YouTube Releases Its First-Ever Recap of Videos You've Watched (techcrunch.com) 61
YouTube has launched its first-ever "Recap" for videos watched on the main platform, giving users personalized cards that showcase their top channels, interests, and a personality type based on their watch habits. The feature rolls out across North America today and globally this week. TechCrunch reports: Users can find their Recap directly on the YouTube homepage or under the "You" tab. Recaps are accessible on mobile devices and desktop. YouTube says the new feature was requested by users and that it conducted over 50 different concept tests before landing on the final product. Alongside the launch of Recap, YouTube also released trend charts showcasing the top creators, podcasts, and songs of the year.
More Junk (Score:5, Insightful)
If I want to keep track of things I either subscribe or I put it into a playlist etc
File it under: Creepy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:File it under: Creepy (Score:4, Funny)
If you're gone too long they'll start showing you ads for constipation remedies.
Re: File it under: Creepy (Score:3)
Or worse, snippets of my midgets-in-peanutbutter soft porn when guests walk by.
Re: (Score:3)
Timeout: 2 minutes, 32 seconds. Time threshold for urination VS defecation: 1 minute, 27 seconds. Deification probability: 77.5%.
I've heard of excrement fetishes, but "deification"? That's extreme even to the broad-minded person I fancy myself to be... ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
I *think* that I almost never buy things based on advertisement. But I think I bought a ground.news subscription after seeing several in-video ads on channels that I like. So far I'm not impressed. But in-video ads are one of the worst trends (especially as I pay for google Premium to block ads on all devices and for my children). If I can, I generally avoid companies that advertise at all, unless I already have an affiliation with the bra
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
If she's pressed Pause in the Youtube app on her smart tv, its likely that either youtube, or the tv itself are playing ads, albeit to an empty room.
Re: (Score:2)
Why would folks stay logged in to Youtube? (Score:2)
But for casual users, why? I mostly view videos embedded on other sites, no account needed. Sometimes I'll run a long video in a different tab to listen to an interview or something, still no account needed. I see no reason to care about being logged in.
If this is them "adding value to the logged-in experience", yeah, still no reason.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably so you can be quickly notified about when the channels you subscribed to post fresh content.
It's quite effective, as I find that I get notified about new videos just minutes after they're posted. Give me a chance to post a comment on the video that people will actually read, instead of getting buried in the other 2,000 comments for a popular video.
Re: (Score:2)
Channel subscriptions, and I have my own channel that I manage.
I don't use that Google account for anything else though, so there's that. It's not logged in to my smartphone either. I have a throwaway account that holds my contacts in case I lose or break my phone. I got tired of re-entering the contacts by hand each time I got a new phone, so I gave up on staying logged out entirely on the smartphone.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How do you find content? External sites? Whatever Youtube is recommending everyone?
Most casual users will subscribe to channels that they like so they can find the content they want to watch
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How do you find content? External sites? Whatever Youtube is recommending everyone?
I know what I want to watch, so I go and search for it!
Youtube is quite handy in providing all kinds of guidance, e.g. lately how to replace a capacitor in my receiver, how to fell a tree, or how to get grub back, when windows took over the boot process. That doesn't mean I would have any desire to subscribe to an electronics, lumberjack or windows tips channel.
I have a life, I do not need random "content" to fill it with.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you consume other media the same way? If you want to watch a TV show about doctors you just search Netflix for "doctor show"? If you want a jazz song you search itunes for "jazz song"?
Seems like an inefficient way, but I guess your "life" is very busy!
Re: (Score:2)
Do you consume other media the same way? If you want to watch a TV show about doctors you just search Netflix for "doctor show"? If you want a jazz song you search itunes for "jazz song"?
Seems like an inefficient way, but I guess your "life" is very busy!
You confuse information search with entertainment. Like I said, I have a life outside digital world, wouldn't waste it on some "entertainment content" from Youtube. So yes, it is much more efficient to search for "how to fix a bootloader" video than to subscribe to a Windows tips and tricks channel and wait, if such a video pops up.
Re: (Score:2)
What do you do for entertainment then? Hoop on a stick?
Do you subscribe to cable? Have favorite channels? Follow bands?
It's hard to imagine someone going through life without having reoccurring interests in a content creator
Re: (Score:2)
What do you do for entertainment then? Hoop on a stick?
For entertainment? Maybe a live gig, occasionally a Netflix movie (no series). For pastime, running, orienteering, swimming, forestry (lumberjack thing), hiking, whatever. Outdoors mostly.
It's hard to imagine someone going through life without having reoccurring interests in a content creator
We are worlds apart.
Re: (Score:2)
Surprising you're on slashdot instead of lumberjacking. Just makes your claims a little bit...extraordinary
Users are marketing features for their real custom (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
no one fucking cares what you watched or listened to over the year. literally no one. not even you. you might glance at it for a minute or two at most but it doesn't matter it doesnt mean anything and most importantly - say it with me - NO. ONE. CARES.
NO. ONE. CARES..to PAY for shit online they use constantly.
Therefore, the ones that DO pay for all that are doing something to recoup their costs.
Lets all try and remember American GDP is derived from clickbait now. And I really don't see an obvious exception for you here, Product.
Re: (Score:2)
will you shut the fuck up??
your comment has no connection to mine. fuck off and start your own thread you fucking loser.
Say it with feeling this time. NO. ONE. CARES.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is one of the reasons I would be in favor of legislation requiring companies to pick a revenue stream and stick with it. Charge customers for the service OR give it away and sell the data OR run ads. No more combinations. No more running ads on paid services, no more harvesting data and running ads, no selling data for paid subscribers.
