On The Road to Mastering YouTube

On the Road to Mastering YouTube

  First feature of YouTube that I wish to point out is its subscription feature. As I subscribed to the channel created by Immersive Education, I get instantly updated uploads from Immersive Education in the "My Subscriptions" menu on the left side of the YouTube menu. To add on that, on the right side of the screen, there is a portion for recommended channels, which are individually selected based upon my video history and internet cookie.

  "Recommended" feature allows the users of YouTube to take a quick look at the videos that might intrigue them. The recommendation feature is very common, but YouTube does a great job in showing limited number of videos with the same category or topic. Especially when using YouTube to listen to music, this feature becomes incredibly handy, because not all users of YouTube simply do not know what to listen to after their current videos or music. Also, because the recommended videos are uploaded by either identical or highly similar users, YouTube does not (tends not to) deteriorate satisfactions of its users.

  Just like Facebook, YouTube also has a "watch later" feature. This feature of YouTube certainly was implemented by YouTube before Facebook did. The "watch later" feature is a handy organizational feature of YouTube. Videos that are saved later are left in the "watch later" section of the YouTube website.

  On YouTube, there is a history feature, which allows the users of this social media platform to review their recently watched videos. Skimming through the list of previously watched videos, the users could either view the contents again, or find related contents according to the history of views. In this feature, users can clear all watch history and pause watch history. This feature definitely allows the users to personalize their recommended videos. The deletion sub-feature of the watch later feature also allows users' room for individual privacy in this platform.

  YouTube also allows its users to create channels. The channels provide a great venue for group of people to collaborate; for instance, feedbacks and comments regarding the contents of the channel are sent to the owners of the channel directly. Any users can create a channel, with wide choice of language and country. Users can set the group of audiences by manipulating safety settings, as well. This channel feature can be utilized immensely, and one example can be the Immersive Education's channel; This channel has videos and resources that students can access at any place and any time.

This is an assignment from the Immersive Education course that I am taking at Boston College. The course is called Collaborative Computing. For details, visit the immersive BC portal at http://ImmersiveEducation.org/@/bc