Video Clipping Tool Lets Viewers Share Their Favorite Parts

If you're a video publisher, you want viewers to share your clips with their friends. It's the best and the cheapest way to get hits, and if there's enough pass-along, your work will go viral. A new service by 3Play Media makes sharing easier by letting viewers share only the sections they're interested in.

It's called social video clipping, and it works off 3Play's Interactive Transcript plug-in. The plug-in creates accurate transcripts that are time-synchronized with the content. Not only do viewers see a transcript of the material alongside the video, but the words spoken are highlighted so it's easy to follow along.

Thanks to new features in the plug-in, viewers can highlight the text for the section they want to share, then click a Share button in the lower left corner of the window. A small pop-up window gives them a button to create a link or to post the video to their Twitter, Facebook, or other accounts.

The resulting video plays only the section that the viewer chose. It's especially handy for longer works, where viewers might not want to pass along the whole video.

The plug-in is compatible with Brightcove, YouTube, Kaltura, JW Player, FlowPlayer, Vimeo, and Ooyala.

"We expect video clipping to be a huge asset for online video publishers. Instead of having to wade through an entire clip, users can now share a specific section of a video, which makes the experience more concentrated and easier to share," says CJ Johnson, director of product and technology at 3Play Media.

For more information, visit 3Play Media's site.

Troy Dreier's article first appeared on OnlineVideo.net

•