Add YouTube and Polls to Comments
Some of you may have noticed we’ve been experimenting with a new feature in comments here on WordPress.com, namely that you can now embed YouTube videos and PollDaddy polls directly in a comment.
Although shortcodes are great and we’ll continue to support and encourage them for comments the simplest possible interface seemed to be just a URL.
The URL is all you’ll need to include a YouTube video or PollDaddy poll. To try it out copy and paste the permalink for a video or a poll on PollDaddy Answers and put it on its own line in a comment, like enter enter http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1598108/ enter enter. You’ll now have a poll embedded in the comment just like this:
http://answers.polldaddy.com/poll/1598108/
(By the way, I have a Kindle 2 and it’s the bestest thing since sliced beer.)
Of course if someone leaves a video or poll you don’t like it’s just like them leaving something else you don’t like, you can always delete it or edit it to remove the offending link.
As you and your audience start to play with this it should spice up comments a bit, and based on your feedback we may expand this to encompass other shortcodes and embeds in the future.
For some further information, feel free to check out the feature’s official support document.
Keep commentin’. 
May 7th at 7:42 am
How about including images, too?
May 7th at 7:09 pm
Images are a little trickier because they can be any size.
May 7th at 7:50 am
awesome
May 7th at 7:50 am
I have comment moderation set to allow only those commenters who’ve previously been OK’d. All others get moderated.
While I trust those who’ve already been OK’d, I think that if you’re going to allow polls and videos in comments, you should add an additional moderation feature:
A choice of whether to:
- allow polls and videos in comments
- allow polls videos in comments only after moderation
May 7th at 7:10 pm
Just add “youtube.com” and/or “polldaddy.com” to your moderation keys and it’ll hold comments that have those in.
You can also change the “hold comments that have more than X links” setting to be something low like 0 or 1, so any comment with a link gets held.
May 7th at 7:52 am
Awesome feature, thanks Matt!
May 7th at 7:52 am
Grr8!
I had a YouTube video (song on nose) in response to my ode to female nose posted on my blog.
Welcome features!
May 7th at 7:57 am
“To try it out copy and paste the permalink for a video or a poll on PollDaddy Answers and put it on its own line in a comment”
PollDaddy Answers??? Where would I find that?
May 7th at 7:10 pm
Visit http://answers.polldaddy.com/ !
May 7th at 8:01 am
WordPress is the champion!
May 7th at 8:03 am
Yeah. Don’t know exactly how to use it, but still funny to have more and more options every day
May 7th at 8:03 am
Nice plugin. Thks!
May 7th at 8:07 am
I just got a kindle 2 for my birthday and it is the best invention since sliced bread. I dedicated a post to it and I call it George ha ha. I will have to try the comments thing.
May 7th at 8:09 am
Cool feature – hope to try it out soon.
May 7th at 8:10 am
Cool. But it will definitely bump the comment page..
May 7th at 8:10 am
A poll in comments?! That’s a bit of a stange idea..
How about images, are they planned?
May 7th at 8:11 am
Also, is there a way to disable the Youtube comments apart from manually editing the posts and breaking the links? They slow things down a lot.
May 7th at 7:10 pm
Nope just edit it.
May 7th at 8:22 am
Thanks, just what I need.
May 7th at 8:32 am
THATS GREAT ! THANK YOU !
May 7th at 8:41 am
I think it’s a great. Dunno what about polls, but youtube is great
Add Vimeo too
May 7th at 8:42 am
Further flexibility in WordPress – keep it up guys and gals – awesome services!
May 7th at 8:47 am
hey there! tnx for the info! here in Greece we just heard about kindle and i was wondering how does this thing work…i mean where do u get ur books, how much do they cost etc! thanx a lot!
May 7th at 8:49 am
Can I generally disable these features in my blogs?
May 7th at 7:11 pm
Nope that’s the danger of WordPress — that there’s new features flying at you CONSTANTLY and you have to watch out.
May 7th at 8:52 am
Well, this is exciting! Now we can annoy our blog buddies with more then just our text comments. I can’t wait to try this out!
Really, I like this very much and hope you’ll be expanding it to include other types of content…
The scientifically impossible I do right away
The spiritually miraculous takes a bit longer
May 7th at 8:52 am
Matt
as another evolution to the Polls
(happy to see the smaller footprint btw)
would it be possible to have a simple 5 star rating system that one sees in use elsewhere
the simple type that you click on the star and it updates the average rating
and displays it by coloring the stars? (ie 3.5 stars etc)
cheers
Miro
May 7th at 7:14 pm
Not now but maybe in the future.
May 7th at 8:54 am
Brilliant!! \O/
May 7th at 8:56 am
Cool. An on / off switch would be great, but it’s a cool feature.
May 7th at 8:58 am
Yes, I have been waiting for this. Great job.
May 7th at 9:05 am
Awesome! Another great feature for us. You guys just keep coming up with more and more for your users! I appreciate it!
May 7th at 9:07 am
Wahoo! Great Idea!!
