Embedding affiliate links inside YouTube videos

[TheShortStack]

I've seen a few sites who display the TV adverts from various poker rooms/casinos as a part of their overall review.

The ads are taken from YouTube and are embedded directly into the page, which I can understand. What I was suprised to see though was that if I click on the ad, I get re-directed to that poker room via an affiliate link.

I didn't think it was possible to embed links in YouTube videos. Any idea how this is done?

Cheers,

[Michael Martinez]

The videos are executed in flash by Google, and you can embed links in flash files. I have not tried this, but I suppose if you just upload a flash file with a link already embedded, Google's processing may allow it to pass through.

It's an interesting concept.

I have no doubt that after enough people figure out how to do it, someone will forbid it in their TOS.

[Unknown Webmaster]

Maybe this could be done by positioning a transparent PNG image on top of part of the video, so the visitor are actually clicking on the image?

I think you would have to set the wmode attribute on the embed or object tag you use for the video to transparent or opaque, and then use z-index with CSS to place the image with an absolute position that is directly above the video.

The wmode thing "should" force the flash video to be rendered on the page, instead of a window above the actual page, and as such it "should" be possible to place something on top of it.

I'm not sure if the above would work, however, I think it would.

[zerotrouble]

I guess they downloaded the video, uploaded the video back in their accounts with clickable captions?

Or another way I guess would to use a keepvid to get video's (flv) direct link and run it with your own player

[TheShortStack]

I guess they downloaded the video, uploaded the video back in their accounts with clickable captions?

I guess that's the main question. Is it something that you can set up within YouTube itself or would you need to create the video in Flash and embed the link yourself before uploading it to YouTube?

[zerotrouble]

Is it something that you can set up within YouTube

I was referring to the annotations feature. I've seen some people border the video with annotation which links to an external site, can't find it at the moment though.
LinkedTube - Video Links For YouTube also does more or less the same job in a fancier way