YouTube secretly rolled out an awesome new experiment this week featuring animated thumbnails. This is something that a lot of people have been asking for for a while now and it is great to see YouTube are listening. This new feature could potentially change the videos that consumers are watching. With animated thumbnails it allows you to have a quick preview of what the video is about.
YouTube are improving how you make video watching decisions by launching an experiment for video previews for desktop. A small (and growing) percentage of users will be shown a 3-second preview of the video while browsing YouTube on desktop. The preview will play when you hover over the thumbnail, giving you better sense for what each video is about and making it easier to find the next great video to watch.
We're already looking into ways we can take advantage of this awesome new feature for our creators. This could be a great new opportunity to spike your viewership, so let's make sure you're ready for this rolling out to the masses.
Learn more in the YouTube help center:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/707478
Get more details in the YouTube Help Forum: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/_l6l7EbHoKc
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