YouTube Video Annotations; increasing interactivity for users

YouTube has released a new feature, Video Annotations, a video creator you might want to think about adding while uploading your videos on YouTube.

The purpose YouTube Annotations serve are well far from being educational, I might as well agree that speech bubbles, notes and spotlights, do help drive the information home in a clearer way as far as “how to” videos are concerned. It feels like you actually have a live, interactive manual right in front of you, except, who would want a manual on an entertainment resource?

On the other hand, annotations might be an exciting way of establishing a better contact with the viewer. Adding the missing background information, making witty comments, or even adding some subtitles to your movies, make the whole process more appealing for the viewer. With this new feature one might get a feeling of being a movie director: it’s up to you to choose what your annotations will say and when and where they will appear. It seems that the message YouTube is trying to deliver is “make your own story”.

YouTube’s official Video Annotations video gives you a glimpse to how your videos will look after you’ve used the new application.

On a more practical subject, it is obvious YouTube tried to make the annotations feature user-friendly: first, it makes it possible to annotate only your own uploaded videos, and, second, it allows you to turn off the annotations already made. Keep in mind though, that for the time being the annotations option is only available in English.

Now, I’ve seen comments where the annotations feature is referred to as being amazing and innovative as Neowin.net displays. Altogether, I agree on the ‘fun component’ aspect of it, however, I’d rather abstain from using high-flown epithets that seem to me a bit far-fetched in this respect. In my humble opinion, an annotated video resembles old cartoon books with all those speech thought bubbles: think Spiderman, think Spiderman primarily being a cartoon character before becoming a cinema superhero. Just like the saying goes, all new things are well forgotten old ones…

I only wonder how YouTube will monitor comments posted using this new feature. How will you be able to keep someone from uploading a video fragment from one’s favorite film with a much personified version of actors’ remarks? You tell me.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 4:05 pm and is filed under Video Advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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