The annotations have always been a headache on YouTube, at least for users. But, now it seems that soon the video platform YouTube will shut down its annoying video annotations in favor of mobile friendly cards.
Good News! YouTube Kills Off Annoying Video Annotations
The annotations have always been a headache on YouTube, at least for users. However, if you don’t know about the annoying annotations then let me clear that annotations are those dynamic blocks that creators added to the video after it was already served to add or correct information or to direct the user to another video.
But there’s a problem with notes: they do not work on the phone and in a world where mobile devices account for 60 percent of YouTube’s viewing time, it would be worrying to keep the feature unaddressed or killed. As usual, the tech giant Google opted for the latter option, justifying that there are other tools to take the place of annotations.
However, the interactive cards exist on YouTube, and they appear throughout the video and get that information icon in the upper right corner which is not so annoying. Since last year, End Screens also serve to put other recommended videos at the end of another video – which eliminates one of the original uses of annotations.
Once these features were announced, YouTube annotation usage dropped 70% (!). In addition, YouTube said annotations are not very well received by users: on average, they close 12 notes before clicking on one. Add this to the inconsistency of not being able to put them on the mobile and we can conclude that they exist basically to be ignored by the desktop users.
However, from the May 2nd 2017, no one will be able to add some any annotation or edit an existing one. Moreover, those that are already there will continue to appear for those who watch YouTube videos on the desktop.
Not everyone is happy with the novelty, of course. In the comments of the post making the announcement, several channels are asking by other means to add more information to the videos or to fix some error that appeared. Would it be better to have the notes adapted to the cell phone? Share your views and thoughts in the comment section below.
