YouTube's Cat Easter Egg

YouTube's app for iOS has also been updated and added many of the features from the Android app. You can watch a video while searching for the next one, just like picture-in-picture, search for playlists and use the "play all" button.

There's something that only works in the iOS app for iPad: an Easter Egg. Open the YouTube app (make sure you have the latest version - 2.0), keep a finger on the left sidebar and use another finger to swipe right until the list of videos because almost empty. You'll see a funny cat with a play button.

{ Thanks, Jonah and Max. }

YouTube 5.0 for Android

YouTube 5.0 for Android brings a lot of new features. There's a new card-style layout that's consistent with other Google apps:

The player has fewer buttons:

You can search YouTube, check your subscriptions or the video history, all while watching a video. It's quite clever: the video is minimized when you tap the arrow from the top-left corner or swipe down and it continues to play. You can go back to the video by tapping the small player or swiping up. Unfortunately, this only works in the YouTube app, so don't expect to see the minimized player when you close the app.

There's a new interface in the landscape mode, but only for tablets. Until now, the video played in full-screen when you switched to landscape, but now the YouTube app shows suggested videos, comments and more. You can tap the full-screen button in both the portrait and landscape mode.

Other changes: a new app icon, no more +1 button, HD and CC toggles when you tap the overflow button (a strange decision), playlist search, a new slide-out navigation and more.

The new version is gradually rolled out, but you can manually download the APK file from here.

YouTube Tests Sticky Header

Google tests an oversized sticky header. It's a lot bigger than the existing header and it has a fixed position, so you can quickly use the search box, upload videos or open a playlist even when you scroll down.

Unfortunately, it's way too big:

YouTube also experiments with relocating the share button next to the like/dislike buttons and adding sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

How to enable these experiments? If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=JX5TVkqGL3I; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

In other related news, the channel cards seem to be publicly available.

{ via Techno-Net }

A YouTube Experiment Removes Ads

Update (August 23): this no longer works.

YouTube's experiments add new features or tweak the interface. Here's an experiment that does something unexpected: it removes the ads. After changing your cookie, you'll no longer see ads on the homepage, in search results, next to YouTube videos. The experiment also adds channel cards when you mouse over YouTube channel links.

This screenshot shows an ad at the top of my YouTube homepage:

When enabling this experiment, the ad disappears:

This also works for the in-stream video ads and the Homepage Roadblock ads. It's not clear why YouTube added this experiment. Maybe they want to see how people use the site if there are no ads.

How to enable the experiment? If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=oKckVSqvaGw; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

Obviously, there are many ways to hide or remove ads, so if you want to do that, there are better options than relying on an experiment that might no longer work at some point.

{ via Techno-Net }

YouTube Tests New Music Cards

YouTube experiments with a new format for the music artist box. Now it looks more like the Google Knowledge Graph card, it has more pictures, more songs, a list of related artists and a list of albums. Click an album and you'll start a playlist with all the songs from the album. Click a song and you can listen to all the other songs from the artist's playlist. Who needs Google Play Music All Access when you have YouTube?

Here's the existing layout:

There's also a new YouTube Mix interface that looks more like Google Music's radio feature. It's still a playlist, but it no longer shows numbers, there's an "up next" section, a "next video" button and the end of the list has a fading effect which suggests that there are other songs, but they're not yet displayed.

Here's the existing YouTube Mix:

How to enable the experiment? If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome or Opera 15+ - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=CvMBBZAh_fw; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

{ Thanks, Yu-Hsuan Lin. }

YouTube's AJAX Interface, Live in Chrome

YouTube's AJAX interface seems to be publicly available, at least for Chrome users. Back in May, I noticed a red progress bar at the top of YouTube's pages when loading a new video: YouTube experimented with the HTML5 history.pushState to change the browser URL without reloading the page. Then YouTube's engineers detailed their plan to make YouTube pages load faster. In the new interface, the video player and the JavaScript/CSS files are only loaded once, so when you click a new link, YouTube only loads the HTML page and the video. This happens almost instantly.

For some reason, the AJAX interface currently launched by YouTube only works when you click a related video or when you load a playlist. It doesn't work yet for the homepage and search results.

YouTube's New Playlist Player

YouTube has a new interface for embedded playlists. Most people only embed videos, but you can also embed playlists.

