Your YouTube Video: Turn it into a video game!

I was watching a John Green Truth or Fail video yesterday, for the first time, and was amazed when I found I could interact with the video! "What strange new world is this," I thought. (Really! I sometimes think in Shakespeare quotes, it's strange, I know.)

If you have no idea what I'm rambling on about, play this video:



The wizardry behind this technological innovation are YouTube Annotations. What is a YouTube annotation, you ask. Good question! Let's let the talented folks over at YouTube explain it:

Video Annotations is a new way for you to add interactive commentary to your videos! Use it to:

- Add background information about the video
- Create stories with multiple possibilities (viewers click to choose the next scene)
- Link to related YouTube videos, channels, or search results from within a video
- All of the above!

You control what the annotations say, where they appear on the video, and when they appear and disappear.
- Read More

You might be thinking: Okay, that's fine, but how do I DO all this cool stuff? How do I transform my crusty, boring, video into an interactive masterpiece? I'm glad you asked! If you click here, the Folks at YouTube will show you how to create or edit your annotations. And, I ask, what could be more fun than that? Can't you see yourself Saturday night, alone, at home, furiously editing annotation after annotation? Oh, wait, that's me. :p

Hope you have fun with your annotations!

Related Articles:
- Why YouTube Annotations Can Make the Difference Between Viral and Lame
- Penny C. Sansevieri: Six Simple Ways to Promote Your YouTube Channel!

My State of the Union

I haven't blogged for a couple of days, I'm sorry about that. Making at least one blog post a day is a priority for me and I wanted to let everyone know what's up.

My Dad is ill. I've shared this was some of you, usually I've just said I have a family emergency. After a decades long fight with kidney disease, my father's kidneys are failing. A week or so ago a nurse told me Dad's kidneys were very close to ... well, she just said that he would probably need to be rushed to the hospital sometime in the next two weeks. Hopefully, with the aid of a kidney machine, my Dad still has time left.

Obviously this is an emotional time for me, but it is also a busy one. My mother passed away in January and I have no siblings. My father is nearly blind -- I suspect he is legally blind -- and is hard of hearing, so he needs an attendant for his appointments. I do this gladly, but between taking care of my father and working, I have less time to write.


SO! Wow, I feel bad about dumping all that on you. Are you ready to hear my solution to my time problems? Here it is: Video blogging.

I'm a slow writer. I make slugs look like cheetahs by comparison. That was one reason I took up blogging; I figured I couldn't spend an eternity on a blog post and blog every day -- or even every week! And yet, I've managed to. Perhaps video blogging, as long as I don't read from a script, will help me to stop obsessing over every little thing. (A little voice is chuckling and saying, 'When pigs fly'. Whatev. ;)

My plan is to keep up with my links on Twitter, to keep posting about articles on my blog, and to begin posting perhaps a video a week. My videos will likely be sporadic and less than perfect, and I will deeply appreciate your patience as they improve.

I've felt guilty about not writing more personal posts, post like this one. Hopefully, video blogging will help with that. Also, I've discovered the Daily Post over at Wordpress. It's a blog that, each day, gives blogging suggestions for that day. I look forward to writing a couple of posts inspired by the topics of the day. And of course there's NaNoWriMo, I'm doing that this year; first time!

Reading over this post it looks as though I've explained why I don't have as much time as I used to and then decided to keep up with what I'm doing as well as add a whole bunch! lol Well, we'll see how that goes. Whatever happens, thanks for being understanding. :)

Cheers.