Tuesday, April 15, 2008

WE Speak does video

One of the things I've had on my wish list for WE Speak (as well as London and Guelph Speak) was adding video capabilities. I wanted to capture local related content for viewing. Last night I started experimenting with how to integrate video into the site.

Videos have been incorporated into WE Speak in two ways:

The Video Centre: these are user submitted videos that can be viewed at WE Speak. Categories have been created for various sites (Scale Down Windsor, The Windsor Star, Schnurr's Sound Off etc...). Videos can be submitted from most major sites - YouTube, Google - over 30 different types supported. User submitted videos must await admin approval before they are published. Once I have a few bugs worked out, users will be able to register and self-publish.

Video Feeds: much like site or blog feeds, these are Windsor related video feeds that I have discovered and added to the aggregator. They will appear on the front page and cycle down the list as any other post. So far I've added the following to get things started:

1. Windsor Star
2. Scale Down Windsor
3. Schnurr's Sound Off
4. Blue Blogging Soapbox

If you scroll down the front page, you should be able to see the first few videos imported from the Windsor Star.

I'm using WE Speak as the test platform to try a few different things. Once I've kicked things around a bit, received feedback and settled on a format, I'll roll it out on all the Speak sites.