Categories
misc Opinion productivity usability

Youtube vs Vimeo [Usability Peeve]

There is one big usability peeve I have about launching and watching embedded videos. My typical embedded viewing experience is as below:

  1. Read the article on theoldreader.com (yes, I moved from greader -> feedly -> theoldreader – more on that in a different post).
  2. If I see a good video that I want to see, I typically click on the “youtube” icon or “vimeo” icon on the post, so that it opens up the video in youtube or vimeo respectively in a new tab.

vimeo   youtube

Now, when I do that, my reasonably average cognitive capabilities want me to think that the video link would open up in a new tab, and should wait for me to go to that tab and press play. Why? Because I had never pressed play on the embedded video. I had just said – open it for me in youtube or vimeo.

  • Youtube opens the video up in a new tab and begins playing it ! Whaa ??? I dont want to watch it now. I will watch it later.
  • Vimeo dutifully follows my thought process, opens up the video in a new tab and waits for me to go and press the play button.

In this duel, Vimeo wins. Sorry youtube.

PS: By the way, you should watch the planet six video. Hilariously done. Simple claymation with a message.

Categories
misc presentation

Making a KSV (Khan Style Video)

For those who have not heard of Khan Academy, please go here -> https://www.khanacademy.org/

Salman Khan, who started the Khan Academy, created the first few videos for his nephews who were living on the other coast of the United States. He found that, explaining concepts over youtube videos was much more easier, and that his nephews found it way more productive learning from them. There are several reasons why and if you want to know more, you should hear his TED talk.

Long story short, he started finding that, folks all over the world, on the internet, started loving his tutorial style short videos. He now runs this as a non-profit organization. He also has a learning framework that he is experimenting with, in the public school system.

The best thing about a Khan Style Video is its brevity, its clarity, and its simplicity. So Khan’s mentor (his professor at MIT) Anant Agarwhal asked him to do a KSV on how to create a KSV. And in his own words, Khan says, “he does a best effort in trying to accomplish this very meta level task”.

 

Categories
misc

How to stop Youtube from tracking your viewing history

Youtube keeps track of all the videos that you have seen in recent past (if you are signed on to your google account). Until now you had the ability to erase this cache. More recently, you now have the ability to stop youtube from tracking. Well, you theoretically ‘pause it’, but then you can pause it forever, and never unpause it. Here is how you do it – in screen shots. Thanks lifehacker for this.

Step 1: Log into your google account and go to youtube.com. Click on your google userid on the top right side of the screen.

Step 2: Click on Video Manager

Step 3: Click on Search History

Step 4: Click on “Clear All Search History” to clear your cache. And then click on “Pause search history” to pause track.

You are done.

(via lifehacker.com)