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"The results reflect YouTube’s struggles to expand its core audience beyond teens and tweens. Most YouTube users treat the site as a video repository to be acce

by mapt 12y ago

"The results reflect YouTube’s struggles to expand its core audience beyond teens and tweens. Most YouTube users treat the site as a video repository to be accessed from links or embedded video players posted elsewhere, rather than visiting YouTube.com daily. Google executives want them to turn on YouTube the way they turn on television, as a habit, where they can expect to find different “channels” of entertainment." If they want me to sit in front of this as passive entertainment, why not start by giving me an interface to view my subscribed content, in order, as an RSS-reader-like experience? I should be able to hit 'play' and have it scan through all the new videos on the channels I am subscribed to, without hitting 'click to skip' length ads, going into a mysterious related videos algorithm, or manually navigating through a list and clicking on each one. For that matter, I should be able to interface with a channel in that way regardless of whether they have created a playlist or not, using 'autoplay in order of upload'. If you wanna get complicated, give me a search functionality that will do the same. 'Autoplay feed of anything mentioning Minecraft mod XYZ in the title/description' Right now, Youtube has a nominal subscription function that actively deters you from using it smoothly. Fix that before you assume you can't turn it into a 'habit'.

JonnieCache 12y ago
>why not start by giving me an interface to view my subscribed content, in order, as an RSS-reader-like experience? Can you really not do that? I've never had a youtube account. The plan at the back of my head to build a hideously boring looking "advanced" interface for youtube is creeping forward...
- digi_owl 12y ago
  Yep, you can't. It will give you a list of videos uploaded, but there is no easy way to just hit play and sit through them as if they were a long playlist.
  - unicornporn 12y ago
    I get a single RSS feed of all my YouTube subscriptions. Then I sift through them directly in my feed reader. Granted, it's not via the YouTube site, but it works perfectly. http://scottnelle.com/466/youtube-subscriptions-rss-feed/ http://scottnelle.com/466/youtube-subscriptions-rss-feed/
    - corobo 12y ago
      How are you playing them as a playlist? External video player?
- Joona 12y ago
  There's this: https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions Which displays the videos the channels your subscribe to have uploaded (newest first).
  - deelowe 12y ago
    Actually, that list is filtered based on arcane rules. I think it tries to guess what you want to watch based on previous engagement rates or something. Point being, you may be subscribed to a channel and not see new videos show up in that feed.
pjc50 12y ago
They don't want you to 'consume' 'content' in submitter order, they want to submit you to the related videos and especially the ads to make sure you are monetized appropriately. If they wanted you to have RSS they wouldn't have killed Google Reader.
- mapt 12y ago
  Who? I understand why the uploader would want this, but if it results in me watching less Youtube, I do not understand why Youtube would want this.
neuronic 12y ago
Well, one step would be to improve the user experience. Because short of having subscribed or being linked to a video I find it cumbersome to navigate videos. My entire YT browsing is based on already knowing what I want to watch. I proceed to search and hope that the video is what I am looking for. No previous info about quality, content, anything. Sometimes I have no clue what I want to watch, I just feel like watching something. Back in the day I would flip through channels until I was caught by something. YT should have a discover mode that is similar to navigating through channels on the press of a button. Maybe give me some filters and then let me "peak" into videos. Of course the experience is hard to implement when providers are throttling YT traffic. Flipping through channels would then suck, because the video would take 20 seconds to load all the time. But yea, that's why I don't use it like TV. I use it more like I use Google Search. When I just want to know random interesting things without knowing what I want to look for, Google Search is not that helpful.
- FlyingAvatar 12y ago
  Even their user experience for being subscribed to channels is pretty bad. I am subscribed to a dozen or so channels. The counts on the sidebar for the number of videos that I "haven't watched" is always incorrect. So is the total number of videos that I have subscribed to and not watched. Clicking on one of your subscribed channels brings to you the channel homepage, but instead of listing new content you haven't seen yet, you see popular content you've seen already. The only page that seems to be useful and accurate is the subscription list itself, but this isn't prominent or obvious. I also often get e-mail notifications for newly released videos which I have already watched some hours before the e-mail was sent. Also, I'd love the ability to pay to remove ads on a channel. The ad revenue for one user watching a given channel has to be trivial, especially for original, instructional content which is what I primarily watch. I bet paying $1 to remove ads on a channel for a year would produce better revenue for YouTube and content producers alike.
vxNsr 12y ago
So it's not just me? I tried doing the whole subscription thing-- it doesn't work, because to see the newest videos from each channel you need to go to that channel and reorganize the whole page so it shows newest first each time. Look, I like looking at related videos as much as the next guy, but first I wanna see all the videos I've already expressed an interest in seeing before I'm shown content that I might not find so entertaining.