May 7th at 9:10 am
I’m makeing some test in a pvt post… but I’m not realy sure it could be a good idea… I’m just wondering why someone have to comment with a poll or a video. Ok I post a video and he want to reply with anotherone? Just write down the link… And a poll? Maybe these are just my thoughts..
May 7th at 9:13 am
mmmmmmmm so the readers can add Polls and youtube streams!!
awesome ..
Hey Matt Keep the Good job up.. you are the man dude..
all right here is a shot for just testing the thingy:
May 7th at 9:25 am
Thats a nice feature but I think there should be an option for blog owner to disable this. Sometimes, he/she would not want comments with videos and polls. Is there such an option on dashboard?
May 7th at 7:25 pm
You have complete control over your comments, just change your moderation controls as I described above.
May 7th at 9:31 am
Terrific!! Thanks. Somebody had already experimented with this in my comment section and since I didnt know of the new feature, was quite flummoxed as to how he’d managed to do it on my blog when I couldnt? Now I am the wiser and grinning merrily. Which means we can also include it in our posts right? Sorry to sound like a dinosaur but previous to this a youtube refused to embed in a post citing non inclusion of flash or some such.
May 7th at 7:25 pm
Yep it works in posts, too.
May 7th at 10:05 am
this is great! thanks!
May 7th at 10:10 am
Nice!.. makes comments more fun!
May 7th at 11:00 am
very bad idea! dealing with verbal abuse was already enough. A link should be just a link; dot, period.
May 7th at 7:26 pm
Are people that mean on the internet?
May 7th at 11:09 am
Great feature! Love it!
May 7th at 11:13 am
This looks really cool
May 7th at 11:21 am
Its great innovation!
May 7th at 11:25 am
Oh damn – I don’t have a kindle but the videos I’ll definitely try. E.g. here with some classical music – from me and for those who like it …
May 7th at 11:28 am
i don’t like it very much.
this may make my post goes slow when people access it (if my post has commented & embedded video on it)
May 7th at 7:26 pm
Then don’t approve comments with videos, or remove them.
May 7th at 11:42 am
Perfect !
May 7th at 11:46 am
nice one
May 7th at 11:46 am
WOW! Thanks, i think it’s great!
May 7th at 12:03 pm
Keep innovating, Matt. And are you going to get a Kindle DX or wait for the Plastic Logic, next year?
May 7th at 7:27 pm
I already pre-ordered a DX.
May 7th at 12:08 pm
Love the new additions ~
May 7th at 12:31 pm
Interesting feature.
As for the Kindle 2, I’d rather have a Sony eBook – especially that upcoming touchscreen one. Sliced beer?
May 7th at 1:14 pm
awesome !
May 7th at 1:16 pm
That is indeed quite shiny. I’m assuming that an actual hyperlink inline isn’t going to suddenly start becoming randomly embedded videos/polls, though, because that could be rather strange and awkward.
May 7th at 1:29 pm
Thanks so much, Matt! My readers have been thoroughly enjoying the YouTube embed feature in the comments section very much. And I am sure the poll will be lots of fun as well!
Cheers and appreciation for all your hard work!
Rosanne (MasterclassLady)
May 7th at 1:31 pm
Hey! Thanks! Great thing, it is.
May 7th at 1:39 pm
Nice one! – but Matt if you would kindly buy SEESMIC and Posterous (or same features) and integrate them into WordPress we would have blogging heaven upon heaven!
May 7th at 1:44 pm
Wow…great feature! Now won’t have to use links for a YouTube video, I can just put in a comment. Thanks WordPress Team.
May 7th at 1:51 pm
Pertamax!!!
I’ll try to embed youtube video…
hope it will not make my page hard to access
May 7th at 2:06 pm
Great idea!
May 7th at 2:17 pm
AWESOME. Now if you could just get an upgrade for adsense my life would be complete.
May 7th at 2:23 pm
That is a great thing to do Matt, thanks.
May 7th at 2:47 pm
hmmm….love to see a pic of sliced beer
May 7th at 7:29 pm
Would it make you hoppy like a rabbit?
May 7th at 3:10 pm
Wow…. that’s cool to have youtube video in comments
will try it out….
May 7th at 3:33 pm
do i have to register an account at polldaddy?
May 9th at 12:27 am
You should because they’re awesome.
May 7th at 3:58 pm
thank u matt
May 7th at 4:18 pm
i think this feature is not really needed
May 7th at 7:29 pm
Then don’t use it!
May 7th at 4:26 pm
hey this is a great feature. hope to use it more often while commenting!! great job guys!!
May 7th at 4:45 pm
This is even better than comment threads!!
WORDPRESS ROCKS!
May 7th at 4:50 pm
Very interesting this WP’s new function. Thanks a lot!!
May 7th at 4:59 pm
This is great. Actually somebody was telling me recently they wanted to see this on wordpress!
May 7th at 5:01 pm
WordPress just keeps getting better!
