Email notifications with YouTube videos are sending out invalid URLs

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  douglerner · Member · Jun 18, 2012 at 7:43 am

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  If I post a YouTube URL via email (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGANwLBiF-k) the post ends up with a youtube shortcode.

  For example, see http://douglerner.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/thai-fish/.

  The shortcode that gets posted is [youtube http://youtube.com/w/?v=FGANwLBiF-k%5D.

  That is fine when rendered on the web. But the email which goes out to followers contains a still picture. There is no indication at all that the picture should be clicked (but that’s another problem). However, if you do click the picture, the URL you are sent to is http://youtube.com/w/?v=FGANwLBiF-k, which is an invalid URL.

  The correct URL is http://youtube.com/watch/?v=FGANwLBiF-k.

  I wonder if this bug can be fixed.

  Thanks,

  doug
  Blog url: http://douglerner.wordpress.com/

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  douglerner · Member · Jun 19, 2012 at 12:31 am

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  I guess I can just use Jetpack on my self-hosted blog.

  I just tried it and even though Jetpack is written by wordpress.com and even though it uses wordpress.com subscription management and email, unlike the notifications from wordpress.com it sends out a valid link. I don’t know why Jetpack would work correctly while the email notifications from my wordpress.com blog don’t.

  The email subscriptions from wordpress.com itself sends out a still image with an invalid link.

  The only thing I don’t like about Jetpack’s notifications are (1) Like with wordpress.com you have no control over the subscribers (e.g. you can’t help somebody unsubscribe) and (2) you can’t customize the confirmation messages, which include “howdy” and other expressions I don’t like.

  But since the email notifications from wordpress.com have that bug, and the Jetpack notifications don’t, it might be my only choice.

  doug