The secrets of YouTube
YouTube has come a long way from its origins as a place to look at kittens and home videos of people’s dogs. There’s a multimillion dollar industry based around it, a new generation of media stars who got their start on the channel and its connection with Google and its ubiquity, to say nothing of how easy it is to embed, mean it gets a lot of use for business purposes too.
With that in mind, you’re probably not getting the very best out of your Youtube experience. Here are a few ways to get the normal stuff done faster – and a couple of tricks you probably didn’t even know were possible!
1: Space Bar
Most of us know that the space bar is play/pause on YouTube. If you want to watch something in slow motion, though, hold the space bar down! This is really useful for detailed how-tos.
2: Jump Around!
J jumps you back 10 seconds in the video. L jumps you forward 10 seconds. No mouse required. You can also use K as play/pause, if you’re watching a video entitled ‘how repair space bar.’
The arrow keys fast forward and rewind, and the number keys jump to percentage locations in the video: 1 is 10%, 5 50%, 0 the beginning.
These don’t work in fullscreen mode, by the way.
3: Lean Back!
…is the name of an app that allows you to turn YouTube into a keyboard-only experience with a totally new interface that can be conveniently browsed with only the arrow keys and ‘enter.’ This doesn’t seem to work on Macs, though.
4: Do What You Feel!
YouTube has a hidden feature called Moodwall (yes,I’m aware that we’re moving away from tricks that are useful in the enterprise, but I thought you’d want to know). Moodwall lets you select your mood from a sidebar. YouTube then shows you videos appropriate to your mood. If you disagree, double click on the mood you chose, and the videos will all change.
5: Ride the Snake
OK, so now we’re moving from ‘not useful in the enterprise’ to ‘not useful at all,’ and it’s also not really a secret – it’s even on YouTube’s Wikipedia page. On any video you’re watching, pause it and hold down the left or right arrow key for a few seconds. Then press the up arrow key to start the game, and hey presto! Your computer and YouTube together have created the ‘snake’ game that made Nokia owners the world over miss public transportation throughout the early 2000s.
