Fixing Youtube Parts 1 and 2 Up!
Dec 24, 2013 14:22:38 GMT -8
Dokemon Studios, Pandora, and 4 more like this
Post by 9 on Dec 24, 2013 14:22:38 GMT -8
As a video maker, animator and general artist, I really value the use of websites to be able to share ideas over the world in an instant. I have two really major interests right now: art and video-making. The former is just fine for me, Deviantart is an extremely well-done site that hasn't crapped out on any features and functionality over style (at least yet. Hope I didn't just jinx it all for you ).
However, as of late, video-making has been incredibly problematic. I'm able to develop videos just fine, but being able to share anything is extremely difficult, what with the most popular video sharing website now, Youtube, having degenerated in terms of efficiency to that of a broken steam engine. In 2013. It's cluttered, out-of-date, difficult to operate for people who want substance over style, and while some people may like it, I don't.
The problem I've had recently was with posting a review of Daft Punk's Interstella 5555. Unfortunately, I've come across several pitfalls in sharing it. I recently left Youtube so I could post videos on Vimeo, and while it has data caps, I'd take it over Youtube any day. Too bad there are copyright issues. Great. Also applies to Dailymotion, too, where I just made an account for the sole purpose of uploading one video. Yes, it failed as well.
So now, I'm pretty much going to be a cynical asshole right now with the fact that in order for others to even see something I dedicated a lot of time and effort into, I had to upload it on a broken piece of crap, so I apologize if this essay will turn antagonistic. But still, I feel the need to do most people a service by explaining what the ideal video-sharing-website would look like.
This is just a rough interpretation, not really definitive, and as only a casual knower of HTML-code, I don't know how much of this would be realistically feasible, but this is just a casual-goer's interpretation of what Youtube SHOULD be.
------------Layout------------
First things first, and this should be the most painfully obvious thing ever. USE THE FREAKING <center> codes! Yes, the Google+ thing at the top is correctly placed, but for the rest of the homepage, you could at least center everything, or at the very least use the Justify-method to keep things symmetrical. Sure, you could just Ctrl-scroll to fix things, but casual goers don't know that, and is it really difficult to type <center> and </center>? Is it that hard?
While on the subject of the homepage, another thing that I'm getting extremely sick of is the Recommendation section. Look, I get it, you're using algorithms you use for your search engine and applying it to your history, finding videos that may be appealing to your consumers. I'm fine with it being on the sides of videos, as it does USUALLY integrate well with related videos (I say "usually," because I've been getting a lot of Stuart Ashen videos next to deadmau5 songs). The problem is that you PUT IT ABOVE THE SUBSCRIPTIONS. The thing that would be most efficient in a normal Youtube-dweller like I was is to open up the homepage and see whether or not my favorite video makers have uploaded anything new. Instead, the top of the screen is dedicated to stuff that I MAY like, rather than the stuff that I ALREADY like. Hell, I've even gotten reports, and have experienced, moments where the section RECOMMENDS THE USER'S OWN VIDEOS. Is that really hard to program out!? Unlike with Channel Recommendations, however, the general recommendation section cannot be deleted from the homepage; in fact, even though it already takes up a bunch of the screen (which I kind of have to do in order to make the page symmetrical and not as annoying in another way), it actually has a function to EXPAND THEM. I DON'T CARE ABOUT THESE VIDEOS, DAMNIT, LET ME SEE THE ONES I WANT TO SEE.
What I'm getting at here is that the recommendation system is completely garbage, and that it shouldn't be a thing that takes priority to videos a user already subscribes to. It can be used MINIMALLY for the sidebars to a currently-being-viewed video alongside the related videos, but otherwise, it doesn't help. It just annoys.
As for other things, I suggest reorganizing the clumps of features added together. There is no homepage link that directly leads to Channel Settings, the Inbox, or Analytics. Instead, in order for someone to see that, the user must click on his/her icon, click on Video Manager, and then find them noticed to the side in an unnamed clump of features. These are extremely basic features, and they shouldn't just be clumped away in the corner; if you're going to make a feature, then make it accessible. Just put a link to the inbox on the homepage. Is that really hard? Layout-wise, mostly everything else is functional, but for basic features that should help users grow, I feel that we shouldn't have to look incredibly far just to find them.
Lastly: User channels. I could join the bandwagon with people saying that recent Youtube One's layout is bland, incredibly standardized and just plain ugly, and while I do dislike it, that's not the reason why I hate it so much. For those developers who have long since forgotten the original developers' concepts, Youtube is meant to be YOU. As in, every person is an individual in his/her own way. It's supposed to be a site where people share simple home movies or share extravagant productions, NOT to make money by doing those things (I'll get to that later.). People should be able to express themselves in their own ways with their own tastes, and I can't believe I have to explain why they're not helped by extreme standardizing into a slow layout and a single banner. It's still expression, yes, but compare it when entire color schemes, backgrounds, etc. were around. I can't suggest completely customizable channel layouts; that'd be a mess in a different way. But if you're going to commit to an idea, as in the one in the freaking title of the site, then commit to it.
