Google has added a convenient rewind feature to YouTube

Don't say that, but YouTube, which is constantly being polished and brought to mind, has its drawbacks. Some people think that it is slow to load videos, others complain that ads constantly appear, and others do not like playlists. As in any other business, there is always someone who will be constantly dissatisfied. To avoid this, the development team tries to release something new. This time, the new feature is the ability to rewind videos, which will make them even more convenient to view. At the same time, not only those who use Android devices will be able to try the update, but also those who have chosen to view iOS and even the browser.

If you've ever had to scroll through a long YouTube video to go to a "good" place, you'll appreciate the new feature that YouTube has prepared. Now you can view not only the full video, but also the chapters from it. This feature uses timestamps that creators apply to their videos, allowing viewers to easily navigate to a specific part of the video or view a portion of the video.

The function of chapters, which was called "Video Chapters", was tested by the service in April, but now it is available to all users of mobile devices and browsers.

In order for you to click on tags, content authors must prepare everything. To do this, they will need to add information about the chapters to the video description.

The first placemark must match the beginning of the video and be at the 0: 00 time stamp. The name of this part of the video should be separated by a space from time. Then another placemark is placed on an arbitrary fragment with an indication of what is in this place, and so on. When you are done adding chapters, you will save the changes and the video chapters will be listed when you view the video.

There is only one restriction that must be met in order for this function to work properly. Videos must have at least three timestamps of 10 seconds or more each. This way they will be displayed normally in the video description until the ”more”button.

To make it easier to navigate through video chapters, YouTube has built-in haptic feedback on mobile devices, so users will feel a vibration informing them that they are moving to a new Chapter. On platforms where haptic feedback is not available, you will just see a thickening of the timeline and there will be a slight sticking of the slider to its joints. That is, the chapters will be clearly visible. The Chapter you are in will also be highlighted on mobile devices.

When I tried this feature of the service, I really liked it. The same opinion is shared by representatives of YouTube, who said that this feature received a lot of positive reviews during testing. However, it seems that the final version is slightly different from what was initially tested.

One of the changes is the ability to adapt the number of chapters that are displayed on screens of different sizes. This is done for the convenience of users who watch videos in different orientations or on different platforms. Even if there are many chapters in the video, everyone should be comfortable.

Despite all the convenience of the function, not all users will be able to use it yet. This is due to the fact that not all authors know how to use it, and not all have time to adapt their videos, because this does not happen automatically. 

Over time, videos that support this feature will appear more and more. Therefore, if you are engaged in content production, pay attention to this and use it in your videos. Most likely, Google will even change the algorithm for evaluating the quality of videos. Previously, it was considered a good indicator if the video was watched to the end. 

This meant that the content was valid and could be issued in recommendations. Now, with these suggestions, videos will often be viewed to the end, but with the beginning skipped. Although, YouTube assures that using this feature will not affect the recommendations.