Glad to see the thumbnail with the guy making a dumb face didn't perform well. I hate this trend of putting a dumb face on thumbnails, it feels like the most disgusting clickbait.
It makes sense. It's kind of a few metas behind the curve I feel. Everyone knows it, so it fades into the background. The big channels can do it fine, but they could put a blank thumbnail and be fine too.
Interesting fact: Sometims when you add a video with multiple thumbnails in a playlist. One thumbnail is displayed as the playlist thumbnail and the second as the thumbnail for the video.
@@GameControlYT it’s not. Most users will realize that they have watched the video already within 3-5 seconds of clicking on the video, or even instantly, and at that point the chance they click off of the video is probably above 99.9%. The purpose of it is to see how many new people who have not seen the video will click on it and watch it with a different thumbnail or title. There’s a video on this topic but I don’t remember what it’s titled rn.
Why not with 3 identical thumbnails? Does youtube check any difference between the images? In the end it does not matter, which wins, if any of them do so.
I recently started using DeArrow to force classic random thumbnails like old UA-cam to get away from all the advertisement-like thumbnails these days. It also uses crowd sourced titles to combat clickbait.
@@nmgames4789 haha yeah that can be a thing if you want to go through the story of how something happened but it's also good for videos that bait the conclusion until the 15 min mark with artificial built up. you can turn enabled/disabled thumbnails and titles independently if you don't want titles which is nice
I don't really appreciate when UA-cam tests things on me. I know it's part of the experiment to not tell us, but I ended up really confused when I saw videos in my Watch Later playlist that I didn't remember adding. That's why I'm glad for extensions like DeArrow, which helps with the thumbnails and sometimes even with the titles. It really made UA-cam more pleasant. I'm still going to watch most of what I'm subscribed to, so I don't need every video to scream "watch me", even though that's what the algorithm promotes. I never did, and I never will. Thanks for the video though! It's nice to get some confirmation about the things that are changing.
I usually don't put a lot of thought when looking at thumbnails. I read the title or sometimes just look to see who posted and how much time i have when I see it. 🙂 Everyone have a wonderful day.
For channels I watch regularly, The thumbnail doesn't matter to me at all. If ThioJoe uploads a video, I look at the title to see if I want to watch it (Which usually I do) and I completely ignore the thumbnail. I do that for all channels I am subscribed to. I couldn't tell you if it changed, because I don't see the thumbnail in the first place. The only times it makes a difference in how I interact with videos is when I look for videos from channels I don't know yet. There the thumbnail might give me an idea of how much work they put in and what kind of style to expect and stuff like that.
I sincerely hope the content consumers of youtube tactically use this feature. I'll be trying to delay clicking on a video I see where the thumbnail is of the creator with the click-bait-y 'shocked' face that I'm just so sick of. And wait until a more appropriate thumbnail shows.
I actually do skip a "STOP DOING X", "DON'T Y! Z Instead!", or "Do A, NOT B!" video until the thumbnail changes no matter how much I might be interested in the topic. If they try that 3rd one with arrows and a checkmark/x, thumb up/down, or smile/frown emoji, I may just be vindictive enough to avoid it indefinitely. Unforgiveable, degenerate behavior.
I have been using YT since they started and I can say that 90+% of the time me clicking on a video has NOTHING to do with the thumbnail. In fact, many times, the thumbnail will make me NOT click on a video, esp those ones that show the creator all shocked or surprised. Uggg... A well thought-out title and description is more likely to get a click from me.
Hell yeah!! Been using it since a while on rvx and it is a godsend. I can skip so many videos which are supposed to be like just a pic about something but someone decided to make 10 minutes video on it.
@@mycelia_ow I've been using it for months now and never had an issue, if a title is unclear there's a button next to it to show the original title and thumbnail.
It's also noteworthy to say, that when watching youtube on a tv (especially a smaller one from further away), thumnail text is often easier to read than the title of a video.
