Official Blog
Google Moderator on YouTube enables real-time feedback from your audience
Thursday, May 27, 2010
YouTube is about starting a conversation. Every day, hundreds of millions of videos spark dialogues on everything from the
future of the African continent
, to
what should be done about the oil spill
, to the
best slam dunk of all time.
But until now, it’s been difficult to harness those free-flowing discussions.
That’s why, starting today, we’ve integrated the ability to use
Google Moderator
into every single YouTube channel. Moderator is a versatile, social platform that allows you to solicit ideas or questions on any topic, and have the community vote the best ones up to the top in real-time. We previously used Google Moderator as part of our interviews with
President Obama
and
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
.
Here’s how it works: You set the parameters for the dialogue, including the topic, the type of submissions, and the length of the conversation.
Watch as submissions get voted up or down by your audience, and then respond to the top-voted submissions by posting a video on your channel
. The platform operates in real-time, and you can remove any content that you or your audience flag as inappropriate. You can also embed the platform on your own website or blog.
To get things started, we’ve invited 12 YouTube users, including
Michael Buckley
, the
New York Times
,
Stanford
and
Howcast
, to try out the feature and show us how it’s done:
Foodwishes
wants you to submit and vote on your favorite recipes, and Chef John will make the top-rated dish and name it after the creator:
GreenForAll
is asking for your ideas for how to help clean-up the Gulf Coast oil spill:
HotforWords
is looking for your best examples of redundant acronyms:
HouseholdHacker
welcomes your questions in his series “Ask Household Hacker”:
HowtheWorldWorks
invites you to make the case for why the YouTube community should listen to you when you vlog:
Howcast
wants your ideas for their next “how-to” video:
Kina Grannis
is looking for a poet to help write the lyrics for her next song:
Michael Buckley
wants to hear about your problems in love and life, because he thinks he can help:
Mystery Guitar Man
is taking your ideas for what crazy instrument he should use in his next video:
Nick Kristof of the
New York Times
is open to your questions about his travels around the globe, and why a man like him so often writes about women’s rights issues:
Stanford
is offering up renowned cardiologist Dr. Euan Ashley to answer your questions about heart disease and other genetic-related disorders:
The
Team Flight Brothers
are looking for your nominations for the best (non-NBA) dunk ever:
The Will of DC
is turning over his entire “Winners and Losers” show to you this month - who do you think are YouTube’s biggest winners and losers?
Have an idea for how you might use Moderator on your channel? You can get started by going to your channel page and clicking on the "Modules" tab in the "Edit Channel" menu.
For more details on how to set up your Moderator series, visit
youtube.com/moderator
. And please note that in order to participate in a Moderator series, you'll need to be logged into a Google account that is linked to a YouTube account.
By Olivia Ma, YouTube News Manager, and Ginny Hunt, Product Manager, Moderator, recently watched “
Cowrite with Kina - Part 1
.
”
New video page launches for all users
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
As you may know, we're in the midst of one of the largest redesigns in YouTube's history: we're simplifying the look and functionality of the video page. That's the page you see whenever a video plays, and this redesign is about going "back to basics," focusing attention on the reason why you came to YouTube in the first place -- the video -- and all the ways you engage with content and creators.
We
first unveiled
the new video page two months ago and checked in four weeks later to tell you about the
latest set of changes
. Truth is, we've been thinking about this for a long time: what you see is the result of eight months' worth of user research, feedback and data analysis. Now, after a few more
additions
based on your latest feedback, we are rolling it out to 100% of YouTube users.
Here's what's new about the page:
Overall look and functionality
- It's cleaner, simpler and easier to use.
- Information about a video is now grouped together in one place and there's a consistent way to get more detail when you need it. This way, unless something's truly useful to you, it doesn't clutter up your page.
- We've cleaned up the actions bar; you'll see a streamlined presentation for sharing, flagging, and embedding controls.
Discovery
- The right-hand side of the page is devoted to the next video to watch. We're smarter about suggesting the next videos to watch based on how you found the video you're watching in the first place.
- The channel name and subscribe button are now both on top of the video. We found that you prefer having a quick peek at more videos uploaders have created before deciding whether to subscribe to their channels.
Playlists
- There's a new playlist interface, with the next video in the list appearing consistently in the top right. You can easily expand that list or skip ahead using a new next button in the player controls.
- Saving to playlists is easier, and we've made Favorites the default option.
Ratings
- We've replaced the
five-star ratings system
with a simpler "likes / dislikes" model and introduced a new "Videos I Liked" list.
Comments
- Comments have a new highlights view which summarizes the best discussions and celebrates when creators communicate with their audiences.
We know this is a big change, but we hope you'll find the new page to be an improvement to your YouTube experience and to be a reflection of what you've told us thus far through your usage of the site and your comments to us. We'll be gathering in a conference room at our San Bruno, CA, headquarters at 6 p.m. PT today and tomorrow, and in London at 9 a.m. GMT tomorrow, to respond in near-real-time to your comments in the
forums
, on this blog and on
Twitter
. Of course, we'll be listening at other times, too, but we wanted to make sure we were available when you might have the most questions about these changes.
Igor Kofman, Software Engineer, recently watched "
Pantyraid - Beba
," and Shiva Rajaraman, Product Manager, recently watched "
Chat Roulette Funny Piano Improv #2
."
New video page adds comments highlight view and ratings improvements
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Over the past couple of weeks, we've been busy iterating on the new video page design based on your feedback, and we're excited to share some new developments before the page is rolled out to everyone soon. Remember to
opt-in here
to get a preview of these new features:
Highlights view on comments
Many of you indicated that comments could use an overhaul and hoped that was a part of the redesign. We're happy to say that it is. Today, we're introducing a "highlights view" of comments which summarizes top rated comments, uploader comments, video responses and recent comments in a single "front-page story" that you can drill into for more detail. You can see an example on
this video
and
this one
. We're continuing to make the highlights better as we learn how people interact with it, so please let us know what you think in the comments below.
Ratings
We've also made some improvements to the new like/dislike ratings system. When you like a video, we let you know how many people liked it and disliked it. To help you remember the best videos you've encountered, there's a new area housing all the videos that you liked, called (surprise, surprise) "Videos I Liked." In addition, we listened to your feedback and no longer tie 'Liking' something to your Favorites, which you use more for personal saving. Favoriting a video is now the first option when you click "save"; you can continue to save videos to your Favorites in this manner or create another playlist just by typing in the name. Finally, throughout the site, you'll occasionally see a video marked 'Most Liked' to give you an indication that this is a video other people loved, that you may want to check out. We surface popular videos in many ways, and we hope Most Liked becomes a reliable signal that helps you find quality videos to watch.
For quick refresher on the overall video page design, check out this video produced by
TheWillofDC
:
And if you've opted in but want to go back to the old page, you can
opt out here
.
UPDATE:
After reading your comments, we'd like to note that some of you are opted in permanently to the new page, which means you are part of our current experiment and are unable to opt out. These kinds of experiments help us learn what works on the page and what doesn't, so that we can build the best possible site for you. We've also heard your feedback on Auto-play interrupting your experience and are working on some improvements.
Peter Bradshaw, Software Engineer, recently liked "
SOIL & "PIMP" SESSIONS 'Summer Goddess'
," and Tyler Morse, Software Engineer, recently liked "
Bottle Bank Arcade - TheFunTheory.com - Rolighetsteorin.se
."
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