YouTube has started rolling out a subtle new feature in embedded video players. At anytime you push pause, you’ll see a new arrow icon that, when clicked, will open the deep-link for the YouTube page the video lives on in a new window or tab. Because it’s the same size as the play button, it might take away from the prominent call-to-action to resume playback. So far, I’ve only seen it on the newer player UI, and is most likely not planned to be implemented in the older players, but it’s definitely a great feature.
The Social Network’s new Pop-Up Videoesque i-Trailer just premiered on MySpace and allows users to click on hotspots during the video to reveal additional information or video about what they’re seeing. For instance, I didn’t know that Steve Chen, Co-Founder and CTO of YouTube used to work at Facebook when it was still a startup before he left to create the most popular online video service in the world with Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. The i-Trailer also includes deeper links within the info that pauses the video and shows additional content like images and video:
Check out some more facts from the trailer at Mashable
Youtube has started to roll out a UI update on its video player to complement its new description, analytics, like/dislike, save to, share, embed, and flag feature set “New Watch Page.” The player itself is Flash 10, and not HTML 5. Embedding the video on another site will still show the old player.
