Google Operating System has dug up a new YouTube beta feature called annotations, which enables you to write text messages inside the actual video, Flickr style. The difference, however, is that you can only add annotations to the videos you uploaded.
YouTube lists possible uses for the feature as:
- Add background information about the video.
- Create stories with multiple possibilities
- Link to related YouTube videos, channels, or search results from within a video
Our estimate, however, is that 95% of annotations will be lolcats-style messages. Actually, make that 99%.
Currently, annotations are shown by default, but you can turn them off while watching a video through the standard player menu (bottom right button in the video). The feature is currently in beta, supports only English, and does not appear in videos embedded on other sites. Check out an example video below. *Update: yes, as I've said, you cannot see annotations in embedded videos. Therefore, embedding the video below didn't make much sense. Or maybe, that's what I wanted you to think, while actually I've embedded the video so that you can see how it looks without the annotations, and compare it with the same video, annotated, over on YouTube.