YouTube Updates Center-Aligned UI, Adds Carousel

YouTube's experimental interface now uses carousels on the homepage, so it can show more videos from a channel. Video thumbnails are also much bigger. The regular interface also uses carousels, but only when you are signed in.

It's another version of the center-aligned layout, which uses a persistent header, a guide sidebar that's visible only when you click "Guide" and a card-style interface.

Here's how you can enable the experimental feature. If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Internet Explorer 8+ - press F12 and select the "Console" tab

* Safari 6 - if you haven't enabled the Develop menu, open Preferences from the Safari menu, go to the Advanced tab and check "Show Develop menu in menu bar". Close Preferences and then press Command-Option-C to show the console.

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console".

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=lnq3tYnrDNU; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

{ Thanks, Rubén and Ramona Brown. }

Force YouTube to Use the HTML5 Player

YouTube's HTML5 player is great, but it's not enabled for all the videos. Even if you go to youtube.com/html5 and join the HTML5 trial, you'll find a lot of videos that use the Flash player. "Some videos with ads are not yet supported (they will play in the Flash player)," mentions the site.

There's a simple Greasemonkey script that forces YouTube to use the HTML5 player for almost all the videos you watch at youtube.com. You need to install Greasemonkey if you use Firefox or Tampermonkey if you use Chrome, then click the "Install" button here.

[Update (Octomber 3rd, 2013): For Chrome, use this old version of the script.]

The script works better in Firefox. If you install the script in Chrome, it will disable the new Ajax interface, but everything else seems to work well.

Here's a video you can use to test the script. Please note that the script doesn't work for embedded videos.

YouTube Comments Powered by Google+

Just like Blogger, YouTube will switch to Google+ comments, but it won't be optional. YouTube already asks users to connect their channels with Google+.

"When it comes to the conversations happening on YouTube, recent does not necessarily mean relevant. So, comments will soon become conversations that matter to you. In the coming months, comments from people you care about will rise up where you can see them, while new tools will help video creators moderate conversations for welcome and unwelcome voices. Starting this week, you'll see the new YouTube comments powered by Google+ on your channel discussion tab. This update will come to comments on all videos later this year, as we bring you more ways to connect with familiar faces on YouTube," informs the YouTube blog.

Here's a screenshot that shows the new commenting interface:

YouTube's comments are rarely insightful or useful. There's a lot of spam, trolling and hate speech. Switching from anonymous aliases to Google+ profiles might improve the quality of comments.

"You'll see posts at the top of the list from the video's creator, popular personalities, engaged discussions about the video, and people in your Google+ Circles. You can choose to start a conversation so that it is seen by everyone on YouTube and Google+, only people in your Circles or just your bestie. Like Gmail, replies are threaded so you can easily follow conversations. You have new tools to review comments before they're posted, block certain words or save time by auto-approving comments from certain fans. These can help you spend less time moderating, and more time sharing videos and connecting with your fans."

Blogger's commenting system powered by Google+ has been disappointing so far. Google doesn't offer comment moderation tools in the Blogger interface and Google doesn't do a good job at detecting spam or at ranking comments. There's a lot of noise and Google even shows a list of people who +1'd the post.

{ Thanks, Adrià. }

YouTube Fans

If you have a popular YouTube channels with more than 5,000 subscribers, you'll be able to find more about the people who love your videos. "The Fans page shows a list of some of your most engaged and most influential fans, based on their public interaction with your YouTube channel. By default, the list is sorted by a combination of subscriber count and engagement level, but you can also sort by either factor on its own," informs YouTube.

"For each person on the list, you can see how many subscribers they have, how engaged they are with your channel, an example comment they've left on one of your videos, and how long they've been a subscriber. Engagement is based on that person's public interactions with your channel, such as commenting, liking, subscribing, etc."

You can also create a Google+ circle for your top fans in the insights page. "See what other videos and channels they're into, and reach out via Google+ to ask a question, start a conversation, share behind-the-scenes photos, or upload a private video just for them."

{ Thanks, Stefan. }

YouTube's Mobile Apps to Add Download Feature

The YouTube Creator blog announced that YouTube's mobile apps will add a feature that lets you download videos so you can watch them offline.

"Later this year we'll launch a new feature on YouTube's mobile apps that will help you reach fans -- even when they're not connected to the Internet. This upcoming feature will allow people to add videos to their device to watch for a short period when an Internet connection is unavailable."

