Video chapters were introduced in a recent video of YouTube’s creator insider channel on the 7th of April.
As mentioned by the host Tom Leung, the video chapters are intended to make timestamps official.
Timestamps so far have been an informal way of tagging specific sections of your video with a particular timestamp.
This is how a traditional time stamp looks
A small tip for the creators
If you don’t know how to create your own time stamps and want to create them for your videos, then, after you upload them just edit their description and put the exact time for each of the parts or sections you want to mark prominently.
Use the YouTube time format for doing so. Refer to my screenshot for the same.
Now coming back to our topic, as an extension of it and completely voluntarily, chapters will be visible on your YouTube video scrubber bar when as usual you have added timestamps in your video description.
Right now YouTube is experimenting with this feature on Android and desktop devices and it’s basically a periodic roll out or a random roll out to test the feature and so not everyone will see it.
For your curiosities, this is how it looks. This is a screen capture from the creator’s insider video.
I am one of those users who experienced it on both my laptop and desktop simultaneously and that’s how I got to know about it, from there on it was a bit of a research movement.
Now in terms of usability, this is how I think it will benefit creators and consumers alike
I am not sure if creators who create comic and storytelling videos will benefit from this because I am sure they won’t want their punchline to be revealed or their suspense to be broken before the intended time voluntarily.
However, creators who create educational content, creators who give reviews and that kind of stuff will benefit from it because they will be able to divide their long pieces into consumable short pieces.
Another benefit that the creators might get is the boost in their search rankings but again I think that already happens when they do their time stamps the traditional way.
For a user it’s self-explanatory, want to just know the price of that particular gadget? Select that chapter from the scrub bar, want to learn just a specific technique of that recipe or tool? Jump to that section without fiddling through the video timeline aimlessly.
A small tip for the user
You might already be aware of it but if you don’t, then, if you want to share a video with your friends from a particular time or part of the video, then just click on the share button and check the ‘start at’ box in the window that pops up and put the time coordinates you want the shared video to begin with.
Conclusion
It’s rare that we see any major updates to the platform and It’s a welcome addition to the already amazing YouTube but only time will tell its true usefulness.
It could also catapult into a completely dynamic offering like giving offers at various sections, displaying products, timeline-based comments and highlights, and whatnot.
Aesthetically I think for someone it will be the futuristic, robotic, angular timeline look of it and for some just a cluttered scrub bar.
Overall, let me know your thoughts about this latest offering by YouTube in the comments.
