Enhancing (UX+Revenue), the Google way: From Youtube’s “Chapters” to “Products in this video”
Ever wondered why most of the Google products are free?
Ever wondered why most of the Google products are free?
Technically, they are not! You are not paying in cash or credit because Google operates in a different currency — Data.
A couple of decades ago data’s coins were priceless, lying in the storage devices until companies like Google started realizing the value of this unused pile.
Today, Data = Money
To satisfy the above equation, companies like Google use this data to target advertisements to the user in a quest to get more conversion.
More money -> more greed -> more demand for data
Where is this data coming from?
Going mathematically, for most of the products,
Data = (Number of users) x (User Engagement)
The number of users here can be cross-platform. Google has embedded so deeply in our lives that not even a single person using anything smarter than a feature phone is spared by its dependency. The peeps at Mountainview have built brilliant products to get their users addicted to the Google ecosystem. This addiction has given Google the freedom to experiment on specific platforms without worrying much about the revenue.
From Drive to Youtube, any minute user engagement is noticed and acted upon. And interestingly, the data collected from Drive, Search, etc. can also be used to push Youtube ads. Apart from this, there are many other examples that broader is the Google’s ecosystem, more is the revenue.
To increase user engagement, Google makes sure that its products are built brilliantly. But, looking from the eagle’s view, improving user experience and pushing targeted ads to the users can be contradictory at times. For example- showing more ads on Youtube videos can bring in some extra cash, but will eventually affect the user experience.
Let’s have a look at the latest example from Youtube.
Youtube Chapters
On April 10 2020, Youtube started testing its “Chapters” feature.
Chapters allow you to jump forward to a specific section of the video, rewatch a portion of the video, and more. Chapters appear at the bottom of the video player and use timestamps from the creator’s video description.
Analysing it from the user’s perspective, it makes it really easy for the user to get an overview of the contents of the video and on top of it, browse through them with ease. Rather than seeking through the whole video, users can just hover over the brick-shaped divisions on the seek bar and get the title of that particular chapter along with the preview.
This feature has multiple use cases. The major ones are-
Educational Videos: Many times, we only need to learn a specific concept of a vast topic. In this case, without chapters, we will have to seek through the whole video or at least in bits to hit the right timestamp.
Compilation videos: Compilations can also be organised by chapters. For example, there is a video on “Top 10 live performances by Imagine Dragons”. And a person wants to listen to a specific song, let’s say “Believer”. Here, chapters will come into play. The whole video will become like a playlist of short clips.
Top “n” products: A bit like compilations, the videos featuring top products of a particular domain can also be organised by chapters. There are thousands of videos dropping in on “Top 10 Mobiles” every month. Now for someone who is looking for a phone must be knowing about the famous ones, and would love to skip to the unknown ones.
Although this will definitely enhance the user experience, it might affect the revenue. Users will now directly navigate to the important parts of the, ignoring the in-video ads placed to fetch money. In fact, total time number of minutes watched will also decrease by a bit.
Looking at the broader perspective, the enhancement in the distribution of traffic over the total duration will help the creators and Youtube to monitor the interesting parts of the video. Youtube can, in turn, stuff more ads into the most popular chapters in a quest to get more number of clicks.
The loss of total time engaged on a creator’s video will be accommodated by enhanced visibility of their video on the platform. Adding timestamps into description was already used and recommended by many Youtubers to get on the top of the searches. If supported by Google’s overall recommendations, targeting ads in specific chapters will also enhance their earnings. For example, a user with a search history of the iPhone can be stuffed with more ads in the iPhone’s chapter of a “Top 10 smartphones” video.
This was followed by the “Products in this video” feature.
Products in this video
On April 28 2020, Youtube started testing its “Products in this video” feature. According to the official release-
To help viewers discover products, we’re running a small experiment that will show to some viewers which products are mentioned in the video with new visual elements (overlayed on the video and below the video).
Through this move, Google has enhanced its presence in other similar revenue streams apart from ads, which they started long back in 2015 with the launch of Google Shopping. Like many other products, Google will earn a huge chunk of money through affiliates by just presenting the right things at the right place, something in which they specialise. It is something similar to the TrueView then launched back last year-
It is interesting to note how chapters will help in the inception of this. Let’s recall our example of “Top 10 Smartphones”. To present affiliated ads in the video, Youtube needs to make sure that creators properly write the video description. Mentioning timestamps for each product would be a cherry on top.
A creator, who is aware of both of these, will have a decent motivation to mention timestamps and chapter’s titles because-
1. Looks cool
2. Better visibility in search
3. More revenue through chapter-targeted ads and affiliates.
Youtube, in its recent moves, is trying to urge the creators to upload the video in a structured form. This has helped its parent Google for years, as it has been an expert in directing and improving its data acquisition channels.
P.S. I will be keeping a track of such small moves by the products that we use in our daily lives, follow for more :)
About the author
Vishant is an undergrad student at IIT Varanasi. He loves tech and enjoys learning about new technologies and their use cases in various domains. A curious technocrat since childhood, he has worked on various projects involving different technologies like AI, AR, Blockchain, etc. You can find him on LinkedIn. Ohh wait, he loves food too :)
You can reach him out at- vishant.batta.phe17@iitbhu.ac.in
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