Being quite new to blogging I’ve just this evening decided to have a go at posting my first YouTube clip to my blog. As you can see in I was successful. However I had multiple failed attempts at using the links on YouTube to post the clip. When I went hunting for an answer I found quite a few more people who were not getting it to work. The great and informative error message sent to me at YouTube goes something along the lines of

This occured for the following reason:

An error has occurred. Message: Unknown

Fantastic. However after a quick search on Google I found the WordPress instructions on how to post YouTube clips. I also, however, came accross a nifty plugin that makes it super easy to post not only YouTube clips but also clips from other sources such as Google Video and Metacafe. This plugin also allows you to control the size of the clips.

After you download the plugin and extract it to your plugins folder (wp-content/plugins/), you can add the videos to your posts by copying the clip ID and placing it between simple tags for each video type. Dependant on the clip’s source you will need to place either “youtube”, “google” or “metacafe” tags.

For example: [tag name]clip ID[/tag name]

To modify the size of your clips you will need to go to Options -> My Video in your admin.

It’s a simple yet effective plugin and I recommend it to anyone wanting to easily post clips from different sources on their blog. Check out Youtube & Google & Metacafe WordPress Plugin for more information.