Written by Chris Albrecht
Posted Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 9:38 AM PT

 

Pop-Up Video Comes to YouTube

YouTube has unveiled a new tool, Video Annotations, which, according to YouTube, allows creators to:

  • Add background information about the video
  • Create stories with multiple possibilities (viewers click to the next scene)
  • Link to related YouTube videos, channels, or search results from within a video

Annotations are only available in English and don’t work with embedded videos at this point, but you can see them being put to use in this skydiving video, magic card trick and this interactive shell game.

There are other companies such as Asterpix and Videoclix offering more robust versions of interactive video, but YouTube’s adoption brings these tools to the masses. Now you can know the backstory of that piano-playing cat, and we could be on the verge of a rebirth of choose-your-own-adventure stories (do you want the skater to get kicked or punched in the nuts?).

As Jackson points out over on Valleywag, the bummer about this program is that creators can only link out to other YouTube videos, eliminating the possibility of interactive product placement.

But for everyday people who want to add a little more to their vacation videos, this should be a lot of fun.

 

Sphere
Topic: Online Video, Software
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Comments & Trackbacks

  1. Here’s a good how-to video on youtube annotations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXtwUrKwK3g

    David Rodriguez on June 4th, 2008 at 10:20 am - Permalink

  2. [...] Enlace: YouTube Video Annotations Fuente: NewTeeVee [...]

    despuesdegoogle » Blog Archive » YouTube añade interactividad a sus vídeos on June 4th, 2008 at 10:54 am - Permalink

  3. I found a site called http://www.bubbleply.com that’s been doing this pop-up thing for awhile with much more functions. It’s cool that youtube does it now but it’s not new.

    Jason on June 4th, 2008 at 11:37 am - Permalink

  4. ha ha, it’s just like the VH1 show

    fauxgentleman on June 4th, 2008 at 5:35 pm - Permalink

  5. [...] YouTube announced new capability to append various notes and pop up messages within its videos. This will let video [...]

    Kelsey Group Blogs » Product Placement Comes Closer into Focus, Part II on June 5th, 2008 at 12:29 am - Permalink

  6. [...] this but really the whole idea and a lot of thinking behind it are not new (See recent posts from New TeeVee + ReadWriteWeb or read some of Adrian Miles’ thoughts on the subject) . Even this example is, [...]

    REPORTS FROM THE FUTURE » Blog Archive » Rupert’s Interactive Hyper-Videoblog Story on July 23rd, 2008 at 8:31 am - Permalink

  7. [...] string them together. The tool also allows users to add comments within the video (similar to the Video Annotations tool that YouTube launched earlier this [...]

    Google Buys Omnisio for YouTube « NewTeeVee on July 30th, 2008 at 2:36 pm - Permalink

  8. This is an interactive animated short film using Youtube annotations…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZzlezxLu7s

    Patrick on August 21st, 2008 at 8:17 am - Permalink

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