by mapt 12y ago

JonnieCache 12y ago

>why not start by giving me an interface to view my subscribed content, in order, as an RSS-reader-like experience? Can you really not do that? I've never had a youtube account. The plan at the back of my head to build a hideously boring looking "advanced" interface for youtube is creeping forward...

digi_owl 12y ago
Yep, you can't. It will give you a list of videos uploaded, but there is no easy way to just hit play and sit through them as if they were a long playlist.
- unicornporn 12y ago
  I get a single RSS feed of all my YouTube subscriptions. Then I sift through them directly in my feed reader. Granted, it's not via the YouTube site, but it works perfectly. http://scottnelle.com/466/youtube-subscriptions-rss-feed/ http://scottnelle.com/466/youtube-subscriptions-rss-feed/
  - corobo 12y ago
    How are you playing them as a playlist? External video player?
Joona 12y ago
There's this: https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions Which displays the videos the channels your subscribe to have uploaded (newest first).
- deelowe 12y ago
  Actually, that list is filtered based on arcane rules. I think it tries to guess what you want to watch based on previous engagement rates or something. Point being, you may be subscribed to a channel and not see new videos show up in that feed.

pjc50 12y ago

They don't want you to 'consume' 'content' in submitter order, they want to submit you to the related videos and especially the ads to make sure you are monetized appropriately. If they wanted you to have RSS they wouldn't have killed Google Reader.

mapt 12y ago
Who? I understand why the uploader would want this, but if it results in me watching less Youtube, I do not understand why Youtube would want this.

neuronic 12y ago

Well, one step would be to improve the user experience. Because short of having subscribed or being linked to a video I find it cumbersome to navigate videos. My entire YT browsing is based on already knowing what I want to watch. I proceed to search and hope that the video is what I am looking for. No previous info about quality, content, anything. Sometimes I have no clue what I want to watch, I just feel like watching something. Back in the day I would flip through channels until I was caught by something. YT should have a discover mode that is similar to navigating through channels on the press of a button. Maybe give me some filters and then let me "peak" into videos. Of course the experience is hard to implement when providers are throttling YT traffic. Flipping through channels would then suck, because the video would take 20 seconds to load all the time. But yea, that's why I don't use it like TV. I use it more like I use Google Search. When I just want to know random interesting things without knowing what I want to look for, Google Search is not that helpful.

FlyingAvatar 12y ago
Even their user experience for being subscribed to channels is pretty bad. I am subscribed to a dozen or so channels. The counts on the sidebar for the number of videos that I "haven't watched" is always incorrect. So is the total number of videos that I have subscribed to and not watched. Clicking on one of your subscribed channels brings to you the channel homepage, but instead of listing new content you haven't seen yet, you see popular content you've seen already. The only page that seems to be useful and accurate is the subscription list itself, but this isn't prominent or obvious. I also often get e-mail notifications for newly released videos which I have already watched some hours before the e-mail was sent. Also, I'd love the ability to pay to remove ads on a channel. The ad revenue for one user watching a given channel has to be trivial, especially for original, instructional content which is what I primarily watch. I bet paying $1 to remove ads on a channel for a year would produce better revenue for YouTube and content producers alike.

vxNsr 12y ago

So it's not just me? I tried doing the whole subscription thing-- it doesn't work, because to see the newest videos from each channel you need to go to that channel and reorganize the whole page so it shows newest first each time. Look, I like looking at related videos as much as the next guy, but first I wanna see all the videos I've already expressed an interest in seeing before I'm shown content that I might not find so entertaining.