TechCrunch’s Erick Schonfeld reports that YouTube has now added a “Share on Twitter” button below its videos. This is in addition to the MySpace and Facebook links which have existed for ages.

YouTube goes the safe route with retweeting by including a link that will prefill the Twitter status update box for you, including a message that says, “Check this video out…” as well as the title of the clip plus the video link.

The links used are the same as the standard YouTube link, though Schonfeld says YouTube is working to make them shorter. Every bit counts when it comes to tweets.

I don’t spend much time on YouTube myself, but when I do happen across a video I want to share, Twitter is my social network of choice. Until today, YouTube hadn’t provided me with an easy way to share the video, so I applaud their efforts in getting this implemented. It’s nothing fancy, but it will probably make a lot of users happy.

Check it out for yourself and start sharing more YouTube videos. Also, have a look at twiddeo and tweetube, two great apps that have integrated YouTube videos with tweets.

[via TechCrunch]

Even though 12 seconds is a ridiculously short time to run out of material, it can happen. If you’ve run out of videos to make or aren’t sure how exactly to dive into the video microblogging world, the crew at 12Seconds has launched a new feature called 12erator to help you come up with video topics.

Once you log in to 12Seconds, you’ll see the video recording box at the top. Directly below that (as shown in the image) is a link to the 12erator. The 12erator suggests a topic for you to base your video on. Some topics I’ve been given were “The Most Annoying Sound In the World”, “How I Feel About Fighting”, and “The Craziest Dream I’ve Had Recently”. Once you find a topic you like, hit the Make It button and you’re off.

The 12erator should really help new users get started on 12Seconds. One of the biggest hurdles is not knowing what to create videos for but 12Seconds helps push out new ideas constantly. In addition to this feature, they’ve also got a “12 Challenge” where they’ll give you a topic and you record a video for that, then see what everyone else said about it too. If you’re new to this kind of microblogging, it’s dead simple to use if you have a webcam and microphone so hop on and give it a shot.

Microblogging is all about sharing media – be it text, images, or videos. We’ve never talked about video microblogging, but there are a couple good platforms for participating in the video world. There’s 12seconds.tv, Viddler 15s, and Seesmic, just to name a few.

12seconds.tv

This is the platform that’s most like a true microblog. It’s laid out just like you’ve grown to love; you have friends who create videos that show up in your timeline. Though I feel 12 seconds is not enough time to convey a message, the interface will make most people feel at home. Another nice thing this service provides is a shortened URL (such as http://tiny12.tv/DHI9I) that comes with each video.

Viddler 15s

With Viddler 15s, you can use your Viddler account to record 15 second clips. Those clips show up with the rest of your videos, which makes it less like a true microblogging platform. Viddler integrates with Twitter to send a message with a link to your video when you’ve finished recording it. An alternate method of uploading a video is to tag it with the ’15seconds’ tag.

On a curious side note, neither of the two videos I’ve recorded have actually been saved anywhere. I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong other than choosing not to send it to Twitter.

Seesmic

Seesmic allows you to follow other people to see their videos or send videos directly to another user. You can also create a video reply to someone else’s video. All videos must be at least 5 seconds long.

I was immediately replied to by a couple people I didn’t know. You can see from the embedded video that replies to my original are pretty easy to view. As the couple guys in the reply said, it’s easy to get into conversations with new people and meet people on Seesmic.

Recommendation

If you want the typical microblogging feel, I’d suggest 12seconds.tv, though each service has their own niches. Seesmic is more of a community of its own, and the other two services feel like they complement your Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, etc accounts.

If you’re into video microblogging and use a service not listed above, leave a comment and let us know why you like it.

EpicFu, a show from the Revision3 network, aired an episode this week that was all about Twitter.

See the video: http://epicfu.com/2008/10/how-to-be-a-twitter-power-user.html

Zadi Diaz (@zadi), the show’s host, walks through six steps towards becoming a power user:

1. Find People to Follow
   • Twitter Local allows you to look up locals in your area via zip code
   • Twubble scans your friends and recommends other users to follow
2. Searching and Tracking
   • Twitter Search is the best tool to use for scouring through old tweets
   • Grab RSS feeds of your search queries and use Feed My Inbox to get a daily digest via email
   • Tweet Scan is another search tool that incorporates its own custom email delivery service
3. Stay on Top of What is Buzzing
   • Twitturly looks for the most popular links on Twitter and displays them on the front page
   • Twit Scoop and Tweet Meme are other sites to track Twitter buzz
4. Desktop Apps
   • Twhirl is best for PCs
   • Twitterific is best for Macs
5. Photos
   • TwitPic will auto-post photos to Twitter when you upload to their site
   • Twittergram allows you to send photos to Twitter based on specific tags in your Flickr account
6. Tweets on Your Cell
   • TwitSay lets you phone in messages to Twitter
   • Hahlo is one of the most popular iPhone apps for Twitter and doesn’t require a download

This video was more timely a few weeks ago when Twitter was going through repeated downtime, but its still worth a good laugh, even now. I spotted the video on the Fallon Planning blog, but the original source appears to be CrunchGear.

This video clip has had many incarnations about different topics, but this one ranks up there with the rest and should have microbloggers chuckling.