Uploading a song for others to hear - Choosing a video hosting site

What's a reliable method for presenting a video recording on Blogger?

I seek a method that is easy to use, fast, and gives predicable results.

Three solutions come readily to mind. I will investigate each and present my recommendation for 'technology challenged' song makers.

1. Using the 'video upload' feature when you create a Blogger posting.
2. Using a link to a video uploaded to Google Video
3. Embedding a video from YouTube

Alternative 1 would appear to offer the simplest approach. But it is not reliable. Alternative 3, using YouTube is slightly less simple, but in my limited experience is reliable.

Here is my more detailed evaluation.

1. Using the 'video upload' feature
This is the simplest option. But there are two disadvantages:

1. The video is held on Google Video in a 'private' capacity. So that means people cannot find your video directly, only indirectly via your blog entry.
2. I have attempted to use this feature several times. But the result was failure. I received this message:
   

   Sorry, there was an error uploading your video. Please contact support and include the following information: Blog Id:8042171324923002958

I followed the 'contact support' link. That took me to a blog site about help with Blogger. I found other people had faced the same problem... which sometimes became resolved in a random way. The Wikipedia entry for 'Google video' also stated the following criticism:

The video uploading tool also receives various complaints, due to its "Uploading failed" error message which seems to appear in random cases without any explanation why the upload was not successful. This message sometimes also appears when the upload was successful which can be problematic as the same video may be uploaded again. Google has not yet addressed this issue.

<sup>Furthermore, from the Wikipedia discussion of Google Video, it appears that the development strategy is to reduce emphasis on video archiving, and focus on Google's core strength of providing an index to videos from other sources, such as YouYube. (Which Google happens to have bought recently for a lot of money)

Conclusion: Abandon Options 1 and 2 as being unreliable, and a strategic dead end. So now I evaluate YouTube.</sup>

3. Embedding a video from YouTube
YouTube is by far the most frequently visited site for video uploads. According to a comparison of video hosting sites, YouTube received 52,000,000 Monthly Unique Visitors (US), compared with the next highest site (9,200,000), and Google Video (4,800,000).

Once you have a video stored on YouTube, it is easy to include that video as part of your Blogger posting. The technical term is 'embedding'.

On the web page showing the video that you want, note the following box, containing the item 'Embed' at the bottom.

Now, Create a new posting in Blogger. Whilst in Compose mode (the default), Copy the text to the left of the 'Embed' from YouTube. Now Paste into your Blogger Compose pane. You should see several lines of HTML gobbledygook.

Save Now your draft. Check all is correct with the Paste by using Preview.


In an earlier posting, I demonstrate embedding a video of Gute Nacht from YouTube, sung by Dietrich Fischer Dieskau.

More later on my evaluation of YouTube use in Blogger.