Video has become one of the most sought-after content on the internet. Sites like YouTube and Netflix have also ensured that there is never any shortage of material for people to watch. Indeed, people today can search for just about anything, and a related video would materialize on Google's search engine. These may be video in YouTube or may be from other streaming sites as well.
However, searching for a video in Google is a bit difficult as the search results are depicted by simple thumbnails, which do not give too much information of what the video may contain.
The user has to play the actual video and then see if it is relevant or not. A new feature being added by Google may soon make searching and finding videos much easier.
What is the new feature?
Google revealed that through an update, it would now add a feature that would make video search streamlined and easier for users. This feature will add a six-second-long preview for all the videos that come up after a search in the Google Search Engine. For instance, if an individual is searching for a particular recipe video, they are met with a selection of such videos from YouTube and other streaming sites. Through Google's latest update, each of the videos will now be represented with a six-second preview, without sound.
This will replace the old thumbnail system and will essentially make each video show up as a six-second-long GIF representation of the content.
This is a truly useful feature, as it would reduce the time spent on browsing different videos to find the one that the person is searching for. Video uploaders have been using a popular method known as clickbait for their videos, through which the thumbnail shown is much more interesting than the video itself, leading other users to click on the video expecting to see the interesting content shown in the thumbnails.
However, through this new feature, such clickbait systems will no longer work, as users will get to see a short version of what the video actually contains without playing it.
How will it work?
By default, this feature will only work when connected to the Wi-Fi network. However, users can change the settings to make it work in cellular data as well.
If needed, users may also choose to turn off the feature completely from the settings in the Chrome app or the Google app. Google has employed the latest machine learning functionality to enhance this feature. This means that the preview will not play the first six seconds of the videos, but will be able to predict which parts of a video would be most important to be shown to users.
