Another platform has been added to the list of sites and services that is using the autoplay video feature. This platform is YouTube, and it’s been testing the feature since late last year, has now enabled autoplay for all desktop users.
What this means is that when you are watching a video on the video service, and the autoplay button has been switched to on, you will be served a related video based on your viewing history and that video will begin playing automatically after a few seconds. Using the autoplay function is a little different from that of Facebook’s autoplay News Feed video, or Twitter’s current autoplay experiment. The difference is that people aren’t watching YouTube videos through a social stream, but directly on the platform. But the similarity between all of them is that autoplaying videos is meant to boost video views.
Because Facebook has claimed that they are showing more than 3 billion video views a day, and back in 2012, YouTube reported 4 billion views a day. So to combat Facebook, adding autoplay could be considered a competitive response.
Another added feature of YouTube autoplay is that you can click the toggle button in the upper right-hand corner of the video page.
Original Source by Martin Beck