The updated player has 2 buttons that show the playlist videos overlaid on top of the currently playing video. You can only scroll using the player's scrollbar, there's no support for keyboard shortcuts or mouse wheels. Click one of the videos from the list and the player still displays the list: you need to click one of the 2 playlist buttons to hide the list.

The playlist player has a "play all" button (don't click, it's just a screenshot).

Here's a YouTube playlist that shows how to use the new Google Maps:

The old playlist player displayed some thumbnails at the bottom of the video, so you could still see what's playing. It worked well for playlists with a few videos. The new player is better suited for playlists with many videos.

Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike by Steve Garfield.

{ Thanks, Michel. }

Mobile Gmail Enhances YouTube Links

Gmail's mobile site has a cool feature that adds video titles to all the YouTube links from a message. They're still links, but you know more about the videos before clicking them.

Here's an example from Gmail's mobile web app in Chrome for Android:

This also works in Gmail's iOS app and Gmail's mobile web app in other Android/iOS browsers. The message from this screenshot only included a link to a YouTube video, with no special anchor text.

YouTube Tests Unified Settings Control

YouTube tests a new version of the video player with a unified control for annotations, size, video quality and more.

I don't think it's a good idea to combine these settings because they become more difficult to find. Some player buttons show up only if they're useful (for example, the annotation button) and they let you disable feature with a single click. The unified control requires more clicks and doesn't show useful information at a glance.

{ Thanks, Yu-Hsuan Lin. }

YouTube's Geeky Easter Eggs

YouTube has some cool Easter Eggs that are related to the Geek Week. Here are some of them:

* start playing a random YouTube video and then type 1980. You'll need to defend the video and "blow those missiles out of the sky".

* start playing a random YouTube video and then type 1337. Comments will be translated into the leet "language" and will look like this: "w0w th1z 1z pr3ttj $w33t".

* open this video and click the POW! button from the player. The video now looks like a comic.

* search YouTube for [Fibonacci] and you'll learn about Fibonacci sequences and the golden ratio from a YouTube animation that uses video thumbnails.

* search for [ponies] and you'll see some cute ponies that are running.

* search YouTube for [Use the Force, Luke] and you'll see a crazy animation.

* search YouTube for [Beam me up, Scotty] and you'll see a Star Trek effect. "'Beam me up, Scotty' is a catchphrase that made its way into popular culture from the science fiction television series Star Trek. It comes from the command Captain Kirk gives his chief engineer, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, when he needs to be transported back to the Starship Enterprise."

This page shows all the Geek Week videos and a list of badges you can unlock. You need to find Easter eggs, take the Geek IQ test and watch videos to unlock all the badges. Follow YouTube's Google+ page for clues.

20 Things to Do Using YouTube's Embedded Player

Here are some things you can do from an embedded YouTube player:

1. like/unlike the video: use the thumbs up/down buttons from the top-right corner (you need to be logged in).

2. find the video's URL: right-click the video and click "copy video URL". You can also "copy video URL at current time".

3. find the embedding code: right-click the video and click "copy embed code".

4. share the video: use the share button from the top-right corner and click Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

5. read the video's description: click the "i" button from the top-right corner.

6. subscribe to the video's channel: click the "i" button from the top-right corner and then click the "subscribe" button.

7. find the number of views: click the "i" button from the top-right corner.

8. add the video to the "watch later" playlist: click the "clock" button next to the YouTube logo.

9. turn off annotations: click the conversation icon at the bottom.

10. enable captions: click the "CC" button. To disable them, click the same button and then "turn captions off".

11. move captions: use drag&drop to change their position.

12. change caption size: use + or - keyboard shortcuts. You can also change the caption's foreground/background colors and the font: click the "CC" button and pick "caption settings". Click "background" to enable the caption background (there's also a keyboard shortcut: b). Your settings are saved and YouTube will used them for other videos.

13. translate captions: click the "CC" button, then "translate captions" and pick a language.

14. open the video in full screen mode: click the "full screen" icon next to the YouTube logo.

15. change video quality: click the wheel icon and choose from auto, 144p, 240p, 360p, 480p, 720p, 1080p.

16. change the video's speed (only in the HTML5 player): click the wheel icon and choose from 0.25x, 0.5x, 1x, 1.5x, 2x.

17. check the stats: right-click the video and select "stats for nerds" to see the video's size, the number of frames per second, the number of dropped frames and other useful information.

18. open the video's YouTube page: click the title at the top of the player or the YouTube logo at the bottom.