AllThingsD reports that this feature will be available next month and that the downloaded videos will be available for 48 hours. "Next month, Google's video site will let viewers save clips on their phones and other mobile devices for up to 48 hours, so they can watch them when they're not online. The videos will still be free, and Google will run ads on the clips, which will be available via its mobile apps."

YouTube's Android app already has a preloading feature for subscriptions and the "watch later" playlist, but this feature has a catch: you need to be online when starting to play a video. This makes the feature less useful.

A few years ago, YouTube experimented with downloads for some partner channels. Now it only lets you download your videos. There are a lot of third-party applications and extensions for downloading YouTube videos, but you won't find them in the Play Store or the Chrome Web Store because they break YouTube's terms of use.

YouTube Tests Improved Center-Aligned Interface

Now that many of the YouTube experiments are publicly available, it's time for something new. YouTube tests a new version of the center-aligned layout. The sidebar looks better, but it's still hidden by default. The YouTube homepage has two tabs for "What to watch" and "My subscriptions", while the header is now persistent.

Here's a video that shows a slightly different version of the experiment:

Here's how you can enable the experimental feature. If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=Gapj9bz_H8M; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

{ Thanks, Sushubh and Rubén. }

YouTube Music Cards

A few weeks ago, I posted about a YouTube experiment that adds bigger cards for music artists. Search for Röyksopp, Daft Punk or any other popular artist and you'll see a Knowledge Graph-like sidebar with a list of top tracks, albums and related artists. Click any track and you'll start a playlist with a lot of other songs from the same artist. Click an album and you'll be able to listen to all the songs from the album.

What else is there? You can also click "top tracks" to start the playlist automatically generated by YouTube. Click the artist's name to visit the topic channel created by YouTube (there's no topic channel for Röyksopp, but there's one for Daft Punk).

YouTube's Compact Controls

A few weeks ago, YouTube tested a feature that grouped controls like annotations, video quality and player size. This feature is now publicly available.

"Notice something a little different about YouTube videos? We've just launched a new version of the player with improved caption controls and a cleaner look. If you're looking for the annotations switch, just click the gear button - you'll find size and quality controls there too," informs YouTube.

The gear button was previously used for the quality dropdown. This change makes the player less cluttered and makes the video quality dropdown less visible. When YouTube removes it, fewer people will complain.

Now it's hard to tell if a video has annotations without clicking the settings button. Each of the settings require an extra click.

{ Thanks, Tolis and Sushubh. }

YouTube Channels Integrate With Google+

If you haven't integrated your YouTube channel with Google+, YouTube offers more options. You can connect the channel to your Google+ profile and use your full name or connect the channel to a Google+ page. You can use an existing Google+ page, create a new Google+ page that uses your YouTube username or create a Google+ page with a different name. Click "I don't want to use my full name" to choose a page instead of your Google+ profile.

YouTube keeps showing the Google+ integration box and you can temporarily bypass it by reloading page. You can also go to youtube.com/account and click "Link channel with Google" to see the box.

This page shows more information about your options. "Profiles are subject to the Google+ Names Policy. The name on your profile should be the one you're commonly known by. Pages don't have name constraints, as names vary greatly among brands, business and organizations."

You have 14 days to change your mind. Just click "Temporarily disconnect Google+ page/profile, and use your YouTube username" in the account settings page.

What are the changes? Your channel will use the name and photos from your Google+ profile/page, it will link to the profile/page and you'll also see Google+ notifications and links in the YouTube navigation bar.

You can also create multiple channels. Use this page or click "switch account" in the navigation bar to switch to a different channel or create a new one. Each new YouTube channel comes with a Google+ page.

YouTube's Cat Easter Egg

YouTube's app for iOS has also been updated and added many of the features from the Android app. You can watch a video while searching for the next one, just like picture-in-picture, search for playlists and use the "play all" button.

There's something that only works in the iOS app for iPad: an Easter Egg. Open the YouTube app (make sure you have the latest version - 2.0), keep a finger on the left sidebar and use another finger to swipe right until the list of videos because almost empty. You'll see a funny cat with a play button.

