Video email and video wall posts via Facebook
October 2, 2007
A little-heralded feature of Facebook is the ability to send / receive video emails and wall posts. Very, very easy to create a video email inside Facebook and send it to your friends (or enemies), and watch their video responses as well. And these video emails show up as a thread in each email exchange — making it easy to scroll down a series of video emails or even play several at the same time. You can record video up to an unbelievable FIFTEEN minutes — that’s an eternity!
It goes without saying that you’ll have to have a webcam hooked up already to your computer or laptop.
To send a video email, just follow these steps (and don’t forget to click on “Send”!):
- Within Facebook, click on “Inbox” and then “Compose Message” (or, if already viewing a message, just scroll down to the “Reply” box)
- Click on “Record Video” just below the message / reply box.
- If prompted, give permission for the website to turn on your webcam.
- A “Record video” box will appear. When you’re ready to be recorded, click on the red circle.
- Record your video message! When done, click on the blue square.
- You now have a choice of previewing your video, cancelling, or attaching your video. If you’re satisfied, click on “Attach”
- Now, this is the step many people may overlook! You’re brought back to the message compose window. You’ll have the option of typing something or not, and then CLICK ON “SEND” to send the video email.
- The video email will then be sent! If enough video emails are sent and received to/from the same recipient, then they will be threaded — a very nice feature.
Doing this for wall posts or Fun Wall posts is very similar — just click on “Record Video”, attach it, and then post / send it.
When viewing videos, all you need to do is to click on the blue arrow on the video window, and it will play right there. If you hover your mouse over the playing video, you’ll see buttons to pause it, a bar where you can drag the video timing back or forth, and volume controls.
Have fun! Have lots of fun! Just don’t record anything you don’t want the public and your mom to know (or even see) … !!
October 3, 2007 at 1:31 pm
If you’d like to do this and more for free outside of Facebook try GabMail http://www.freegabmail.com. All messages are threaded, use your preferred email or webmail client to send videomails, instant ‘cloaking’ of any inappropriate videos, a powerful collaborative component and more.
Try it and let me know what you think.
Mark Lipsky, CEO, GabSight
mlipsky at gabsight dot com
December 5, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Why can I only post video on certain walls? Most of my friends’ walls don’t have the ability to attach video…
December 5, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Klaas - that’s interesting, I didn’t notice that certain walls don’t have this ability. Are you mixing up Super Wall, Fun Wall, and the normal Wall? I haven’t yet been able to find a wall where I’m unable to attach video, though. I wonder if there is a setting to turn off the ability to attach video to your own wall; I looked around and couldn’t find any such setting tho. Sorry I’m no help here.
December 5, 2007 at 7:16 pm
i’ll let you know if I find out more about this.
December 5, 2007 at 7:23 pm
ah and I did just now.
I think this might be the solution.
Why can I add Wall attachments using applications I have not installed?
While you still need to add applications to use their full functionality, you will have the option to use Wall attachments from applications that your friend has installed as well. For example, if you do not have Facebook Video added, but your friend does, when you post on his or her Wall you will be able to add a Facebook Video Wall attachment.
I added the Facebook Video application and now I can add videos to anyones wall …
December 6, 2007 at 9:38 pm
That’s interesting, and no wonder! Thanks, Klaas.
January 7, 2008 at 6:18 am
[...] a “secret crush.” Tell me directly via Facebook email. Better yet, send me a Facebook video email. But remember, I’ve got a boyfriend who I’m in love with and who I’ll celebrate [...]
January 14, 2008 at 4:49 pm
i by accident clicked do not ask again on the prompt before facebook could locate my webcam. can i reverse this?
January 14, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Hi Eva - if you had clicked “allow” and also checked “do not ask again,” it should be ok.
May 23, 2008 at 2:53 am
No one seems to be able to help me with this - including Facebook support. When I try to record a video, I get error message “An error occurred. Unable to connect to server. Please try again later, or now.” I have downloaded latest facebook video appln and am using internet explorer. Any clues anyone?
June 2, 2008 at 7:19 am
Liz - perhaps your Flash software needs to be updated, or you might have too many tabs in your internet browser open to Facebook? I notice that the Firefox Internet browser has a lot of problems when too many tabs are open with Facebook on them (like when I have several Facebook profile albums open at the same time).
July 8, 2008 at 9:53 am
I’m having the same problem too, actually. I have the latest version of flash and I only have one tab open on firefox. I reported the problem to the people at facebook but they never got back to me.