MetaChat - Under-the-radar video upload?

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09 July 2009

Under-the-radar video upload? Here's the deal. I've spent several hours out of my day trying to upload a video to Facebook.→[More:] My efforts have gone unrewarded. I've tried doing this in Firefox, in Explorer AND Opera, with no luck at all. So what I'd like to do is just upload the video to a YouTube-like site and link to it from Facebook.

For privacy reasons (the video was shot inside my apartment), I'd prefer a site that will allow me to do this under-the-radar. That is, my video won't show up in Google searches or site searches. The only people who will see it are the people who follow the link on Facebook and any of their friends they forward it to. I understand that uploading this to a public site carries no guarantee of privacy. But I'd like to minimize the risk where possible. The ideal would be for the video to be hiding in plain sight, if that makes any sense.

So what would you all recommend?

post by: jason's_planet at: 15:26 | 10 comments

youtube will let you do a video that is private - i.e. only viewabl to folk you invite. would that work

posted by By the Grace of God 09 July | 15:28

No, that's not quite what I'm looking for. I don't want people to follow a link and then have to sign in. That's too complicated.

I do want people to see this. I'd just prefer to be able to upload this in a way that minimizes its exposure to search engines and bored kids surfing the web.

What about photobucket? Has anyone uploaded any videos to photobucket?

posted by jason's_planet 09 July | 15:35

Why not use a throwaway email to create a one-off youtube account?

posted by Meatbomb 09 July | 15:39

OK.

Let's say that I've done a one-off youtube account. How can I minimize my exposure to search engines and YouTube site searches?

Don't title the video? Don't include any tags?

posted by jason's_planet 09 July | 15:43

Unless you put it under lock and key, it'll be indexed in search engines. But if it's not tagged with anything that people could use to link it back to you, no one will find it if they search for you.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 09 July | 15:49

Would vimeo's password-protected feature work for you? I believe the outside world only sees this.

posted by dhartung 09 July | 17:04

Unless you put it under lock and key, it'll be indexed in search engines.

Yeah, that is my main concern.

Vimeo with password protection looks like the best route for now. There's a mild degree of inconvenience in that people will have to copy and paste a password. But we're talking two steps instead of one. People who are genuinely interested in seeing what I put online won't be offended.

Thanks, dhartung! And thanks to everyone else who helped!

posted by jason's_planet 09 July | 17:28

do you have web space with your internet account? You could load it there and no-robots the page.

posted by kellydamnit 09 July | 17:34

You could load it there and no-robots the page.

Thanks, kelly. But you're talking about stuff I don't really have the technical chops to do.

The ideal would be for people just to click on one link. In this case, they're clicking on a link and adding a copy-and-pasted password. It's a good enough compromise for me. But thanks for the suggestion.

posted by jason's_planet 09 July | 22:58

Glad to be of service!

The occasional time I get to tip MeCha karma back my way.

posted by dhartung 09 July | 23:02

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