We need an update for YT Spammer Purge, because their new tactic will start causing it to overfit or underfit depending on your settings I think. What they're doing is copying legitimate comments and not adding any suspicious content at all in the hopes you'll click on their profile based entirely on a provocative picture. If you have it set to ignore unususpicous duplicates it'll miss them, but if you have it set to clean up duplicates then dozens of legitimate comments will get caught in the crossfire. We need a mode that sorts all duplicates by time posted and then cleans up all of them *except* the original. If the original poster deletes their own comment it could cause one to slip through, but it seems like the best solution given that large scale duplicate cleanup could affect a significant portion of your comments
Ha ya we found this about a week ago on the smaller channel only, not the main channel. It's pretty neat and we really appreciate this option. Not a complaint, it's just now the time added to create 3 thumbnails has increased, of course. For us, the test didn't show results that quick though. I'll go back through the channel videos and see what the results may be today. So glad you showcased this option!
I still do this, export a frame is easier then custom making up a thumbnail. Id rather spend my time on video capture and editing than thumbnail making. At most I use an image scanned from my flatbed scanner for some projects but I am already editing that for archiving anyway.
I've never seen a creator thumbnails for years, I use an extension that picks a thumbnail at random from the middle of a video, helps with cutting down on clickbait
You should really only make one change with each variant of a split test, {e.g. different background colour}otherwise you can't be certain why people preferred a certain thumbnail. This is awesome though!
About the arrow, i think it depends on the typical viewer: so for Mr beast it might work, but thiojoe followers are mostly somewhat tech savvy adults (I believe), so for them red arrow is Movietone.
Honestly thought this was already a thing, but I must be misremembering; I was surprised you didn't mention the video Veritasium made a long time ago about changing his thumbnails and comparing the results.
It's important to make a distinction between clicks from subscribers and clicks from anyone else since subscribers have a much higher chance to click a video from a channel they subscribe to even if the thumbnail isn't optimal.
Been seeing these A-B Testing thumbnails for a while. They made no difference on whether or not I clicked on the video. If I didn't click, it was because I didn't have time to watch the video or I didn't want to watch it... as such, I was a source of bad data for at least someone out there.
What I would like to see is automatic and manual options to mark a video as having ever been watched, or watched within a set time (e.g. [video] has been watched within the past 5 weeks).
Yes! Both! One color for "within the last year" and another for "watched over year ago" While we're at it, how about a way to turn autoplay off on playlists? Why would anyone want that you might ask but I do, especially for Watch Later. I want the list to stop between videos so I can think about it for moment if I want, finish writing or reading a comment, and a chance to hit the like button before moving on. My watch list gets full and I have to go in there and clear out "already watched" occasionally and a "Like and remove from playlist" button would be REALLY nice! 🙂
For me on UA-cam the tumbnail has a red bar below it if I was watched the video before ... usually works up to 2-3 years, by that point, Youtbe seems to forget.
So you're saying that UA-cam now is featuring automated clickbait optimization... Because that's essentially what comparing thumbnails is doing. It's better when your traffic is driven by your reputation not your clickbait
You definitely did not watch the video This test & compare is testing watch time base on the thumbnail given If the thumbnail is a clickbait, then watch time will have reduce percentage performance. That test is comparing what is showing accurate given information on the thumbnail and people willing to stay with that said thumbnail
And this is why I used browser extensions that replaced thumbnails and for the last weeks I simply block the network requests to prevent any thumbnail from loading...can't be arsed with this youtube bs
i hate people iwth these attitude. i hate these people hating thumbnails for no reason. life isnt perfect and youre not getting what you wish. i think these people should accept life and its problems and find ways around it than blocking it. i think it could be better. see if im correct
Well, thumbnails can either be very appealing or extremely off-putting, but there's no doubt about YT's motivation behind changing them......more views, of course!! It's also another indication of their increasing use of AI. As with you, Joe, and all other channels I'm subscribed to, I don't need a thumbnail to influence my decisions to view them. With channels that are unknown to me, it's just 50/50 because I'm more inclined to go for the title rather than the image. Either way, clickbaiting can just be pot luck for both the creator and the viewer. The main core of success is the producer and contents themselves, and neither YT nor AI are good judges of either.
