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Getting Youtube Videos to Show in Google Reader

01/10/10

Getting Youtube Videos to Show in Google Reader

01:23:02 am, Categories: web

I was always curious why I didn't see any referrals to my Lemon Battery video from Google Reader so I subscribed to my own RSS feed using Google Reader to see what was up. I always though that b2evolution, the blogging platform I use had the proper incantation in it's RSS feed because nixiepixel.com, a blog I subscribe to had embedded videos show up in it's RSS feed. Nixiepixel has since switched her blog to Wordpress so I found another b2evolution blog to check what was different with their feed which also included Youtube videos. That feed along with a posting on the Google reader blog led me to the solution. Google Reader requires the HTML embed tag to be used if you want videos to be displayed in an RSS feed. Once I knew the solution I made a small modification to _videoplug.plugin.php in the plugins directory of b2evolution where I changed:

PHP:

$content = preg_replace( '#\<div class="videoblock"><object data="http://www.youtube.com/v/(.+?)" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/(.+?)"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/(.+?)" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></div>#', '<div class="videoblock"><object data="http://www.youtube.com/v/\\1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/\\1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param></object></div>', $content );

PHP:

$content = preg_replace( '#\<div class="videoblock"><object data="http://www.youtube.com/v/(.+?)" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/(.+?)"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/(.+?)" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></div>#', '<div class="videoblock"><object data="http://www.youtube.com/v/\\1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/\\1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/\\1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="350"></embed></object></div>', $content );

I expect some of the purists will say that the embed tag is a relic and shouldn't be used but if you want your videos to show up in Google Reader that's what you have to do. Though this example is specific to b2evolution other blogging platforms may have similar issues. Sorry to all my Google Reader fans for taking so long to figure it out. Now all I have to do is get Google Reader to add support for Howcast.com videos.

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