CNN knows perfect timing: introduces embeddable videos

Way to go CNN. On the very day that social media rockstar Barack Obama announces who his running mate will be, the news channel introduces embeddable video. The political season at the other side of the ocean is really heating up now and CNN is there to supply us with some video coverage. I think it’s pretty safe to say that they have the ambition to turn their video content into a viral phenomenon.

Army of promoters

By introducing the embed button, CNN has basically hired an army of promoters. Every time a blogger decides to accompany a post with a CNN video, he basically puts the word out for the American news company. So I don’t see any reasons, apart from the traditional backward ones – to NOT offer embeddable videos.

So here’s how the 406px by 393px video player looks:

CNN wants you to download Firefox 3

CNN punished me for still using the 2.0 Firefox edition (Yeah I know, sorry), as I wasn’t able to get the embed code in that browser. Luckily I also have Safari 3 running, which is a CNN Video-compatible browser. Linux users won’t be able to share in the CNN joy, as the flash player sadly doesn’t support that OS.

Apart from that glitch, I’d like to congratulate CNN with yet another step into the future of web publishing.