Embed What in a Where Now?

just what is embedding and why do we care

By Martin French

When the internet ﬁrst took holdfor the mere mortals in theworld, sometime back in the last90's, the idea of putting otherpeople's content onto your ownwebsite was a big mistake. It wasunethical, it was illegal, it wasstealing! These days though mostwebsites that allow users toupload their own content alsoprovide options to embed thatcontent anywhere the readerchooses.How embedding works is very, very simple. If we, here inTheLab™, upload a video to the video website Vimeo then

Vimeo.com

is where that videolives. You can visit Vimeo andwatch the video on that website just like viewing any other pieceof content on the internet.If you have your own websitethough you can click on the"embed" button on the video,copy the web code it provides,paste that code into your ownblog/website or whatever andthe video that we uploaded willappear on your website.

(illustrated below with the video of Mad Dogs Dance Theatre)

The content hasn't movedanywhere or been copied to yourwebsite though. When the page you have embedded the videointo is loaded by a user the codesimply contacts

Vimeo.com

and loads the video from thereand displays it on your page, justlike it would if you were visiting

Vimeo.com

.So why not just watch the videoon Vimeo or provide a link tothat video you ask?For the most part the reasoning is nothing more thanconvenience. If you are writing about a particular subject, like Iam here, or you personally or thecompany you work with issomehow connected with a pieceof content uploaded by someoneelse to a website that allowsembedding it makes sense topresent that content "in line" on your own website so the userdoesn't have to click to anotherwebsite.

Embedding code intowebsites is not a black are, you just need alittle time and a littlelearning to get it right.It doesn’t have to driveyou crazy.Photo Right: VanessaCook by Article19

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If you are the person or company thatcreated the video content it makes a lotof sense to put that video onto a websitethat will let others, like venues, fans,promoters or dance agencies share thatcontent with their users on their ownwebsite.Putting content into one location so itcan be easily distributed to dozens ormaybe hundred of other sites makes alot of sense for certain kinds of material. Sharing materiel around likethis is the reason the internet wascreated.

More Than Video

It's not just video and sound materialthat can be embedded.

Scribd

andother sites like it allow documents to beuploaded and shared, throughembedding and other means, into andwebsite, anywhere on the internet.Press ofﬁcers and communications folk know only too well that emailing pressreleases and other documents tohundreds of people can be a slow andpainful process. How much easierwould it be if you just emailed them alink to that beautifully presented

PDF

which they could, in turn, embed intotheir own website to provide moreinformation to their users in aconvenient way.Photo sharing website like

Flickr

dofor photos what

Vimeo

do for videoand

Scribd

do for documents. Themedia is different but the principles arethe same.

Getting it Done

The actual process of embedding material from one website into anotheris basically the same although thepresentation varies between sites andthe type of media they use. All you have to do is look for the buttonthat says "embed", click it and you willbe shown the code you need to copyand past into your own website'scontent management system (CMS). What's a

CMS

you ask? If you arerunning a website and you do not havethe capability to update it yourself thenit's time to get with the 21st century andget a new website. A

CMS

is the system you use to add or change informationon your website.If you use

Moveabletype

Wordpress

, Expression Engine or oneof few dozen others out there yousimple copy the code from the websitewith the embed-able content and pasteit into your own system.Blogging services like

Tumblr

makesharing content very simple with built inoptions to post video and images, and alot more besides, from other websites. We've illustrated that process belowusing

Vimeo

and

Movabletype

asexamples. Whatever system you areusing the process will be almost exactlythe same.Some websites allow their users torestrict the ways in which their contentcan be embedded. If this is the casethen you will have to ask the owner of the material to allow embedding orsimply link to that content from yourown website.

Common Problems

By far the most common issue withembedding other peoples content into your own website is that content notﬁtting properly with your sites design.Most websites use columns to displaytheir content (we have a two columnlayout as you can see) and each of thosecolumns has a set width. This column is560 pixels wide so if we try and put animage or video or whatever that is widerthan 560 pixels wide it will be cut off atthe edge.Placing an object into this column thatis less than 560 pixels wide will,depending on how we do it, make thepage look a little weird and out of balance.Most websites do allow theirembedding to be customised so thecontent can be tailored to ﬁt into yourwebsite. Both

Scribd

and Vimeo allow you to alter how wide the element isbefore you copy the embed code. Check with the site you are suing to see if theyhave similar features.How tall an object is is usually not anissue because taller content will simplypush other material down the the pageand not cause any problems. If doescause a problem then simply adjust theheight of the embedded object until itﬁts properly.

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