May 7th at 5:14 pm
any chance at getting the whole youtube channel thing?
May 7th at 7:30 pm
I don’t even know what that means.
May 7th at 5:17 pm
I feel that it would be nice if we can insert images/graphics into comments. Just like making a comment in Flickr, or in Fotopages community forum.
But good job anyway for allowing to embed YouTube and PollDaddy Poll.
May 7th at 5:19 pm
Not to mention that a post page may suddenly get too heavy, not because its author decided so; and not all of us around the world enjoy a big bandwidth…
May 7th at 7:31 pm
Don’t worry, it’ll get faster every year. Also both Youtube videos and Polldaddies (unlike images) are self-contained and can be fast.
May 7th at 5:23 pm
its a good idea
May 7th at 5:39 pm
Cool. Love this.
May 7th at 5:42 pm
I think this is a wordeful idea. Thanks a lot for your work.
May 7th at 5:52 pm
Awesome feature.
May 7th at 5:55 pm
Nice!!!
May 7th at 6:03 pm
I love the idea of having a poll on my blog for the baudience (blog audience). I almost put one on my blog last week because I was in a perfect situation for it, but at the time I didn’t want to take the time to set it up (I was in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on vacation, and no I don’t have the swine flu, that whole thing was so overblown). But thought I’d just leave you some feedback letting you know I am all for this – and youtube.
May 7th at 6:36 pm
sa-weet
May 7th at 6:36 pm
It will be nice if you add UNDO function when writing a post.
May 7th at 7:32 pm
Check out post revisions, there is totally an undo.
May 7th at 7:03 pm
cool i never knew that!
May 7th at 7:22 pm
Well, the feature is terrific-the image-well to each his own.
May 7th at 7:33 pm
Nice, keep it goin’ on
)
May 7th at 7:36 pm
Hmm, interesting. <–Spock impersonation.
Can’t say I’m thrilled with this one, but thank you for great comment moderation features!
May 7th at 7:37 pm
I think that a post belongs to its author. Comments should only add textual content; If one wants to show video clips, polls, images, audio clips, he may just go and run his own blog.
out-of-topic:Has something changed with links preview, and snaps.com? Does WP has its own service now? and how do you re-enable it? Accidentally I switched it off and it looks like no setting is there to bring it back.
May 7th at 7:51 pm
Thanks for your comment. Keep in mind that videos can also be a response to the post. Maybe someone has uploaded themselves speaking their comment rather than writing it! Or has a related video to share with you. We think you might just find that it adds to the richness of your blog if you try it out
Also, remember you can always moderate and edit comments under the Comments section of your dashboard.
We’re testing out in-house site previews for logged-in users. You can still enable it under Appearance > Extras in your dashboard!
May 7th at 7:50 pm
I’m just confused why there can’t be an opt out, like there is with snap preview or possibly related posts.
May 8th at 9:20 pm
Because if we did that for EVERY SINGLE feature WordPress would just be a collection of hundreds of checkboxes.
May 7th at 9:22 pm
Very nice! But what about glitter graphics?
May 7th at 9:50 pm
That’s cool. PollDaddy is brilliant too by the way.
May 7th at 10:01 pm
Great feature!
Thanks …
May 7th at 11:11 pm
That’s awesome.
May 7th at 11:32 pm
I discovered the new feature before reading here because someone post a video in a comment in my blog.
By the way, images, peoples, images.
A thumbnail whose (static) size would be customizable by the blog owner, and clicking on it would open in a new window at complete size.
May 8th at 2:39 am
this is fantastic, even I can make this happen. thank you very much!
May 8th at 2:50 am
THIS IS AWESOME! I was actually thinking about posting pics…. but this? It was really unimaginable. THANKS!
PS Whenever I leavea comment my URL doesn’t register, I mean my name doesn’t come out with mylink in it, how can I make my URL appear?
May 9th at 12:26 am
Add your URL to your profile.
May 8th at 2:53 am
Thanks, Matt!
May 8th at 3:31 am
Off-Topic:
Sometimes I get the “it’s probably Matt’s fault” messages and I have always wondered who it was! Good to know! And., Thanks for WordPress!!
So you’re Matt!
Satya
May 8th at 3:32 am
what’s so great about the kindle 2? aren’t actual books better?
May 8th at 3:42 am
I am excited)))
May 8th at 4:18 am
superb stuff.. Thanks a lot.. I will certainly use it for my client also.
Thanks
May 8th at 4:44 am
Youtube (and to a lesser extent polls) in comments is awesome!
I actually had a video comment in one of my posts sometime ago, and when I first saw it, I was so surprised and excited.
Thanks a lot.
May 8th at 5:08 am
great!
no week goes by without a new feature!!!
May 8th at 5:29 am
Nice new “toy” to play with, thanks!
Totally off-topic, but I don’t know a better place (or a person more creative) to ask for: I’d looove to have a “followers” widget (made by google) to my side bar. We who have this wp.com blog cannot add it, however it’s possible to embed to wordpress blogs in .org.