YouTube live stream embed autoplay

Embedding a YouTube Video on Your Website with AutoPlay [Yes You Can, Perhaps You Shouldnt]

Written by Scott Whitney

Because of its watermarked logo, Im not a huge fan of embedding YouTube videos on a website. However, from a social media perspective [including the fact that iPad/iPods can view the video], I understand why some folks [including our own Living in Las Vegas Podcast] do so.

Besides the watermark, one of the other complaints about embedding a YouTube video is that when grabbing the embed code from the YouTube site, you cant have the video start automaticallywhen the visitor hits the page. Now, to be sure, there are arguments for and against doing so. To really understand the value of autoplaying a video, you should do some A/B testing to see which technique helps best improve the results of your call-to-action.

The good news is that you can autoplay a YouTube video. And its very easy to do. Simply add autoplay=1 to the embed code. Thats it! Easy, peasy, 1-2-Threesy.

Thats the good news. The bad news, as is demonstrated by the embedded YouTube video below, is that I cannot set the volume programmatically. For me, I consider this a show stopper. There is something to be said for autostarting a video, with the sound off, to create curiosity. But, if Im blasting audio to a visitor who did not ask for it, thats a problem.

Besides autoplay, there are many other parameters available for embedding a YouTube video. For a list of all the parameters, go here.

[Speaking about iPad/iPod video delivery, my next blog post will likely be about that very subject. Specifically, what to use to deliver website video to the iPxx family of products without having to use YouTube.]

Posted on Wednesday, May 12, 2010 · 4 Comments