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Backstage at the Blog: Y is for YouTube

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Y © A Scenic RouteI’m a bit compulsive about my playlists, and I love to share them. But for a while I was stumped about how to do that without forcing my followers to listen to only ninety seconds snippets of my favorite songs (iTunes) or to log in to a new application that tracks their Facebook profile (Spotify.)

Enter YouTube. By simply clicking on a link, followers can listen to my playlist, even put it on shuffle, without any fuss at all.

There’s a bit of set up required on my end though. First I need to make my playlist by gathering up all the videos from the YouTube archives. This is fun, but time-consuming, because of course I need to watch every single one of them first!Screen shot 2014-04-26 at 8.46.44 AM

Then I arrange them in the appropriate order, and write a short paragraph about how the songs came together as well as select an image from the video collection to represent the playlist.Screen shot 2014-04-26 at 9.04.02 AM

Last, I set up the sharing preference, create the link and put together the post. Viola! Rock and roll, at the touch of a button.Screen shot 2014-04-26 at 9.11.35 AM

Wanna listen to the result? Just click the link: Swan Song

Do you make playlists for your stories? What’s your favorite way to share them?

(Here’s your link back to the A to Z Challenge Sign Up list.)

A-Z Challenge Playlist The Letter 'Y' YouTube
April 29, 2014 Kirsten

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Backstage at the Blog: Z is for Zero → ← Backstage at the Blog: X is for .xml

20 thoughts on “Backstage at the Blog: Y is for YouTube”

  1. Alex J. Cavanaugh (@AlexJCavanaugh) says:
    April 29, 2014 at 7:14 am

    Music does inspire my writing, but I’ve never made an actual playlist,

    1. Kirsten says:
      April 29, 2014 at 7:56 pm

      For me, playlists are one of the more sublime pleasures of story creation. You should give playlists a try sometime! 🙂

  2. Sammy D. says:
    April 29, 2014 at 8:15 am

    Such ambition!! You are amazing. And that Y is Ynormous !!! I’m sending another blogger here who is trying to do the youTube playlist. Thanks, as always for superb lesson, my little geeky gal pal 🙂

    1. Kirsten says:
      April 29, 2014 at 7:57 pm

      You’re making me blush! I’m glad you like the lesson and the letter. 🙂

      1. Sammy D. says:
        April 29, 2014 at 9:36 pm

        🙂

  3. Shell Flower says:
    April 29, 2014 at 9:15 am

    Cool! I listen to a lot of playlists on You Tube, but have never made one. One more day of the challenge. Great job!

    1. Kirsten says:
      April 29, 2014 at 7:58 pm

      Thanks, Shell 🙂
      I can’t believe I made it all the way to Z! What a ride. 🙂

  4. Loni Townsend says:
    April 29, 2014 at 10:23 am

    Playlists! Yes! I’ve struggled with playlists so many times. I’ve tried Spotify, 8-tracks, YouTube, and Grooveshark. I used to have a Playlist.com account, before they switch styles and turned into “radio” instead. The only issue I’ve run into with YouTube, is the choice between using an official video which sometimes has dead air because of action, or one that a different user uploaded (thus you’d be supporting the uploader, not the artist, and there’s a greater potential that the song will get taken down due to copyright).

    Sheesh, now I’m playing with music instead of doing my work…

    1. Kirsten says:
      April 29, 2014 at 8:03 pm

      I struggled with the copyright issue, but in the end decided to let YouTube deal with it and pick the videos I enjoy the most. I do lose songs from my playlists once in a while, but it’s not a big deal to me to put a new one in its place.
      I like Spotify a lot (because it’s free 🙂 ) but for the blog, I’d hate to cut out people who don’t have a Spotify account.

      I probably spend way too much time on my playlists! But my Muse insists on them, and the payoff is usually worth it. 🙂

  5. Michelle Wallace says:
    April 29, 2014 at 1:43 pm

    I’m not really a Youtube person.
    But I read another Youtube Y-post, on which a commenter said that she uses it for writing research–for example, she needed to see what lightning looked like in slow motion for a scene…
    Mmm… got me thinking…

    1. Kirsten says:
      April 29, 2014 at 8:04 pm

      YouTube is great for research!
      A while back I was curious about whether people could surf at night, and found the coolest video of some guys doing just that. 🙂

  6. susan says:
    April 29, 2014 at 3:52 pm

    I use you tube in blogs but I do have a quibble. WP only accepts you tube for vids. so when we went to see our fav singer in Toronto and I took vids with camera, came home and could not get them into wp. Spouse had to upload them on his you tube account so I could get them for the blog.

    1. Kirsten says:
      April 29, 2014 at 8:06 pm

      Well, that’s good to know. What a pain in the neck though, and of course it means that you have to get a YouTube account to upload anything to WordPress!
      Seems a bit convoluted to me.

  7. nancyrae4 says:
    April 29, 2014 at 7:26 pm

    Playlists are wonderful, but I leave their creation to the experts! Like you:)

    1. Kirsten says:
      April 29, 2014 at 8:07 pm

      I’ll bet your Muse could make a mean playlist if you gave him a chance! 😉

  8. Damyanti says:
    April 29, 2014 at 9:50 pm

    I’m not a Youtube fan, and don’t use music in my writing, but I’ve seen folks make playslists, just the same as you 🙂

    1. Kirsten says:
      May 1, 2014 at 5:55 pm

      Hi Damyanti 🙂
      Writers seem to be quite divided that way. Some are like me and can’t write without music, and other demand utter silence.
      Thanks for swinging by A Scenic Route!

  9. Silvia Writes says:
    April 30, 2014 at 12:07 am

    I do have a playlist on my ipod, and go to YouTube sometimes, but not too often for lack of time. Also, I’m still amazed by the fast popularity of YouTube sensations. New world and fun, sometimes. 🙂
    Silvia @
    SilviaWrites

    1. Kirsten says:
      May 1, 2014 at 5:57 pm

      Hi Silvia,
      Oh boy, playlists can kill oodles of time! So I have to really limit myself on YouTube, but it sure is fun. 🙂
      Welcome to A Scenic Route!

  10. Pingback: Lambo » So people like my music selection.

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