{ Thanks, Jonah and Max. }

YouTube 5.0 for Android

YouTube 5.0 for Android brings a lot of new features. There's a new card-style layout that's consistent with other Google apps:

The player has fewer buttons:

You can search YouTube, check your subscriptions or the video history, all while watching a video. It's quite clever: the video is minimized when you tap the arrow from the top-left corner or swipe down and it continues to play. You can go back to the video by tapping the small player or swiping up. Unfortunately, this only works in the YouTube app, so don't expect to see the minimized player when you close the app.

There's a new interface in the landscape mode, but only for tablets. Until now, the video played in full-screen when you switched to landscape, but now the YouTube app shows suggested videos, comments and more. You can tap the full-screen button in both the portrait and landscape mode.

Other changes: a new app icon, no more +1 button, HD and CC toggles when you tap the overflow button (a strange decision), playlist search, a new slide-out navigation and more.

The new version is gradually rolled out, but you can manually download the APK file from here.

YouTube Tests Sticky Header

Google tests an oversized sticky header. It's a lot bigger than the existing header and it has a fixed position, so you can quickly use the search box, upload videos or open a playlist even when you scroll down.

Unfortunately, it's way too big:

YouTube also experiments with relocating the share button next to the like/dislike buttons and adding sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

How to enable these experiments? If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=JX5TVkqGL3I; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

In other related news, the channel cards seem to be publicly available.

{ via Techno-Net }

A YouTube Experiment Removes Ads

Update (August 23): this no longer works.

YouTube's experiments add new features or tweak the interface. Here's an experiment that does something unexpected: it removes the ads. After changing your cookie, you'll no longer see ads on the homepage, in search results, next to YouTube videos. The experiment also adds channel cards when you mouse over YouTube channel links.

This screenshot shows an ad at the top of my YouTube homepage:

When enabling this experiment, the ad disappears:

This also works for the in-stream video ads and the Homepage Roadblock ads. It's not clear why YouTube added this experiment. Maybe they want to see how people use the site if there are no ads.

How to enable the experiment? If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=oKckVSqvaGw; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

Obviously, there are many ways to hide or remove ads, so if you want to do that, there are better options than relying on an experiment that might no longer work at some point.

{ via Techno-Net }

YouTube Tests New Music Cards

YouTube experiments with a new format for the music artist box. Now it looks more like the Google Knowledge Graph card, it has more pictures, more songs, a list of related artists and a list of albums. Click an album and you'll start a playlist with all the songs from the album. Click a song and you can listen to all the other songs from the artist's playlist. Who needs Google Play Music All Access when you have YouTube?

Here's the existing layout:

There's also a new YouTube Mix interface that looks more like Google Music's radio feature. It's still a playlist, but it no longer shows numbers, there's an "up next" section, a "next video" button and the end of the list has a fading effect which suggests that there are other songs, but they're not yet displayed.

Here's the existing YouTube Mix:

How to enable the experiment? If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=CvMBBZAh_fw; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

{ Thanks, Yu-Hsuan Lin. }

YouTube's AJAX Interface, Live in Chrome

YouTube's AJAX interface seems to be publicly available, at least for Chrome users. Back in May, I noticed a red progress bar at the top of YouTube's pages when loading a new video: YouTube experimented with the HTML5 history.pushState to change the browser URL without reloading the page. Then YouTube's engineers detailed their plan to make YouTube pages load faster. In the new interface, the video player and the JavaScript/CSS files are only loaded once, so when you click a new link, YouTube only loads the HTML page and the video. This happens almost instantly.

For some reason, the AJAX interface currently launched by YouTube only works when you click a related video or when you load a playlist. It doesn't work yet for the homepage and search results.

YouTube's New Playlist Player

YouTube has a new interface for embedded playlists. Most people only embed videos, but you can also embed playlists.

The updated player has 2 buttons that show the playlist videos overlaid on top of the currently playing video. You can only scroll using the player's scrollbar, there's no support for keyboard shortcuts or mouse wheels. Click one of the videos from the list and the player still displays the list: you need to click one of the 2 playlist buttons to hide the list.

The playlist player has a "play all" button (don't click, it's just a screenshot).

Here's a YouTube playlist that shows how to use the new Google Maps:

The old playlist player displayed some thumbnails at the bottom of the video, so you could still see what's playing. It worked well for playlists with a few videos. The new player is better suited for playlists with many videos.

Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike by Steve Garfield.

{ Thanks, Michel. }

Mobile Gmail Enhances YouTube Links

Gmail's mobile site has a cool feature that adds video titles to all the YouTube links from a message. They're still links, but you know more about the videos before clicking them.

