YouTube announced that it has made annotations much easier for the average user to engage in. Basically its as easy as signing in, clicking, and typing.
YouTube Video Annotations let users add text within their own videos. Kind of like VH1’s Pop-up Video. Users can use the feature to add background information, create stories, link to related content, etc.
In the past, users have had to use a somewhat complicated editor to add annotations (the editor is still available for those who prefer it). Now all they have to do is simply:
1. Login to YouTube
2. Watch your video on the watch page
3. click on the video to start adding annotations
This is a great way to make YouTube more usable for a wider range of people, but Frederic Lardinois at Read Write Web does bring up a pretty good point. “Too often, users already overuse the annotations to advertise some of their other videos or to remind us that the video is also available in HD (a note that also pops up when you are already watching the video in HD, by the way).”
Between the annotations and the pop-up ads YouTube has been putting in videos, it can get a bit annoying to the viewer who is used to watching clean, uninterrupted videos on the site. Lardinois does note that a help page shows how to turn annotations off for embedded videos.
YouTube emphasizes the ease of linking with the new set-up. “We are also making it easier for your annotations to link to a variety of different YouTube pages. You’ll be able to link to another video, channel page, playlist, group or search query,” says a post from the YouTube Team. “What’s more, you’ll even be able to link to a video response page or message window to prompt for feedback from your audience.”
Annotations with links do give users the opportunity to make more interactive videos, and from a marketing perspective, this can certainly be an interesting point. Still, I don’t think anyone wants to see YouTube turn into a big pit of video ads.