I never click - just out of spite - on thumbnails with big red arrows, or the "sunbeams" or very thick white outlines, or overly surprised faces, and I do click if I see all 3 in one thumb, just to dislike/thumbdown it and then leave :)
ThioJoe - Slow down man! We love you. Don't die before your time. Take your time when you talk, no body is interested in a guy that talks like he's in a hurry. That's why I watch Nora O'Donnell or Lester Holt instead of the ultra Breaking News man (my wife loves) David Muir who raises my blood pressure when he come on with a blast. Be more relaxed, own your integrity as a good presenter and showman. If they want they can speed you up on the settings. Watch you often! JB from 34205usa -Be 66 in July. Lot's of love. Peace in Christ! Rest and Relax!
I've noticed thumbnails changing many times. Veritasium did a video on that, though from what I remember, they were changing it manually/trough the API. Does this one do the comparison like an AB test, in other words, do different viewers see different thumbnails at the same time, or do the thumbnails change periodically for all users? If it's the latter, there will be some error in the data, since I, and probably many others, just watch the videos from the creators I'm subscribed when I have the time, irrelevant from the thumbnail. And as you mentioned, the thumbnail sometimes changes while in the Watch Later playlist.
UA-cam tells creators that "human faces in the thumbnail work well for the algorithm, shocked or surprised faces are even better" Suddenly the home page looks like a porn site.
2:57 I'm sure it does and also really doesn't, going by the phrase "Watch Time Share". I imagine that means they show each thumbnail to half of all viewers (or 33% if you have three tumbnails in the test). Then simply the thumbnail that contributed most to the video's total watch time is the winner. Extremely simple, elegant and effective, tbh, as it optimizes for the #1 thing UA-cam cares about - watch time Meaning that if you have a clickbait thumbnail that mainly ropes in people who don't actually care about the video and click off almost immediately, and not anyone who actually stays for the video, then that thumbnail won't pull in a lot of watch time, making it a bad thumbnail because it doesn't actually attract an audience for the video. Similarly, having a thumbnail that gets only the people who are hyper-interested in the video's subject to click on it won't do well either (even if they all watch it 100%), because it doesn't draw in the potentially much larger group of casually interested people who'd maybe watch 50-70% of the video on average So clickthrough rate obviously matters implicitly, but I don't think they measure it at all. They probably just measure the watch time, as the description suggests, because it's really the only thing that matters
Yeah I've seen nany channels do this - the thumbnail changing from when i first see it to when i see it on watch later, etc. it changes the title used as well.
Is time of upload taken into account? difference in time zones etc... whether the viewers saw multiple versions of the thumbnails etc.. I honestly think the % difference isnt that big of a margin to make much of a difference and too many other variables to take into account.
I'm intrigued whether, if you ran the same test multiple times using the same three thumbnails on one specific video, whether the outcome would be consistent for one of the thumbnails
This gave me the final push to install DeArrow. I noticed the extension a while back but didn't bother with it, this seems like a good time to jump onboard..
Been happening for years i guess, would always notice when i see a video in the morning vs the next day or even later in the day. It was even for smaller tubers so i just though people manually changed em to get more attention
I've been seeing these changing thumbnails for a while, actually. Usually I notice it because youtube serves me up _both_ variants. Usually after I already skipped over a video, so it makes it feel kind of scummy. It's like they're trying to trick me into clicking on the video by changing the thumbnail and maybe I don't notice that it's the same. Whenever I see that I make a point of specifically _not_ clicking on it, because I wasn't interested in the video before. Changing the thumbnail is not going to make me interested in it now.
