YouTube recently update their embedded video player with a scroll-through feature that displayed related videos on external sites.
“YouTube Tweaks Related Video Feature”
On the YouTube blog they described the new feature as “fun to play with and lets you discover new, related videos without leaving your site. Just hover over the video after pressing “play” and watch the magic unfold…”
YouTube also gave users the control to not use the new feature, “If for any reason you don’t want this option turned on, you can modify the video URL by attaching a rel=0 parameter to the video. i.e. http://www.youtube.com/v/&rel=0.”
Since the roll out YouTube has changed the feature so that related videos appear only when you click the menu button. This was most likely done because of negative user feedback.
Here is a sample of what some YouTube users posted in the comments section of the blog. “This is really not a good feature. The best thing about adding videos from youtube to our website was to actually select ourself the related videos and place them on our site. Please next time be carefully when adding such ideas. “
“Congrats to you YouTube!!! You’ve developed a truly unique function that viewers hate, and one that webmasters, web developers, and bloggers hate as well.”
