Uploading Videos to YouTube

Many of you out there may be wondering how it is that we get those video clips to play from within our blog posts.  Well we are doing our best to latch onto what seems to be the latest internet craze - video - and with the help of a YouTube account we can upload and share videos with ease. 

If you would like to submit a video for use on the Chatter Blog you will need to upload your completed video to video hosting website YouTube.com. Unfortunately we can't accept video files sent directly to us, whether by email or conventional mail. Below you will find step-by-step instructions to get up and running on YouTube and how to upload your video to share with us or with others.

First thing you have to do is go to the YouTube website.  The address is http://youtube.com.

Once there you will need to Sign Up for an account (or login if you have done so in the past). The links are located in the upper right corner of the page.

The registration process is pretty quick and easy. You'll need to select a username, but it is entirely up to you if you want to try and use your eBay member ID. Keep in mind that YouTube is not an eBay site, so you will want to keep that in mind when selecting your username and password combination.

Now that you have an account, and are logged in, your username will show up in the top right corner (note: our username is eBayChatter).
 

Across the top of the page is the main YouTube navigation tabs. The default tab is the "Home" tab, where you can find links to all of your "My"s (account, favorites, friends, videos, etc.).

On the opposite side of the Home tab is the Upload tab, which is where you can upload your own videos to share. The uploading process consists of two steps.

• The first part of Step One is to name and describe the video you are about to upload. How you want to name and describe your videos are entirely up to you, but if you include any profanity or innappropriate content you may be removed from YouTube and your videos can't appear on the Chatter Blog.
• Tags allow you the option to assign searchable terms that may or may not already appear in your title or description. For example: we tag every blog video with "eBay", "Chatter", "Blog" so that we don't have to keep putting them in the title of each video. With tags people will have an easier time finding a video, regardless of the title.
• Pick a category you want your video to go into. This is up to you, but we use News & Blogs option.
• Clicking the "Continue" button takes you to Step Two.

Now that you have provided all the details in Step One, you can finally upload the video file.

• Make sure that you leave the Broadcast option set to "Public" so that we can actually see the completed video.
• Click the "Upload Video" button and away we go.

While the video is uploading you can view the progress in the purple box. The red meter will continue to fill up as it goes.

Once the upload meter fills up you will have an option to edit the details associated with your video. As it says on the screen, it may take several minutes for YouTube to complete the processing of your upload.

To check the status of your video you can go to the My Videos link within the Home tab. If you see the white and red YouTube graphic, that means that it is still processing. Once completed the graphic will be replaced with a still frame image from your video.

Once your video is available on your My Videos page you can review all of the details of your video (including viewings and ratings), and you can click on the title or the video itself to go to the video's main page.

On the main page for a video you not only get to watch the video, but you also get: 

• Links to similar themed videos
• How others have rated the video
• Comments left about the video  (you can disable ratings and comments for your own videos by editing your video)

Also on the main video page is the "About This Video" section. This is important because it provides you with both the URL to the video page (for you to share with friends) but also the HTML code needed to embed that video onto another webpage (like we do on the Chatter Blog).