19. use keyboard shortcuts (most shortcuts only work in the Flash player and they require that the video player has focus):

* k - pause/play the video
* m - mute/unmute the video
* f - full screen mode (Esc to exit)
* j or left arrow - seek backward 3 seconds
* l or right arrow - seek forward 3 seconds
* 0 - jump at the beginning of the video
* 1-9 - seek to the 10% to 90% of the video
* home/end - jump at the beginning/end of the video
* up/down arrows - increase/decrease volume by 5%

20. related videos: at the end of the video, you'll see a list of related videos and you can watch them in the embedded player. Mouse over the thumbnails to find more information about the videos.

Here's a video you can use to test these features:

YouTube Encourages Sharing Videos

When you watch a YouTube video until the end, YouTube thinks you might want to share it with other people and switches to the "share" tab automatically. The "share" tab has been recently redesigned and now shows more social services at a glance. You can also click "embed" and copy the embedding code.

If you'd like to link to a YouTube video and open the "share" tab by default, just add #action=share at the end of the URL. Here's an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep3iIDDDlaM#action=share.

The embedded YouTube player already includes a lot of features: from the like/unlike buttons, to the share button and the information button that shows the video's description, the number of views and lets you subscribe to the associated channel.

YouTube's Channel Card Experiment

There's a new YouTube experiment that shows a channel card when you mouse over the link to a YouTube channel. The card shows the channel's images and description, a link to the Google+ page, a subscribe button, the number of subscribers and sometimes the most recent video from that channel.

This works for search results, comments, suggested videos, homepage videos, recommended channels and more. You can find more about a YouTube channel without having to open a new page.

Sometimes YouTube also shows a list of people from your Google+ circles that subscribed to the channel:

The experiment also includes the "I'm feeling lucky" play button I've mentioned here. This time, it's placed next to the upload button. The play button creates a playlist with recommended videos.

Here's how you can enable the experiment. If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome/Opera 15 - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=0xJL6SMMUyE; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

{ Thanks, André Zlatin. }

YouTube's Title Shows if a Video Is Playing

Here's a very simple YouTube feature that's really useful. YouTube started to add a "play" Unicode character to the title of the YouTube page, but only when the video is playing. Pause the video and the "play" character disappears. It's a great way to find a "noisy" tab, especially if you open more than one YouTube video.

The "play" symbol is actually the black right-pointing triangle Unicode character. It's small, subtle and it's better than an animated favicon.

Here's an example: there are 2 YouTube tabs in the screenshot below. In the first tab there's a paused video, while in the second tab there's a video that's playing.

Partial YouTube Embeds

Let's say you want to embed a long YouTube video, but you only need a short excerpt from that video. The Nexus 7 & Chromecast Press Event video has 64 minutes, but you only want to embed the part about Android stats from 02:50 to 06:28.

Start with the standard embedding code:

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/GbXeZ16FoCY" width="560"></iframe>

Then add the start and end parameters. Both use seconds, so you'll need to convert minutes to seconds. For my example:

* 02:50 = 2 minutes and 50 seconds = 2*60+50 seconds = 170 seconds, so start=170
* 06:28 = 6 minutes and 30 seconds = 6*60+28 seconds = 388 seconds, so end=388.

Here's the final code. You only need to add the underlined text in red:

<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/GbXeZ16FoCY?start=170&end=388" width="560"></iframe>

Here's the video embed:

When you click the play button, YouTube will only play the excerpt you've selected. This works for both the Flash player and the HTML5 player. Visitors can always use the seek bar and skip to other part of the video or continue to watch the video.

YouTube's Geek Week Easter Egg

YouTube has a new Easter Egg: search for [/ geekweek] and the interface changes to look more like a command-line Linux app.

What's Geek Week? "On August 4-10 we'll celebrate this content with a special programming event: our first-ever YouTube Geek Week at YouTube.com/GeekWeek," informs YouTube. "Produced in conjunction with geek powerhouse Nerdist in the U.S. and Channel Flip in the U.K., Geek Week will showcase more than 100 channels that fans love, unveiling new videos, series premieres and creative collaborations, as well as highlighting some of the best geek videos and shows already on YouTube." Sci-fi, fantasy, animation, superheroes, supernatural, video games - an entire week for geeks. "For our 3l33t geeks out there, keep your eyes out for Easter eggs all week, and you'll also be able to collect badges from the eggs and select #geekweek videos when logged in and visiting YouTube.com/GeekWeek."

Update: As Enrico Altavilla noticed, the Easter Egg works for any query that starts with "/ ":

{ via TechRadar. Thanks, Mati. }

YouTube Tests Center-Aligned Layout

Nedas Petravičius spotted a new YouTube experiment that changes the user interface: there's a bigger sidebar that's now overlaid, the Dashboard/Video Manager/Analytics menu has been moved to the right corner of the page and the Upload button is blue. YouTube now shows the same sidebar from the homepage on video pages, so you no longer see a list of suggested videos.

The biggest change is that the video page is now centered. YouTube's pages used to be centered, but they're now aligned to the left, ever since YouTube redesigned the pages and added the sidebar guide. There are many extensions and scripts that center the pages.

The new sidebar has a lot in common with the Google+ sidebar. There are some differences: you need to click the menu icon to display/hide the sidebar and the sidebar continues to be displayed when you click one of its options.

Since the sidebar is hidden by default, there's more room for your favorite videos:

This drop-down menu is placed next to the upload button in the regular interface:

Here's a video:

Here's how you can enable the experimental feature. If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome/Opera 15 - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera 12 - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=ULHzU8CeVLo; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

{ Thanks, Nedas. }

A YouTube Experiment Increases Text Size

This is not a bug, it's an YouTube experiment that increases the text size for suggestion links to 19 pixels. I think the text is way too big and distracting.

Here's the regular interface (13 pixels):

Here's how you can enable the experimental feature. If you use Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari or Internet Explorer 8+:

1. open youtube.com in a new tab

2. load your browser's developer console:

* Chrome - press Ctrl+Shift+J for Windows/Linux/ChromeOS or Command-Option-J for Mac

* Firefox - press Ctrl+Shift+K for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-K for Mac

* Opera - press Ctrl+Shift+I for Windows/Linux or Command-Option-I for Mac, then click "Console"

* Safari - check this article

* Internet Explorer - press F12 and select the "Console" tab.

3. paste the following code which changes a YouTube cookie:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=-fntp2HbKFI; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

4. press Enter and close the console.

To go back to the regular interface, use the same instructions, but replace the code from step 3 with this one:

document.cookie="VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; path=/; domain=.youtube.com";window.location.reload();

YouTube's Video Pages Will Load Faster

A few weeks ago, a reader noticed an interesting YouTube experiment that displayed a red progress bar when loading video pages. It was obvious that video pages were loaded dynamically using AJAX.

Gizmodo posted an article last week about this experiment. It turns out that YouTube will soon launch this new interface.

"Currently, when you click on a YouTube video, first the watch page loads (the webpage that the video sits on). Then the JavaScript that controls that page is downloaded, then the video player, and then the video itself starts downloading." In the new interface, everything is downloaded simultaneously. When you click a new video, YouTube only loads the new page and then the video. It's no longer necessary to download the video player and the JavaScript/CSS files.

Another change is that YouTube preloads the page and the first part of the video you're likely to watch next before you even click it, so that the video loads almost instantly. This works because the Flash player now uses adaptive streaming and downloads videos in slices. The first slice of the next video you're likely to watch is prefetched. This works well for playlists and search results (YouTube prefetches the first result), but also for video pages, where YouTube shows suggestions.

YouTube hopes to reduce the time between clicking a video and playing the video to less 200 milliseconds, which is what the human mind can perceive as a delay. That means instant video playing (if you ignore video ads).

YouTube's Subscription Reminder

If you watch a few videos from a channel, YouTube's homepage shows a message that recommends you to subscribe to that channel.

"Subscribe to see more videos from this channel. You've recently watched videos from [channel's name]. Subscribe to see their next videos right here on your YouTube homepage."

You can subscribe to the channel or hide the message by clicking the small "x" icon.

Now that you've subscribed to the channel, you can change your subscription preferences when you watch a video from that channel. There's a wheel icon next to the "subscribed" button that lets you enable email notifications and restrict the subscription to new uploads.

If you need more suggestions, check the "recommended channels" sidebar from YouTube's homepage or visit this page. Remove the channels you don't like to improve YouTube's future recommendations. Mouse over the channel's thumbnail and click "preview" to check some of the recently uploaded videos. Use the arrows to navigate between YouTube's recommended channels.