Now, Google will highlight 'key moments' in videos: Here's how
What's the story
Google shows relevant video results in search to save users from the trouble of heading to YouTube or any other site looking for a clip. The capability comes handy. And now, the search giant is making it even more useful by showing 'key moments for videos' in results. Here's how the new feature would work.
Issue
You can skip important stuff while watching videos
When you are going through text content, there is always an option to skim through the page or find certain keywords and skip to the main part of the paragraph. But, the thing is, this can't be done in videos. Hence, you tend to miss important stuff while trying to fast forward to what appears to be the main segment.
Feature
Now, Google is solving the issue, organizing videos
To tackle this problem, Google has decided to show 'key moments for videos' appearing in search results. The capability will list key highlights of a video, thereby giving you an idea of whether it contains the content you think it has and the link to skip to it directly. The option would be especially useful for going through long-form clips as well as documentaries.
Quote
Here's what Google said about the feature
"When you search for things like how-to videos that have multiple steps, or long videos like speeches or a documentary, Search will provide links to key moments within the video, based on timestamps provided by content creators," Google Search product manager Prashant Baheti stated.
Working
How creators will provide timestamps
Google has particularly noted that the feature would work with the help of dedicated timestamps/bookmarks highlighting the relevant segments. This information would have to be given in the description box, which would then allow the search giant to mark and show hyper-linked important parts under the video. Google is already working with publishers like CBS Sports and NDTV to show marked up segments.
Advantage
This would make video content more accessible
The feature would certainly make video content more accessible to people around the world. However, it still remains to be seen how many creators would prefer the idea of manually marking their clips so that viewers could skip them. If Google would have used machine learning, creators might have gone for this in a heartbeat. But, manual marking is just an added burden.