The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church) has released a new version of its Web site mormon.org. This fresh new version of the site includes a new video channel with a library of Church videos that can be watched online, embedded into blogs, or shared through e-mail or social networks.
A cutting-edge feature of the “share” and “embed” functionality is the option for the viewer to crop a video clip to a specific section and then share or embed just that piece. (Just drag the beginning and ending arrows to mark the section you want.) This is a great way to do missionary work online.
It seems like every redesign features a bigger and bigger head shot of someone.
In a few more iterations, it’ll just be a huge iris (à-la the Eye of Sauron) staring at the viewer. Work out your salvation with “fear and trembling” indeed! 😉
Seriously, though, this is cool––particularly the ability to share/embed just the bit of a video you want. Very savvy.
I can’t figure out how to crop the videos? I used Chrome and IE8…no dice. Great redesign.
Andrew,
The cropping doesn’t work on all the videos (for example, Answers To life’s great questions). But try it on the first video under Beliefs, “A Book with a Promise – Elder Christensen.” Click Embed (bottom right under the video as it plays). Then you” see a slide bar with beginning and ending numbers. Slide those in, and you’ll see that the embed code changes. What you’ll embed is the portion of the video you selected.
That said, I see a problem with the embed code. When I try to use it in a blog, I get an error message that the tag is not closed. Even if I manually close the embed tag, it still errors. We’ll check on that.
Larry
The head shot is too large — a little overwhelming. But I really like the increased amount of HTML, instead of flashplayer/shockwave content.
The big photos of the people are nice, but I don’t like how you can’t get any information about them. (Loretta, Brooklyn, NY; Lindsay, Atlanta, GA; Ade, Fresno, CA; and Rob, New York City, NY). Who are they? They aren’t in the videos. I’m assuming they are members of the church. But what’s the point? If you are going to put such a big photo of someone, wouldn’t you expect to at least be able to find out more about them? Otherwise they just seem like big stock photos.
Another critique: why no volume control on the videos?