Friday, June 8, 2007

Update: YouTube Embedded Videos New Interface

Facing all the 'opinions' over how the new YouTube embedded video player tries to give users quick, uninterrupted access to related videos hoping users will stay longer and longer on embedded YouTube content, jumping from clips they wanted to see to clips they didn’t even know existed. And the next step is to start mixing sponsored videos to related videos. Even the Official YouTube Blog admits first half of the speculation:

Does watching a YouTube video on another site leave you hungering for more like it? We just turned on a new embedded player with a scroll-through feature that shows related videos to your embeds. It's fun to play with and lets you discover new, related videos without leaving your site. Just hover over the video after pressing "play" and watch the magic unfold...
However, YouTube seems to sense disdain towards the new player and decided not to push users to hard (for the time being). So, rather than showing related videos at the bottom of the player (and the two annoying arrows on the two sides that on-click would seamlessly play the next related video) every time users hover over the video, you will see them only if you click on the 'menu' button or when the video finishes. In this case, the original video is zoomed out and also displays embedded code and URL of video. Just like this:

It is pretty obvious that nowadays, tech companies are very susceptible to user feedback (especially in age Web 2.0 where users are the core) just like last time when Google removed the tips on top particular search terms such as calendar and blog after hundreds of blogger complained. I suppose YouTube is soon going to make announcement about this minor change.

Note: You can switch back to the old interface by adding a rel=0 parameter to the video.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think, given that snuff videos were suddenly showing up on worship blogs, and hardcore porn on children's blogs, it was more a matter of lawyer feedback, rather than user feedback. But yes, they did have to suck that one back right quickly.

Making it an option would have removed their liability: making it the default was the problem.

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