YouTube announced today that it has implemented the ability to jump straight to any point in a video by simply adding a few extra characters at the end of the video’s URL. The YouTube Team explains on the official blog:
To create a deep link, append the following to the end of a YouTube video URL: #t=1m15s. This says to link to the time 1:15 – you can replace the numbers before the ‘m’ and the ‘s’ with anything you like.
As an additional bonus, if you mention a specific time in a video comment, e.g. “haha 1:14 is funny”, this will become a hyperlink. Viewers can simply click on the time and the video will automatically jump to the point you are referencing. Pretty cool huh?
So if I wanted to watch this video:
…but skip the theatrics of Joe Whyte jumping on top of buildings and doing karate moves, and get right to the interview, I could simply go to the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2c2_inNre4#t=0m28s
Rather than the regular link of :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2c2_inNre4
This feature should be mostly useful to those who wish to show certain parts of videos to others, particularly if they want them to see what was intended rather than risk the receiving party losing interest before they get to the good part (nothing against Joe’s theatrics or this video. It’s just an example). This should prove to be a very efficient way to link to videos when trying to make a point.
