YouTube makes some changes
YouTube, which people use to watch five billion videos a day, has recently announced several changes to its service.
The improvements range from new features that help you manage your time on YouTube, to longer, non-skippable ads.
One of the biggest changes is now YouTube can tell you how much time you spend watching videos on the platform.
YouTube, which is the second most used site in the world after Google (which owns YouTube), recently released the ‘‘timed watched’’ on its smartphone apps.
The feature shows how many hours you’ve spent viewing videos today, yesterday, and the past week, along with a daily average.
You can also set a reminder to pop-up to let you know when it’s time to take a break from watching YouTube.
These features are part of a move within the tech industry to help users manage their time online. It’s a nice gesture but it has limited application and doesn’t deal with the issues around addiction such as continuously serving up videos.
Related to this is another feature on YouTube which gives parents more control over what their children watch.
Adults can now select every video or channel their child is allowed to view through the YouTube Kids app, which recently faced problems involving inappropriate content.
This setting also disables the app’s search function.
Parents can also use the app on the ‘‘older’’ setting that opens up age-appropriate content for 8 to 12-year-olds including music videos and video game content.
Another big change on YouTube is to the trending section. You can now see what’s popular in five categories: music, live, gaming, news, and movies.
Previously, all videos were grouped together and while you can still view it like this being able to isolate the type of content you enjoy makes it easier to use.
The last change will annoy a lot of users but please those who try to make a living creating videos for YouTube.
Videos will now be able to feature non-skippable ads, which will cost more for advertisers and make more for creators.
The ads will be a maximum of 15-20 seconds and can be used on old videos as well as new ones.
The new ads may deter a lot of people who are used to being able to skip ads after about five seconds, and data shows about 20 per cent of the people who start a video on YouTube leave after the first 10 seconds.
Adults can now select every video or channel their child is allowed to view through the YouTube Kids app, which recently faced problems involving inappropriate content.