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14/11/2012 19:45:48

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257
Hello Folks!

If you have seen my latest video " The Subscription Duck" then you may be thinking " What the hell was all that about?"
Well, I was trying out the YouTube annotations feature which allows the user to create hotspots on videos which can be linked to websites, videos or in this case the subscription page for my YouTube channel.
This feature can be utilised to create some pretty cool interactive videos and is fairly easy to do!
If you would like a little "how to" tutorial video flung together explaining the process then let me know.

Here's my latest offering showing what I'm talking about, hope you enjoy and subscribe

Cheers
D

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15/11/2012 03:23:49

InsaneHamster
InsaneHamster
Posts: 272
Whenever you offer a tutorial oh great one, I will anxiously accept Would love to see how you done it and thanks for explaning what the video was about lol. I done scratched a bald spot on my head wondering what was going on hehehe.
edited by InsaneHamster on 15/11/2012
edited by InsaneHamster on 15/11/2012
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15/11/2012 08:29:09

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257
InsaneHamster wrote:
I done scratched a bald spot on my head wondering what was going on hehehe.


I think most of my videos have that effect on people!
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15/11/2012 11:28:11

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257
Ah! I've just noticed that annotations don't work on the Muvizu page! why is this and can it be corrected to do so?
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15/11/2012 11:33:49

IanSExperimental userMuvizu staff
IanS
Posts: 139
Dreeko, I can see the hotspot on the duck both in the forum above and in the gallery. There's a speech-bubble type button at the bottom of the player to turn it on and off. It's maybe turned off by default though here, I'd need to check
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15/11/2012 14:39:53

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257
IanS wrote:
Dreeko, I can see the hotspot on the duck both in the forum above and in the gallery. There's a speech-bubble type button at the bottom of the player to turn it on and off. It's maybe turned off by default though here, I'd need to check



Ah! thanks! that seems to be the problem!
It is off by default!

Can that be changes at some point?
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15/11/2012 15:05:03

WozToonsExperimental user
WozToons
Posts: 494
Would love a tutorial on this if you have the time Dreeko.
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15/11/2012 16:15:05

Lev_Dynamite
Lev_Dynamite
Posts: 157
IanS wrote:
Dreeko, I can see the hotspot on the duck both in the forum above and in the gallery. There's a speech-bubble type button at the bottom of the player to turn it on and off. It's maybe turned off by default though here, I'd need to check
The annotations load automatically for me on the YouTube site and here on the forum, but I think that depends on YouTube user settings. The reason annotations don't load automatically for anyone in the Gallery is because they are switched off by default in the Gallery.The bit of code that says "&iv_load_policy=3" stops annotations from being loaded by default - changing it to "&iv_load_policy=1" will load annotations right off the bat.
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15/11/2012 16:22:02

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257
thanks Lev. would be nice if the gallery annotations could be turned on by default also!
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15/11/2012 17:00:52

Lev_Dynamite
Lev_Dynamite
Posts: 157
Dreeko wrote:
thanks Lev. would be nice if the gallery annotations could be turned on by default also!
I think the iffy bit about this is that some villains may try to sneak dodgy links into annotations, which can be done even some time after we've approved the video for inclusion in our Gallery, and I imagine we'd be a bit wary to allow something which so easily allows damaging content to be embedded on our site. I'll swing a suggestion over to the web team and see what they say, since annotations are such a big part of YouTube now, but if they said it was a bit too risky business for their liking then I'd definitely see where they'd be coming from with that!
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15/11/2012 17:26:21

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257
..but if they are on by default in the forum pages isn't the "evil link" problem already there? Turning them on in the gallery pages will just allow interactive features to be available. If some evil do-er puts a dodgy link in then surely you would just delete the video from Muvizu altogether?
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15/11/2012 18:31:44

urbanlamb
urbanlamb
(Account inactive)
Posts: 1786
we already see a lot of dodgy stuff on this site via twitter links on the weekend especially every other link I click on is pron related or leading to some scam to get money out of people (disabled clickbank accounts by the time I click) . The reality is its already happening. It really will not be much different on the videos in fact I see it of less of an issue because your moderating the videos before posting them. I no longer watermark my stuff and I often include little graphics that take advantage of the annotations on youtube for things like subscribe but they are turned off by default here. I turn them on myself when watching others videos but that is because I am aware they exist. In any event if something like that happens it would be moderated away I would think and to be honest it likely going to be less of an issue then we already have with the weekend twitter pron which I stare at for 2 days until someone comes in and moderates it away or it gets drowned out by real muvizu twitters.
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16/11/2012 10:09:13

KerryK
KerryK
(Account inactive)
Posts: 176
Hey urbanlamb! You're totally right - we've been trying to figure out a way to block these spammers without compromising the whole twitter stream. Sadly, the spamming is getting worse - especially at the weekends when we're not as over the twitter feed as during the week. We may have come up with a work around but sadly, it means some changes to the rules. Hopefully this will stem the tide of spammers getting on our feed.

