Youtube to kill off annotations

[Alyce: Old Media Enthusiast]

www.theverge.com/2017/3/16/14953756/youtube-annotations-feature-discontinue-cards-end-screens

YouTube today announced that it will be replacing its annotations engine with what it calls End Screen and Cards, which are existing, mobile-first tools that provide many of the same functions as annotations like linking to other videos and polling viewers. YouTube says it made this change primarily because annotations didn’t work on mobile and most viewers found them obnoxious and unhelpful. The change takes effect on May 2nd, and existing annotations will continue to show up when using the desktop browser version of YouTube.

[The Thread Barbi]

Good.

[mcmahonfan85]

So they're finally going to make a change that actually improves YouTube?!

no way this is true

[Feargus McReddit]

I liked the idea of them but I watch most of my YouTube on my TV.

It felt REALLY jarring when you watched stuff on TV and nothing was on the screen for a good 30 seconds because there were supposed to be annotations.

Now, as someone who doesn't make YouTube videos, could you please let your creators know what on Earth is going on everywhere else? You're the present and future of entertainment, you don't see television executives change how their creators and showrunners do their shows without telling them well in advance.

[Hit Girl]

They should get rid of on-screen ads too. A banner elsewhere on the page would suffice.

Bringing back the old reply system would be welcome too. I cannot figure out the new shitty system that Google have inflicted on the site.

[Deleted]

So we're getting something similar on mobile? Great...

[Cranjis McBasketball]

First thing I do on a video is shut those off. So great.

[xCompackx]

I can pretty much guarantee you that if there's a mobile version that's anywhere near as intrusive and ugly as current YouTube annotations are, I'll be promptly deleting the app. I don't have a problem with those little pop-in things at the top, but you can f*** right off with things that obscure the screen.