Streaming site YouTube has introduced a new facility for adding annotations to videos, which it hopes will provide greater flexibility than the familiar boxes that can be inserted into uploads by their creators.
As of Monday, 16th March, people uploading onto the site have been able to add ‘cards’ to their videos. With YouTube noting that creators have been irked by the lack of flexibility annotations offer, together with their inability to work across multiple screens, it will no doubt be welcome news to many that the cards are mobile optimised.
Cards are described as “an evolution of annotations” on the YouTube Creator Blog. Designed to be more aesthetically pleasing than the text boxes users of the site will be accustomed to, a further advantage of the new service is that they can be set to appear at any time rather than at determined intervals.
YouTube has unveiled six styles of cards, with the Merchandise and Associated Website offerings likely to be of most use to companies using video content to boost sales or direct viewers to their website. Those with a large body of YouTube content may find the Playlist option useful, and nonprofit groups are likely to benefit most from Fundraising cards.
With mobile ecommerce traffic having overtaken desktop last summer, those who use YouTube for internet marketing will no doubt welcome the apparent increased flexibility of cards as they look to move in sync with the shift towards mobile browsing and capitalise on web sales trends.
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