It really annoys and frustrates me - we block and report as spam as often as they come up but - that's the internet for you sometimes. And sometimes this is why we can't have nice things. At least on the weekends.
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16/11/2012 10:28:21

Lev_Dynamite
Lev_Dynamite
Posts: 157
The problem with annotations is that - as far as I'm aware - they can be added any time after a YouTube video has been uploaded. So even though we can screen a video and approve or disapprove it for acceptance in the Gallery before it hits the live site, and it can look fine at the time of approval, there's nothing to stop someone adding a malicious link the next day, the next week, the next decade, etc.
Saying "just remove the bad videos, then" isn't quite as easy a solution as it sounds, either - we'd like to remove any inappropriate content before it can be found by and affect one of our users, because we lurv you all so much, and with something that can be changed at any time like YouTube annotations that would require constantly re-viewing every single video in the Gallery every day. As amazing as that would be for your YouTube view counts, I don't think it's something we can do!
I know we already get some undesirable content sneaking in via the Twitter feed, but I think our mentality is probably more "let's try and sort that out and keep everything else as in check as possible" and less "well, that's gone to hell so let's just allow anarchy to rule all over the joint"!

Again, though, this is me just playing devil's advocate. My own personal stance is actually to just allow annotations and if someone is stupid enough to click a random link then they deserve all the bad things that happen to them in this life. Thumbs Up This opinion does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Muvizu as a whole!
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16/11/2012 10:36:47

JamieMuvizu staff
Jamie
(Account inactive)
Posts: 609
You guys know that the annotation / link system from youtube only allows you to link to other youtube videos, subscription pages, channels and playlists?

It's not as bad as the points UrbanLamb has highlighted with the twitter feed, for example.

Though, you can already put any link in the description of a video, and that would show up on Muvizu without anyone knowing (as it can also be updated any time in the future as well). Thats what the Report Abuse link is for.

I think the general point for discussion here is not where the links in annotations point to but rather should they be on by default? Personally I'd say no. They can be annoying and, looking at my own youtube channel (you can see this info from the Video Manager > Analytics > Annotations option) I get about 1.3% click through on annotations and around 6% close rate for annotations. The other 92.7% they are just ignored. So I don't think they really do all that much.
edited by Jamie on 16/11/2012

--
Direct, don't animate!
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17/11/2012 03:41:49

urbanlamb
urbanlamb
(Account inactive)
Posts: 1786
KerryK wrote:
Hey urbanlamb! You're totally right - we've been trying to figure out a way to block these spammers without compromising the whole twitter stream. Sadly, the spamming is getting worse - especially at the weekends when we're not as over the twitter feed as during the week. We may have come up with a work around but sadly, it means some changes to the rules. Hopefully this will stem the tide of spammers getting on our feed.

It really annoys and frustrates me - we block and report as spam as often as they come up but - that's the internet for you sometimes. And sometimes this is why we can't have nice things. At least on the weekends.

oh yeah they are bad this is why I dont use twitter much. I dont give out my passwords but found that my twitter had been hacked a few weeks ago and it was used to spam hehe. (i have never been hacked.. to my knowledge before in my life so this was a shock..) They have clued into you guys not being around on the weekend I think. Its to bad people abuse these systems.

I wonder if you somehow can't simply disable twitter on the weekend..

sorry to derail this thread but the pron on twitter drives me batty
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17/11/2012 03:44:45

urbanlamb
urbanlamb
(Account inactive)
Posts: 1786
Jamie wrote:
You guys know that the annotation / link system from youtube only allows you to link to other youtube videos, subscription pages, channels and playlists?

It's not as bad as the points UrbanLamb has highlighted with the twitter feed, for example.

Though, you can already put any link in the description of a video, and that would show up on Muvizu without anyone knowing (as it can also be updated any time in the future as well). Thats what the Report Abuse link is for.

I think the general point for discussion here is not where the links in annotations point to but rather should they be on by default? Personally I'd say no. They can be annoying and, looking at my own youtube channel (you can see this info from the Video Manager > Analytics > Annotations option) I get about 1.3% click through on annotations and around 6% close rate for annotations. The other 92.7% they are just ignored. So I don't think they really do all that much.
edited by Jamie on 16/11/2012


*cough* as for the youtube annotations yeah i would like them on by default but I can see how they would annoy many people and so am assuming that is why they are off by default. I myself turn them off quite often it depends on how much someone has littered up their video with annotations. Some people are very heavy handed with them and I hate that. Myself i want to see them on by default hehe but I can see how that would annoy many people..

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17/11/2012 19:30:53

ziggy72Muvizu mogulExperimental user
ziggy72
Posts: 1988
Movies don't have annotations. Sound, visuals, that's it. No distractions. Annotations off, please.
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17/11/2012 20:30:16

DreekoMuvizu mogulExperimental user
Dreeko
Posts: 1257
ziggy72 wrote:
Movies don't have annotations. Sound, visuals, that's it. No distractions. Annotations off, please.


Oh noo noo noo!
What about interactive movies?
Annotations on! You can always turn them off if they annoy but if you create an interactive movie and they are off from the start then the viewer won't know what's going on.
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17/11/2012 20:57:23

WozToonsExperimental user
WozToons
Posts: 494
There's only one way to settle this........FIGHT!!!!!!!
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