Spotlight on: One True Media
September 9th, 2008 | Published in Youtube API
Posted by Satyajeet Salgar, YouTube APIs and Tools Team
In YouTube API-land, we always love hearing about new API implementations that make sharing videos on YouTube more accessible to a large number of users. One such site that we recently learned about is One True Media.
One True Media lets you create great videos from scratch using your photographs and videos. By allowing you to add a range of transitions, music, video styles and effects, it makes it extremely easy to create compelling videos. Adding the "Upload to YouTube" functionality to their site has allowed One True Media to offer their users another way to share the videos that they create with friends, family and the world.
Below are extracts of a chat with some of the engineers from the One True Media team: Ian Lovejoy, Kevin Wong and Chris Hut. Hopefully there are technical and design lessons that you can glean from their experience.
Q: Why did you add the Upload to YouTube functionality to the One True Media site?
Our site is about re-inventing video-creation; making it as easy as possible for users to create videos. But its just as important to our users to be able to share the videos that they create and YouTube has proven to be a favorite way for our users to share what they create.
Q. What are the benefits to One True Media of adding the functionality?
Our users are that much happier! They love sharing their videos on YouTube. It's a great way for them to show off what they create. It drives them to create more content. For us, it's also a great way to showcase our tools and put our brand in front of the largest possible audience. Our users have actually started putting videos on YouTube on how to upload to YouTube from One True Media!
Q. What was your experience with the APIs like?
Overall, great! The API was pretty straightforward and we were able to implement the functionality pretty quickly. We encountered one bug, but Jeff in the API forum helped us with a workaround and the bug has since been fixed. The most annoying part was getting the AuthSub keys set up and that code working. It would help to have that better documented! (We're on it!)
Q. A personal confession: when I first tried to upload a personal video to YouTube from One True Media, it took me a while to figure out how to do it....
It was definitely hard to find the "Upload to YouTube" functionality to begin with. We've made it easier to find, moving it higher on the page of share options, and even surfacing it at different points in the user flow including the registration process and on other key pages. That's increased the number of uploads quite a bit, and correspondingly the views our users' videos got on YouTube!
Q. What are the some of the other things you learned about using the APIs?
Well, we've learned the value of making the feature easy to find. We also realized that by implementing AuthSub and keeping the user logged in, we could make the process that much smoother for users, and we believe this influenced the number of uploads significantly as well. We're now brainstorming ways to utilize other YouTube API features to improve what we can offer our users.
Thanks guys!
In YouTube API-land, we always love hearing about new API implementations that make sharing videos on YouTube more accessible to a large number of users. One such site that we recently learned about is One True Media.
One True Media lets you create great videos from scratch using your photographs and videos. By allowing you to add a range of transitions, music, video styles and effects, it makes it extremely easy to create compelling videos. Adding the "Upload to YouTube" functionality to their site has allowed One True Media to offer their users another way to share the videos that they create with friends, family and the world.
Below are extracts of a chat with some of the engineers from the One True Media team: Ian Lovejoy, Kevin Wong and Chris Hut. Hopefully there are technical and design lessons that you can glean from their experience.
Q: Why did you add the Upload to YouTube functionality to the One True Media site?
Our site is about re-inventing video-creation; making it as easy as possible for users to create videos. But its just as important to our users to be able to share the videos that they create and YouTube has proven to be a favorite way for our users to share what they create.
Q. What are the benefits to One True Media of adding the functionality?
Our users are that much happier! They love sharing their videos on YouTube. It's a great way for them to show off what they create. It drives them to create more content. For us, it's also a great way to showcase our tools and put our brand in front of the largest possible audience. Our users have actually started putting videos on YouTube on how to upload to YouTube from One True Media!
Q. What was your experience with the APIs like?
Overall, great! The API was pretty straightforward and we were able to implement the functionality pretty quickly. We encountered one bug, but Jeff in the API forum helped us with a workaround and the bug has since been fixed. The most annoying part was getting the AuthSub keys set up and that code working. It would help to have that better documented! (We're on it!)
Q. A personal confession: when I first tried to upload a personal video to YouTube from One True Media, it took me a while to figure out how to do it....
It was definitely hard to find the "Upload to YouTube" functionality to begin with. We've made it easier to find, moving it higher on the page of share options, and even surfacing it at different points in the user flow including the registration process and on other key pages. That's increased the number of uploads quite a bit, and correspondingly the views our users' videos got on YouTube!
Q. What are the some of the other things you learned about using the APIs?
Well, we've learned the value of making the feature easy to find. We also realized that by implementing AuthSub and keeping the user logged in, we could make the process that much smoother for users, and we believe this influenced the number of uploads significantly as well. We're now brainstorming ways to utilize other YouTube API features to improve what we can offer our users.
Thanks guys!
Play with One True Media's implementation at http://www.onetruemedia.com, and think about how using the YouTube APIs can enhance your product.