Commentary
YouTube Leanback Could Use Less Google and More Pandora
- by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, July 9, 2010
It's been years since I heard the concepts of "lean-in" and "lean-back" tossed around regularly in digital media parlance, so I was struck by YouTube's use of the terminology to name its new TV-like mode YouTube Leanback. I go way back, you see, to those innocent days of Time Warner Pathfinder and early "push" technologies that wrecked your desktop. Back in the day, youngsters, the pioneers of digital used to use the "lean-in" and lean-back" distinction as if it were a fresh and precious new theory of media consumption. This new "interactive" mode was all still quite new.
At the time we used to dismiss the early Web video projects like The Den and Pseudo TV out of hand because they misunderstood the basic lean-in dynamic of Web use. People didn't want to be entertained online. They wanted to get things done and maintain total control of the experience. Whenever I interviewed one of these new video projects I always ended the interview with a stock question. "This is really only becomes a business when your content gets off the desktop and onto TVs someday, right?" Most of these startup CEOs and their Stanford Business School-hatched business plans usually agreed...of the record.
YouTube actually makes no bones about the fact that Leanback is all about TV. For those who haven't seen it at youtube.com/leanback it is a different interface for the video repository that turns it into a stream of continuous clips that require nothing more than four arrow keys to control. The videos run in full screen and at the best available resolution for your connection. The down key brings up a thumbnail directory of your stream of videos that you can advance with a simple Right key. Going down brings up a topics menu of streams for more than a dozen categories. Clearly poised as a featured channel on your Google TV, the Leanback experience is interesting. There is a facility for creating a new stream of clips from a search term.
Ultimately Leanback requires more leaning in than YouTube pretends. The randomness of the video feed does not make for a soothing couch potato experience, frankly. I think Google as usual overestimates the effectiveness of its algorithms. I ended up spending much of my time advancing the clips to find something I really wanted to watch. I understand and sympathize with where YouTube is headed with this, but I really think they are missing an essential part of the YouTube experience here, which is following the related video links into new territory. I have been using YouTube on Apple TV for years now, and at no point did I wish for it to be less interactive. I like following the suggested and related videos.
Otherwise, Leanback needs a better personalization engine. The personal feed of videos that forms the default channel is supposed to be guided by your own video tastes, although they are a little vague about how this is determined. I ended up with a strange mélange of tech, stock market, iPad/iPhone, a body waxing clip, Biden dropping the F-Bomb, and so on. I can see how the stream is related to videos I have chosen or shared in the past, but when put into some kind of random string, it all just seem mad. Or maybe it's just a sad reflection on the state of my own taste and consciousness. The down side of behaviorally-driven personalization is that when writ large for others to see, you might have some explaining to do. What the hell was I watching that led to a body waxing video being added to my stream? Wait, did I just say that out loud?
I suggest YouTube Leanback aim for a more Pandora-like model. Let me tweak the stream or create multiple modes and channels for different personalized content. But mostly, smooth out the experience a bit. Leanback is not defined by how many buttons you have to push or whether the video fills the screen. It is defined by the flow of the content.
Steve Smith is Editorial Director of Events for MediaPost
At the end of the day, what's most important is to make it as easy as possible for viewers to manage all of their video feeds. Something like this approach: http://www.itvt.com/blog/sneak-peek-friends-mozaic-activevideo
Well-observed and I hope Google has plans like this.
Even in a leaned-back posture, TV is a pretty selective activity for everybody *I* know. Except for sports, movies, and that favorite series... when was the last time you watched without your remote control at the ready?
Not everyone wants the same thing from the viewing experience. For example my kids like to watch the same YouTube clip several times in a row, and daily. Once and rarely thereafter is plenty for me. So we're different.
Maybe the author has become accustomed to a particular level of interactivity that the typical viewer could never achieve, precisely because they don't have the many, many years of experience with interactive TV. Google is going for the typical user, not the power user.
Steve, in my own use of Leanback it appears that the stream of content is merely selected from my YouTube subscriptions.
So, if you're subscribing to an eclectic mix of content publishers, then that might explain your experience. Perhaps an enhancement to Leanback could be the ability to select which subscriptions you want in your video stream.
Also, if in fact Leanback is being triggered by your own subscriptions, then you're curation activity is somewhat acting as a personalization engine -- Leanback is already following your preferences. Take a look at your subscription list and see if this explains the result you experienced.
@David
There seems to be something more at work than subs since my subs are only a backpacker magazine, Maxim (which may explain the body waxing) and new videos. But there is a lot of tech, mobile, and other themes in my lean back steam that seem more related to my past video use than to specific subs. I will see what I can find out from Google.