I may be a bit late on this one, but about bloody time. YouTube has finally switched from 4:3 ratio to 16:9 so the masses of people wanted to upload widescreen video clips - which most video uses these days - can finally have their contributions viewed properly online. It’s strange because the likes of Vimeo have been using widescreen for ages, so why did it take so long for a multi-million dollar company like YouTube / Google to make the switch? I mean, YouTube has been going for years…
I’ve noticed that YouTube has added many new features to ist service of late, such as the captions and subtitles, annotations and endless lists of recommendations, suggestions and promotions. It’s almost like being in an online shop sometimes - but it’s always nice to see a widescreen TV.
I was recently making one of my websites compliant when I became aware that the basic code that YouTube provides users is not compliant with the global XHTML standards - meaning that my site was not fully user-friendly while it was on there.
It turns out that the W3C Validator isn’t keen on <embed> tags appearing anywhere on the page, so I did a bit of research and cam across the following replacement code which works and is completely compliant with the standards:
<object type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”425″ height=”350″ data=”http://www.youtube.com/v/yourcode“><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/yourcode” /></object>
The parts where it says your code need to be replaced with the extension that applies to the location of your YouTube video - this is present in the orginal embed code and can be just copied and pasted across.
It has been rumoured that image-sharing Internet giant Flickr will soon be launching a user video-uploading service that could rival YouTube’s monopoly on the current market. This type of diversification isn’t unknown for Web 2.0 companies as we’ve often seen expansion into other market areas as part of their natural progression and the strengthening of their userbase. Google has already made a head start with its purchase of YouTube and companies such as Yahoo! are losing ground. Despite Flickr having the advantage of a huge userbase to get off the ground with, I can’t believe all of its users will be satisfied with unrelated additions being made to its service which could result in less development time spent improving its existing service.
Could Yahoo! find a way of integrating the two mediums, giving it a unique selling point or two over its rivals. Perhaps video-editing options or an online slideshow creation tool which is simple to use but offers variety and depth would set it apart. Whatever happens, I’m sure that a much-needed injection of creativity into video-sharing websites is the next step in teh evolution of this sector of Web 2.0 and maybe stronger competition in the market could fuel innovation.
Read a news article from PC Pro for more.
