vodpod home page, shown here:
Through your news feed, you’ll be able to track when they add videos, follow another member, or make a comment about a video someone else has added.
The key, of course, is finding good people to follow. If you’re unsure how to find good people to follow, here are five tips to help you out.
Once you find a Vodpod member with an interesting collection, it’s easy to follow them. On their member page, just click the “Follow” link in the upper right corner shown below:
You can also follow someone via the video page. Just click the follow link in the upper right corner above their videos:
Filed under: Basics, Collecting Tools, Tips, Tricks, Hacks
• 5:16 pm 3
A great way to keep track of what other people are collecting is to “follow” other members and to follow “tags.”
When you follow a member, you’ll see that person’s activity in the “Recent Activity” feed on your home page. When you follow a tag, you’ll see activity for that tag. Here’s an example from my recent activity feed:
In the screenshot above, you can see recent activity from people I’m following (pkulak and Spencer) as well as recent activity from a tag I’m following (daily show).
How to get started customizing your Recent Activity feed? Just explore Vodpod, and start following some of the “tags” that are of interest to you. (Tags are like categories, but more diverse and informal — think “Barack Obama” or “John McCain” or “The Daily Show”).
When you follow tags that are of interest to you, you’ll discover new videos you might like, as well as members who collect those videos. When you find a user collecting videos you like, just follow them.
Here are some other tips on how to find great people to follow:
1. Find people who collect the same videos as you
The best way to find people who are collecting the same videos ad you is to browse through some of the videos you’ve collected. You’ll see all of the other members who have collected the video, or who have commented on it. Just click on their user icon to check out their Pod, and to see if you might want to follow them on Vodpod.
There are many other places in the service where we help connect you to people who collect the same videos as you, I’ll mention just two of them here.
When you save a video to Vodpod with the “Save Videos” button, we’ll show you when you’re done if other people have collected the video. (SCREENSHOTS BELOW)
And, if other members comment on a video you’ve added, we’ll show that to you in your news feed.
2. Browse Vodpod by tag
Just click the Explore link and you can browse the most popular tags on Vodpod. If you’re looking for something more specific, just type in a tag in the box at the top of the tag page:
On the tag pages, you’ll see recent videos added for that tag, and a list of “related members” — these are the people who have collected the most videos with that tag.
3. Follow people that others are following
When you find someone on Vodpod who has a collection you like, and whom you might want to follow, check out who they are following. You’ll see a list on the right side of their pod.
4. Invite your friends
Do you think your friends will collect great videos? We’ve finally built a nifty tool to import your address book (works with gmail, hotmail, yahoo mail, and aol) so you can efficiently invite your friends to join Vodpod. When you invite friends, we set it up so that you follow each other.
5. Check out our our members with the most followers
Finally, you can find a list of the most followed Vodpod members here. Have a look at their collections — no guarantee they’re collecting videos you’ll like, but you might find people with interesting collections.
OTHER PEOPLE COLLECTED WINDOW
A somewhat hidden but very fun and powerful feature in Vodpod is the “Other People Saved this Video” area on our “Save to Vodpod” button.
After you’ve finished saving a video to your Pod (or posting it to your blog), we show you other people who have also collected the video:
The number above a member’s icon is the number of people “following” them on Vodpod.
Just click their icon to visit their member page and to see their collection. And then follow them if you think they collect interesting videos, and you’ll be able to track what they’re collecting from your Vodpod home page.
Filed under: Collecting Tools, Tips, Tricks, Hacks
April 26, 2008 • 6:06 pm 29
The easiest way to collect videos on Vodpod with with our “Save to Vodpod” button. It works on literally thousands of sites that provide Flash videos with an embed code (3500 and counting as of April 25, 2008) and lets you save video to your collection with a click. You can also use it to post videos to your blog.
How does it work? Say you’re browsing the web, and find a video you want to collect:
Jlick on your “Share Videos” bookmarklet or your Orange Vodpod “Save Videos” button from your browser (get it here if you haven’t already done so).
You’ll see a pop-up window that looks something like this:
Write a comment — people want to know why you like it! — add some tags (so you can keep your collection organized) and click save. That’s it. It literally takes seconds; we do the rest of the work for you.