------------Streaming------------
This is a really technical problem, so I'm just going to simplify it here; the buffering is appalling. I have a really well set-up internet system, so I don't personally have much problems at home.
However, it brings another problem; not everybody has good internet connection. Some people can't get a download rate of 20MBps. But still, even with semi-crappy 4-year-old high school computers, how come every time I right click a Youtube video and read "Show Video Info," it says I'm only getting 300KBps? This article:http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/why-youtube-buffers-the-secret-deals-that-make-and-break-online-video/ will do a much better job explaining my basic issues, but I can't understand why the buffer size only has a length of 3-4 SECONDS, despite allowing UNLIMITED BUFFERING on NON-STREAMED videos! Hell, let's just say that I want to go back a few seconds in a video to rewatch a funny moment or something that I misheard and wanted to hear again. Thanks to the idiotic DASH playback issues, based on a system which wasn't even needed in earlier years, it FORGETS EVERYTHING BUFFERED AND HAS TO LOAD IT ALL OVER AGAIN. Funnily enough, it doesn't even seem to be an ISP problem, because pre-video ads stream just fine. That's not suspicious at all.
And it seems like Google apparently WANTS this. To those of you not in the know, github.com/YePpHa/YouTubeCenter is an extension developed to remove Dash playback and make things a lot less unbearable, but in response, Google reworked the whole quality systems, resulting in two things: quality that constantly fluxuates between 1080p to 144p for absolutely no reason whatsoever, AND disabling 480p and 1080p without DASH, extension or not. So basically, Google's idea of making things better for their customers is by fixing them on a system that is broken, and then punishing them for going another way.
It's like asking someone to come in a house, only to berate him for breaking in a window when the door is in the ceiling.
Hell, I'm even seeing buffering required for loading the comments section! Yeah, I bet that Google+ integration is making things even better isn't it?
My suggestions here is get rid of the freaking DASH. It's not helping anyone, it's indistinguishable in terms of the amount of benefits it gives if it wasn't there, and it's just an overall annoyance. Again, I'm not an HTML genius, and I don't know how to code in video players, but surely there must be a way to actually fix things that people are complaining about. And punishing them for trying to get around your own problems and making them just accept them isn't making them like you. At all.
However, as of late, video-making has been incredibly problematic. I'm able to develop videos just fine, but being able to share anything is extremely difficult, what with the most popular video sharing website now, Youtube, having degenerated in terms of efficiency to that of a broken steam engine. In 2013. It's cluttered, out-of-date, difficult to operate for people who want substance over style, and while some people may like it, I don't.
The problem I've had recently was with posting a review of Daft Punk's Interstella 5555. Unfortunately, I've come across several pitfalls in sharing it. I recently left Youtube so I could post videos on Vimeo, and while it has data caps, I'd take it over Youtube any day. Too bad there are copyright issues. Great. Also applies to Dailymotion, too, where I just made an account for the sole purpose of uploading one video. Yes, it failed as well.
So now, I'm pretty much going to be a cynical asshole right now with the fact that in order for others to even see something I dedicated a lot of time and effort into, I had to upload it on a broken piece of crap, so I apologize if this essay will turn antagonistic. But still, I feel the need to do most people a service by explaining what the ideal video-sharing-website would look like.
This is just a rough interpretation, not really definitive, and as only a casual knower of HTML-code, I don't know how much of this would be realistically feasible, but this is just a casual-goer's interpretation of what Youtube SHOULD be.
------------Layout------------
First things first, and this should be the most painfully obvious thing ever. USE THE FREAKING <center> codes! Yes, the Google+ thing at the top is correctly placed, but for the rest of the homepage, you could at least center everything, or at the very least use the Justify-method to keep things symmetrical. Sure, you could just Ctrl-scroll to fix things, but casual goers don't know that, and is it really difficult to type <center> and </center>? Is it that hard?