Re: (Score:3)
hopefully not... (Score:2)
Hopefully not if you've left your YouTube watch history turned off.
Go to your Google Account settings, click "my activity" and then there is a button for YouTube history where you can disable it if you don't want them needlessly collecting data about your watch habits.
This will however make your YouTube landing page blank. But your subscription page for following channels still works the same.
Re: (Score:3)
How do you know that merely doesn't disable displaying your watch history to you but they keep track of it anyway?
Re: (Score:2)
Knowing Google, it's quite the possibility. To avoid that, you would need to stay logged out, use private browsing in a browser that isn't chrome, and use proxies to vary your IP address, and probably randomly spoof your browser type and OS type to avoid other methods of profiling. I don't think I care that much.
Re: (Score:2)
I think you know...that they do exactly that, just like Apple leaves their devices listening even when you configure SirI to be off. Of course they do.
What I'd like is that, given YouTube knows what you've watched, that it stop recommending your watched videos. But that would be a feature for MY benefit, not Google's.
Re: (Score:2)
"... that it stop recommending your watched videos."
I get surprised by the number of recently watched vids it displays (once or twice a session or so). But whatever, it doesn't affect my flow.
And actually I like when an old favorite occasionally scrolls across. I expect in thirty years all the old 'tubers will be watching favorite AI curated videos of their youth, and enjoying it "because it's not like the crap the new generation is putting out".
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not an important enough person for Google to care what I'm watching on their platform. Take my data. Use it to recommend videos I might like. Show me ads for things I might want to buy. I'm totally fine with it.
I'm sure someone cares but (Score:2, Offtopic)
I really don't want this "feature". What I want is for existing features to work correctly.
For example, automated subtitling. For some reason the subtitles sometimes just stop coming for a while, then you get half a minute's subtitles all at once so you have to pause to read them. I've been watching foreign content lately and I depend on this functionality to understand what's happening, and it often just doesn't work right.
If Google could just pull their head out of their ass long enough to make their serv
Re: (Score:2)
YouTube? Anybody still cares? (Score:2, Informative)
That is somewhat surprising to me. They are 95% crap these days.
Nobody asked for this but... (Score:3)
Nobody asked for this but legions of YT creators have been screaming for fairer moderation and an appeals process that works. Even more YT viewers have been asking for an end to the relentless onslaught of crappy AI-generated scam ads for obviously bogus "7 second health hacks", fake AC units, ridiculously ineffective heaters, pressure-washers, robot dogs that are just stuffed animals, etc, etc. Don't even get me started on AI-slop.
Last time I complained about a scam ad, @teamyoutube told me just to block it. Yeah, that's right, if I don't want to watch these obviously fake scam ads it's up to *me* to block them. But if I use an ad-blocker -- oh no, that's not allowed!
It seems that YT spends far too much time working on the "nice to haves" and nowhere near enough working on the "need to haves".
The future of user-generated VOD is not YouTube. Big changes are coming to that part of the market quite soon, lead by open-source software that supports self-hosting along with multiple access and monetization portals. Stay tuned, this will be big and YouTube will regret its infatuation with AI, short-form content and repurposed video from other media.
BAH (Score:2)
Really? Are ya sure about that? (Score:3)
YouTube says the new feature was requested by users...
I cast disbelieve. Nobody fucking requests recaps. I'll sometimes poke at my history specifically to find that video by that one band that I remember being good, but can't remember the name of, but I *NEVER* want a summary recap of my history. This sounds more like some marketing department wet dream come to life than something any normal user would request.
We're almost to the point where it seems we'll be getting recaps of our recaps on top of our recaps to recap our recap from the previous years' recaps.
Re: (Score:2)
YouTube says the new feature was requested by users...
Google's motto was once: Don't be evil
YouTube's motto is now: Don't be honest
Oh what a helpful reminder! (Score:2)
What a nice way to make it seem like they're doing you a favor instead of spying on you all the damn time.
Badger badger badger badger (Score:1)
Look, I know which video I watched.
Are they going to tell me how many times I watched it?
Fix the broken playback speed! (Score:2)
They completely broke the playback speed feature which was a great way to overcome slow talkers. I can't be 100% sure but I think that it may either be controllable by the content creator or by YouTube because some videos have it but new stuff doesn't. It's almost like "no, you can't speed up this painfully slow video because we don't want you to until it's old and out of date." Like not being able to skip over commercials.
Really? (Score:2)
Then it KNOWS which videos I have already watched and STILL offers them to me as 'new' without any indication that it is old crap I watched 5 or 10 years ago?
I don't want a recap (Score:2)
I want AI tools that help me find the videos I'm interested in, whether or not they are popular or monetized
Now if PornHub would do this (Score:2)
then it might not be such a bad idea maybe, my friend tells me.
"First-Ever Recap of Videos You've Watched" (Score:2)
What is next, a forced re cap interrupting streams your watching. Recapping all the commercials you may have missed, but really wanted to see!
creepy (Score:2)
>"giving users personalized cards that showcase their top channels, interests, and a personality type based on their watch habits."
There are reasons I have never logged into YouTube and watch everything as a non-user. They still learn and show related or relevant stuff, but probably just tied to a generic cookie s897fds8d7fds89sdf7sdfs9v8ds7df89a0b
Re: (Score:2)
You do realize whenever you do login, they connect the unknown user tracking to your login. Maybe a weaker weighting but they'd be fools to not circumvent your feeble attempt to stop them. Oh, I mean gmail and other google properties. Why would they not?
Re: (Score:2)
>"You do realize whenever you do login, they connect the unknown user tracking to your login"
On this machine, my main home Linux desktop, I have never logged into to ANY Google service/site at any time, ever.
You mean first 'public' release. (Score:2)