Monday, February 27, 2012

Decide Whether To Watch A Video With YouTube Preview [Chrome]

Decide Whether To Watch A Video With YouTube Preview [Chrome]:

youtube preview chromeIt’s easy to see why YouTube is one of the greatest places on the Web. Of course, there’s plenty of others that are just as good, if not better, but there’s still a reason why YouTube is such a household name. Inside this wonderful world of web videos, you can search and view so many different videos, that it’s downright ridiculous.


While the total selection of videos is fantastic, the quality of some of them aren’t. Others are even misleading, playing the classic “you just got rick-rolled” trick. Well, no more! Armed with the correct Chrome extension, you can, simply put, cut through the crap and look at decent videos that actually interest you.


YouTube Preview helps you do exactly this in a couple of different ways. While viewing a video, it lets you preview other videos suggested by YouTube. It also lets you see some advanced statistics about how often it’s shared, and where.


Installation


To install, head over to this page, and hit the “Add to Chrome” button. Need more instructions? Sorry to disappoint. YouTube Preview doesn’t even have any options to configure. Talk about easy!


Features


YouTube Preview hides itself very well until it’s needed. You won’t find an icon along with plenty of your other extensions, and there is no presence in the right-click menu as well. In fact, you won’t even see it half the time while you’re using YouTube!


Statistics


youtube preview chrome


While looking at a video, you might notice something that wasn’t there before. Right underneath the total likes and dislikes, you’ll see something that says “Total Reactions per 100 Views“. Underneath is a percentage number, which represents the percentage of positive reactions per 100 views. Don’t be surprised if this number is very small, despite very positive reactions, because a lot of people just view the video without clicking the like or dislike button. Therefore, it’s per 100 views, not per 100 reactions.


If you hover over this number, you’ll be presented with a nice chart, showing where all of the positive reactions for the video comes from. It pulls this information from YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. YouTube and Facebook statistics are sub-divided into different categories to separate, for example, likes and comments. The chart is pretty interesting to look at, however, and might say a little about where it’s more viral.


Previews


youtube preview chrome


Now, let’s say you’re watching a great video, and as you finish it, you look towards the suggested videos on the right side of the page. Many of the videos there look interesting as well, but how do you know if it’s as good as you think or hope? Well, if you hover your mouse over the videos you’re curious about, a nice little preview will load. If you don’t hover the mouse directly over the preview itself, it’ll run at 1.4x speed. Have your mouse hover over the preview, and it’ll run at normal speed.


An interesting feature is if your actual video is still playing while the preview loads, the current video will pause while the preview plays. For me, that’s a very handy feature so I don’t have to hit pause every time I want to preview a suggested video.


Conclusion


YouTube Preview is a handy little extension that adds a little convenience to your YouTube experience, helping you save time by preventing you from watching awful videos. It’ll be fun to see if the functionality of this extension will expand and include other great goodies.


Will you use YouTube Preview? What other YouTube extensions can you recommend? Let us know in the comments!




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