While on the subject of the homepage, another thing that I'm getting extremely sick of is the Recommendation section. Look, I get it, you're using algorithms you use for your search engine and applying it to your history, finding videos that may be appealing to your consumers. I'm fine with it being on the sides of videos, as it does USUALLY integrate well with related videos (I say "usually," because I've been getting a lot of Stuart Ashen videos next to deadmau5 songs). The problem is that you PUT IT ABOVE THE SUBSCRIPTIONS. The thing that would be most efficient in a normal Youtube-dweller like I was is to open up the homepage and see whether or not my favorite video makers have uploaded anything new. Instead, the top of the screen is dedicated to stuff that I MAY like, rather than the stuff that I ALREADY like. Hell, I've even gotten reports, and have experienced, moments where the section RECOMMENDS THE USER'S OWN VIDEOS. Is that really hard to program out!? Unlike with Channel Recommendations, however, the general recommendation section cannot be deleted from the homepage; in fact, even though it already takes up a bunch of the screen (which I kind of have to do in order to make the page symmetrical and not as annoying in another way), it actually has a function to EXPAND THEM. I DON'T CARE ABOUT THESE VIDEOS, DAMNIT, LET ME SEE THE ONES I WANT TO SEE.
What I'm getting at here is that the recommendation system is completely garbage, and that it shouldn't be a thing that takes priority to videos a user already subscribes to. It can be used MINIMALLY for the sidebars to a currently-being-viewed video alongside the related videos, but otherwise, it doesn't help. It just annoys.
As for other things, I suggest reorganizing the clumps of features added together. There is no homepage link that directly leads to Channel Settings, the Inbox, or Analytics. Instead, in order for someone to see that, the user must click on his/her icon, click on Video Manager, and then find them noticed to the side in an unnamed clump of features. These are extremely basic features, and they shouldn't just be clumped away in the corner; if you're going to make a feature, then make it accessible. Just put a link to the inbox on the homepage. Is that really hard? Layout-wise, mostly everything else is functional, but for basic features that should help users grow, I feel that we shouldn't have to look incredibly far just to find them.
Lastly: User channels. I could join the bandwagon with people saying that recent Youtube One's layout is bland, incredibly standardized and just plain ugly, and while I do dislike it, that's not the reason why I hate it so much. For those developers who have long since forgotten the original developers' concepts, Youtube is meant to be YOU. As in, every person is an individual in his/her own way. It's supposed to be a site where people share simple home movies or share extravagant productions, NOT to make money by doing those things (I'll get to that later.). People should be able to express themselves in their own ways with their own tastes, and I can't believe I have to explain why they're not helped by extreme standardizing into a slow layout and a single banner. It's still expression, yes, but compare it when entire color schemes, backgrounds, etc. were around. I can't suggest completely customizable channel layouts; that'd be a mess in a different way. But if you're going to commit to an idea, as in the one in the freaking title of the site, then commit to it.
------------Streaming------------
This is a really technical problem, so I'm just going to simplify it here; the buffering is appalling. I have a really well set-up internet system, so I don't personally have much problems at home.
However, it brings another problem; not everybody has good internet connection. Some people can't get a download rate of 20MBps. But still, even with semi-crappy 4-year-old high school computers, how come every time I right click a Youtube video and read "Show Video Info," it says I'm only getting 300KBps? This article:http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/07/why-youtube-buffers-the-secret-deals-that-make-and-break-online-video/ will do a much better job explaining my basic issues, but I can't understand why the buffer size only has a length of 3-4 SECONDS, despite allowing UNLIMITED BUFFERING on NON-STREAMED videos! Hell, let's just say that I want to go back a few seconds in a video to rewatch a funny moment or something that I misheard and wanted to hear again. Thanks to the idiotic DASH playback issues, based on a system which wasn't even needed in earlier years, it FORGETS EVERYTHING BUFFERED AND HAS TO LOAD IT ALL OVER AGAIN. Funnily enough, it doesn't even seem to be an ISP problem, because pre-video ads stream just fine. That's not suspicious at all.
And it seems like Google apparently WANTS this. To those of you not in the know, github.com/YePpHa/YouTubeCenter is an extension developed to remove Dash playback and make things a lot less unbearable, but in response, Google reworked the whole quality systems, resulting in two things: quality that constantly fluxuates between 1080p to 144p for absolutely no reason whatsoever, AND disabling 480p and 1080p without DASH, extension or not. So basically, Google's idea of making things better for their customers is by fixing them on a system that is broken, and then punishing them for going another way.
It's like asking someone to come in a house, only to berate him for breaking in a window when the door is in the ceiling.
Hell, I'm even seeing buffering required for loading the comments section! Yeah, I bet that Google+ integration is making things even better isn't it?
My suggestions here is get rid of the freaking DASH. It's not helping anyone, it's indistinguishable in terms of the amount of benefits it gives if it wasn't there, and it's just an overall annoyance. Again, I'm not an HTML genius, and I don't know how to code in video players, but surely there must be a way to actually fix things that people are complaining about. And punishing them for trying to get around your own problems and making them just accept them isn't making them like you. At all.