In online video, highlights often are the best “hook” to get people interested enough to watch more. Inserting highlights into the start of an online video, however, requires more video-editing skills than many people, including journalists, possess.
uShow, a free service that allows you to specify jump frames for online videos, is a shortcut to direct people to video highlights. Here’s an example of how it works.
On July 17, the Contra Costa Times’ George Kelly posted a YouTube video story of his adventure earlier in the week with blogger Jonathan Bruha. They used Nokia’s mobile SportsTracker service to follow their walking journey, tracing the numeral 2 across a swath of San Francisco. (Kelly and Bruha are spending a couple of weeks putting Nokia’s high-end N97 phone through its paces as part of the two-week N97 24/7 USA tour.)
Kelly’s video was artful, impressionistic and nearly eight minutes long. I liked it, but wanted to just share some highlights as opposed to the whole video. To do this, I used uShow to specify two jump frames: Kelly engaging in a playful moment of shadow play, and Bruha explaining and showing off the completed “geo-graffiti” at the end of the walk. I’ve configured my uShow account to cross-post links to my jump frames to my Twitter account for easy sharing.
So far uShow allows you to specify jump frames for YouTube videos, as well as videos you upload from your computer or mobile device. In addition to specifying jump frames, you can comment on them and tag jump frames to associate them with your Facebook or Twitter friends. You cannot yet embed the jump-framed version of the video, however.
This kind of tool can be useful if you’re linking to a video from a story, blog post or social media post. It’s also a way to get right to the relevant quote or fun moment of a video while providing soundbites in context.
