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June 8, 2007

YouTube Launches a New Embedded Player

As previously reported, YouTube built a new player for videos embedded in blogs or other sites. The player shows a list of related videos and makes it easy to move between these videos and to find the code necessary to embed a video, without opening a new page. YouTube hopes that people will spend more time watching videos.

If you find the new player too cluttered and you want to use the old one, just append &rel=0 to the URLs from the code you have to include in your site. For example, http://www.youtube.com/v/UkguiR01gMQ should be replaced with http://www.youtube.com/v/UkguiR01gMQ&rel=0.

Garett Rogers from ZDNet thinks that YouTube prepares to include ads next to the related videos. "For the next several months, people will get very used to using the related video tool that was just introduced. As soon as it becomes second nature for users to use the tool, we should start to see sponsored results mixed with these related videos."

The new player didn't have too many fans because the related videos weren't always appropriate and sometimes they stayed in your way. "Thank goodness there's an option to turn it off, but it would be far better if it were off by default with an option to turn it on. I'm not so concerned as some other people about being presented links to potentially objectionable content (I can handle it like an adult), but having thumbnails pop up that do not disappear even if I mouse off of the video is a serious distraction and makes watching videos much less enjoyable," says a comment from YouTube's blog.

Probably as a reaction to the negative comments, the related videos are now visible only if you click on the "menu" button and at the end of the video.

10 comments:

  1. Hey come on,
    I like somehow new player but only still lacking feature is to jump anywhere without downloading full video (like Google Video)
    To the topic,
    here as an improvement to Menu bar would be nice if following menu elements are added.
    - select related
    - select videos from the same user
    - select videos for specified keyword, provided that a textbox to set keywords
    -switch off related (Old player)

    Cool :)

    Jelda

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  2. Interesting, I have been always looking forward to ads embedded into videos. I think we are close to it.

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  3. Yet it still doesn't diplay the title of the current video. I could see the titles of the related videos, but I have no idea what I'm watching when it is embedded.

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  4. I really liked the design of the new player, particularly the “eye-candy” appeal of the related videos shown at the bottom of the videos, a la OS X dock. However the appreciation soon turned to a little bit of frustration as I repeatedly triggered the related videos unintentionally whenever my mouse hovered over the video. It was distracting and somehow dampens the experience of watching videos. But I read that they already changed this behavior. Now you have to click on the menu button before the related videos will show. It’s nice that Google / Youtube listened to the community regarding this UI “glitch”. As for the rest of the new features, I’m quite happy about them too.

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  5. Is this a bug???? When you attaching a "&autoplay=1" to video URL, it is auto play but the big play button is still on the center of the video. http://www.youtube.com/v/L6RSD8m_QOQ&autoplay=1

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  6. Is this a bug????

    When you attaching a "&autoplay=1" to video URL, it is auto play but the big play button is still on the center of the video.

    http://www.youtube.com/v/L6RSD8m_QOQ&autoplay=1

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  7. Hi,

    where's the option to turn it off?

    thank you

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  8. The Youtube player has just gone a new change. See this video for example:

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=TD4g0gmQSLk

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  9. to anonymous (May 29, 2008)

    yeh i've noticed that yesterday...got to be the ugliest thing YouTube ever did...

    kinda loved the old player too...it formerly had the stop button if you wsnted to load the whole video...now that thing's a gonner, and now even the status bar is kinda hard to navigate, and when you want to stop you have to press the pla button 2-3 times...

    hope YouTube changes that back...

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  10. My youtube playlist layout has completely changed. The 'auto play' or 'play all videos' feature as well as the 'rearrange' button have gonne. This new layout only has the 'delete playlist' option on the top right. Yesterday when I exited & returned to the playlist a couple of times I would see the old, familiar format which allowed auto play. Today its not working at all. Why? can someone please help.

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