Presentation Pointers: YouTube Video Timestamps

Yet another way to make content on the web straight to the point and much more relevant: YouTube video timestamps! With YouTube included as one of the largest “search engines” on the web, it is quite clear that users are turning to the web’s largest video resource for information sharing. This brings me to a little YouTube Ace as originally posted by the Google man himself. Rather than wasting someone’s time by telling them to scroll through an entire video, why not lead them straight to the element you want them to see?
For example, check out this video by Matt Cutts of Google. There’s seven minutes of it. Let’s assume that half of it isn’t relevant to the point I want to make through sharing the video. Don’t get me wrong, Matt’s a nice guy… But my good friend doesn’t really have time to sit through the whole video and listen to him ramble on. The solution:

Timestamp through the share URL:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkLFlaWxgJA#t=04m56s

Simply add the timestamp (#t=) attribute to the tail of the link, coupled with the time you want the video to skip to, as indicated: “#t=04m56s”. It’s pretty self-explanatory, just specify the minutes and the seconds. This will get your buddy straight to the juicy bits, and save him/her some time. This is a nice little Ace to keep up your sleeve if you plan on referencing videos during presentations!

So you can share a timestamped link, but what happens if I want to embed a video on my website with a timestamp? It makes sense, because by doing this you can tie the video in nicely to reverberate the content on your web-page. The concept is still the same, but you’re altering the embed code this time. Using the same example:

[sourcecode language="plain"]<object width="640" height="385"><param value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MkLFlaWxgJA&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MkLFlaWxgJA&hl=en_US<code>&</code><strong>start=296</strong>" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

[/sourcecode]

The attributes are a little different, because for the embed code you have to apply the “start” parameter, which runs on seconds only. You will to have to get your numeracy hat on here and multiply the minutes into seconds but it’s simple math: 04 mins * 60 secs = (240 secs) + 56 = 296 seconds!

The end result?

2 Responses So Far

1. 1

   By social network web development on 19 March, 2010 at 12:45 am

   I tend to agree with your post. I’ve had difficulty finding any worthwhile information on this subject. Thanks for your thourough and informitive post.

2. 2

   By video search on 5 April, 2010 at 6:42 pm

   I think youtube is a great tool for anyone interested in watching or uploading videos. I have been using the site for years now, and still think it is doing a good job. Ok, so sometimes it gets criticized for being too easy to break copyright laws, but youtube’s online security is getting better. The best thing about the site is its great video search engine and database. No wonder it made it as the top sharing site on http://www.dozenvideo.com this month. But there’s some tough competition out there and as online video gets bigger and bigger, there’s sure to be a backlash. Keep online videos free and easy to share!