Here's an example from Gmail's mobile web app in Chrome for Android:

This also works in Gmail's iOS app and Gmail's mobile web app in other Android/iOS browsers. The message from this screenshot only included a link to a YouTube video, with no special anchor text.

YouTube Tests Unified Settings Control

YouTube tests a new version of the video player with a unified control for annotations, size, video quality and more.

I don't think it's a good idea to combine these settings because they become more difficult to find. Some player buttons show up only if they're useful (for example, the annotation button) and they let you disable feature with a single click. The unified control requires more clicks and doesn't show useful information at a glance.

{ Thanks, Yu-Hsuan Lin. }

YouTube's Geeky Easter Eggs

YouTube has some cool Easter Eggs that are related to the Geek Week. Here are some of them:

* start playing a random YouTube video and then type 1980. You'll need to defend the video and "blow those missiles out of the sky".

* start playing a random YouTube video and then type 1337. Comments will be translated into the leet "language" and will look like this: "w0w th1z 1z pr3ttj $w33t".

* open this video and click the POW! button from the player. The video now looks like a comic.

* search YouTube for [Fibonacci] and you'll learn about Fibonacci sequences and the golden ratio from a YouTube animation that uses video thumbnails.

* search for [ponies] and you'll see some cute ponies that are running.

* search YouTube for [Use the Force, Luke] and you'll see a crazy animation.

* search YouTube for [Beam me up, Scotty] and you'll see a Star Trek effect. "'Beam me up, Scotty' is a catchphrase that made its way into popular culture from the science fiction television series Star Trek. It comes from the command Captain Kirk gives his chief engineer, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, when he needs to be transported back to the Starship Enterprise."

This page shows all the Geek Week videos and a list of badges you can unlock. You need to find Easter eggs, take the Geek IQ test and watch videos to unlock all the badges. Follow YouTube's Google+ page for clues.

20 Things to Do Using YouTube's Embedded Player

Here are some things you can do from an embedded YouTube player:

1. like/unlike the video: use the thumbs up/down buttons from the top-right corner (you need to be logged in).

2. find the video's URL: right-click the video and click "copy video URL". You can also "copy video URL at current time".

3. find the embedding code: right-click the video and click "copy embed code".

4. share the video: use the share button from the top-right corner and click Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

5. read the video's description: click the "i" button from the top-right corner.

6. subscribe to the video's channel: click the "i" button from the top-right corner and then click the "subscribe" button.

7. find the number of views: click the "i" button from the top-right corner.

8. add the video to the "watch later" playlist: click the "clock" button next to the YouTube logo.

9. turn off annotations: click the conversation icon at the bottom.

10. enable captions: click the "CC" button. To disable them, click the same button and then "turn captions off".

11. move captions: use drag&drop to change their position.

12. change caption size: use + or - keyboard shortcuts. You can also change the caption's foreground/background colors and the font: click the "CC" button and pick "caption settings". Click "background" to enable the caption background (there's also a keyboard shortcut: b). Your settings are saved and YouTube will used them for other videos.

13. translate captions: click the "CC" button, then "translate captions" and pick a language.

14. open the video in full screen mode: click the "full screen" icon next to the YouTube logo.

15. change video quality: click the wheel icon and choose from auto, 144p, 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p, 1080p.

16. change the video's speed (only in the HTML5 player): click the wheel icon and choose from 0.25x, 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x, 2x.

17. check the stats: right-click the video and select "stats for nerds" to see the video's size, the number of frames per second, the number of dropped frames and other useful information.

18. open the video's YouTube page: click the title at the top of the player or the YouTube logo at the bottom.

19. use keyboard shortcuts (most shortcuts only work in the Flash player and they require that the video player has focus):

* k - pause/play the video
* m - mute/unmute the video
* f - full screen mode (Esc to exit)
* j or left arrow - seek backward 3 seconds
* l or right arrow - seek forward 3 seconds
* 0 - jump at the beginning of the video
* 1-9 - seek to the 10% to 90% of the video
* home/end - jump at the beginning/end of the video
* up/down arrows - increase/decrease volume by 5%

20. related videos: at the end of the video, you'll see a list of related videos and you can watch them in the embedded player. Mouse over the thumbnails to find more information about the videos.

Here's a video you can use to test these features: