Skrocki's Blog: Sun, Social Networking, Random Thoughts...

A special holiday greeting for my broccoli eating friend.

Yesterday, YouTube released a new feature that enables one to watch related videos through embeded videos. I noticed this new feature when I posted a blog entry yesterday (& have since disabled it). Example:
























I can see value in this new feature, but I don't like it for two reasons:
1. Videos I post on my blog are previewed and approved for posting on my blog by me
2. Videos I post on my blog are related to the blog entry's topic. In the case of yesterday's blog, the topic was the ask.com algorithm -- not random BBQ videos or other crap (which could be far worse than the topic of BBQ).

To disable this feature, you'll have to apply a minor hack to the embed code that you copy from YouTube. The hack is to simply add "&rel=0" to the end of the embed src URL.



















I hope YouTube removes this as a default feature. Sounds like I'm not alone.

UPDATE: Per the YouTube blog this feature has been modified so related videos only play if the menu button is pressed. I still think the default should be for the related videos feature to be disabled and perhaps easily enabled without users having to hack the embed code, but it's good to see that YouTube is listening to their users feedback.

...related to the Digg saga (see my last post if add'l context is needed): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9HaNbsIfp0