You can also post the video to your blog (or Twitter, or Tumblr) too. Just click the “Post to Blog” tag, choose your blog platform, enter your blog URL and credentials (you only have to do this once), write your post and click to publish. You’re done!
Get the button here. We have a Firefox extension (pictured above) or “bookmarklet” versions that for your bookmark toolbar for IE, Firefox, Safari and Camino.
If you click the “Save to Vodpod” button but don’t see the preview for the video you want to add, don’t panic. Instructions on what to do here.
UPDATE:
If you have installed the button but it isn’t showing up on your toolbar, click “Tools” then “Add-ons” and make sure that the extension is in fact installed. If it is, but doesn’t show up, try the following:
1. Make sure you’ve restarted Firefox after installing.
2. Make sure your Navigation toolbar is on (it probably is, but just checking). The “Save to Vodpod” extension is displayed on the Navigation toolbar (along with the back, forward and home buttons, the URL box, etc).
3. Go to your Navigation bar customization menu and try to drag it on to your Navigation toolbar. To do that, right click (PC) or Apple Command-click (Mac) and click “Customize.†Then drag the orange Vodpod button up to your Firefox toolbar. One of our members, Steve Hornik, has made a great video showing how he did this here:
http://www.screencast.com/users/shornik/folders/Jing/media/e3a2d612-f731-45ad-8525-c76766beac0e
Filed under: Basics, Collecting Tools, Tips, Tricks, Hacks
February 28, 2008 • 2:44 pm 2
It’s the start of baseball’s “Spring Training” in the United States, so what could be more appropriate than a steroids metaphor.
Regular Vodpodders will have noticed that the Orange Button 
just got a dose of power.
You can now use the button to post videos from 1000s of sites to your blog with a single click. Just click the button, write your post, and hit publish — it’s that simple. It works on WordPress, Typepad, Blogger, Tumblr and twitter blogs. Leave a comment if there are other blog platforms or social networks you’d like us to support.
Want to learn more, here’s the full post with screenshots.
Filed under: Collecting Tools, For Your Blog, Publishing Tools, Tips, Tricks, Hacks
February 25, 2008 • 7:42 pm 0
Want more detailed statistics on how your pod is being used?
We’ve just released an expanded statistics page for your Pods.
Just click the “Pod Statistics” link from your pod home page, shown here:
Then you’ll get a full page of statistics, including a beautiful bar graph that shows views by day (blue represents views on vodpod, yellow shows views from your widget):
This is a great tool for bloggers in particular, as you’ll be able to see how many views your videos are getting on your blog (you just don’t get that when you simply embed a video).
What else? You’ll see the top five most viewed videos from yesterday and today (so you can see which ones are having an effect at a glance), and you’ll also be able to track views from your “Followers.” That will be increasingly important and useful as we increase the importance of “following” on Vodpod and build more useful functionality around that.
Give it a try, and let us know what you think. What stats would you like to see?
Filed under: Basics, Collecting Tools, Tips, Tricks, Hacks
February 8, 2008 • 4:21 pm 13
Are you a blogger? Do you sometimes write posts on your blog that include videos? Do you find it a pain to then go and separately add those videos to Vodpod? Is this post starting to read like a late-night Ronco infomercial?
What we’re trying to say is we’ve now got a really simple and easy way for you to add those videos to Vodpod automatically. Because we’re lame, we call this new tool the “blog importer.”
From your Vodpod home page, click the “blog importer” link in the “tools and widgets” area:
Then, simply enter the URL (or better yet, RSS feed URL) for your blog as shown here:
We’ll check your blog every 60 minutes to see if you’ve posted a video. When you do, we’ll automatically add that to your collection on Vodpod.
This is a great way to build an archive of all of your favorite videos, by using Vodpod as your master archive of your favorite videos. Just like keeping a separate photo gallery on a service like flickr, or bookmarks on a service like del.icio.us.
And if you don’t want the videos from your blog polluting your Vodpod collection, you can always create a new pod to archive your blog videos.
Filed under: Collecting Tools, For Your Blog, News, Tips, Tricks, Hacks