You want to say, that not the channels changing sometimes the thumbnail randomly, but this feature were tested? I started to think, that many uploadets change their thumbnails later, because they are not satisfied with the original one
Haven't UA-camrs been doing A/B thumbnail testing on their own for ages? I sort of welcome the automation, even for experienced creators thumbnail choice may be unfortunate.
Memo to creators: I am mainly a viewer and subscriber. If your title or thumbnail says NO or DON’T. I will most likely block and not watch. Hyped up titles are a turn off. Likewise ‘’creators’’ who just recycle other content literally, or copy the idea down to the last detail. Again blocked etc.
Two thoughts: 1 They are trying to help creators make better choices in thumbnails and 2 They are keeping programmers busy until they really need them.
This video inspired me to install dearrow. I'm already sick of clickbait and this will only make it worse. Most videos these days, 95% of the lore is in the title and thumbnail which always makes videos seem way more intense or intriguing, and then the actual video is very mediocre. Eg We survived the most insane car crash, heres what happened! = someone drove into us at 5mph, everyone was fine
I can see the thumbnail you have used right now says huge changes in the exact same size and font as the thumbnail you showed at 0:29 with the higher click through/watch rate 😋 When you started showing more of your examples I noticed that a lot of yours that get higher click through make the person looking at the thumbnail pose a question to themselves such as "why does no one use it?" Or "what couldn't a reformat fix?." The virus final boss one and impossible to detect are more like you telling them something versus a hook that draws them in.
There's a logic problem with this test. I follow a number of channels, and I watch all videos from the channels I follow. I dont watch them because fo the thumbnail, I watch them when I get around to it. So if the thumbnail changes, and then I click it, that will be read as a positive indicator, but in reality, it just means I currently have a spare 20 minutes.
I spent like an hour on the fake screenshot at 0:03 please like
lmao
2nd
Sure. Done 👍🏻
From that screenshot I can see you too watch hour long videos about thing and topic.
When I saw it I specifically was wondering how much effort you had spent on it lol
Glad to see the thumbnail with the guy making a dumb face didn't perform well. I hate this trend of putting a dumb face on thumbnails, it feels like the most disgusting clickbait.
It makes sense. It's kind of a few metas behind the curve I feel. Everyone knows it, so it fades into the background. The big channels can do it fine, but they could put a blank thumbnail and be fine too.
Interesting fact: Sometims when you add a video with multiple thumbnails in a playlist. One thumbnail is displayed as the playlist thumbnail and the second as the thumbnail for the video.
i hate it when that happens "sometims"
This has been happening all the time in the last 2 years
Yep, now it's just automated and easier to report on, which is nice
@@NigelMelanisticSmith it annoys me makes me think its a new video
@@ConnorRoss thats the point to artificially inflate number
@@GameControlYT it’s not. Most users will realize that they have watched the video already within 3-5 seconds of clicking on the video, or even instantly, and at that point the chance they click off of the video is probably above 99.9%. The purpose of it is to see how many new people who have not seen the video will click on it and watch it with a different thumbnail or title. There’s a video on this topic but I don’t remember what it’s titled rn.
@@ConnorRossSame
I would test with three nearly identical thumbnails to see if it really would be 33% for each.
Why not with 3 identical thumbnails? Does youtube check any difference between the images? In the end it does not matter, which wins, if any of them do so.
@@RelakS__ like maybe file name and other things or maybe even resolution or format
the example is literally in the video, maybe actually watch it?
@@xeon2k8 understand the comment first.
I recently started using DeArrow to force classic random thumbnails like old UA-cam to get away from all the advertisement-like thumbnails these days. It also uses crowd sourced titles to combat clickbait.
I used DeArrow for a bit, but it just ended up spoiling entire videos sometimes. Really annoying :/
@@nmgames4789 haha yeah that can be a thing if you want to go through the story of how something happened but it's also good for videos that bait the conclusion until the 15 min mark with artificial built up. you can turn enabled/disabled thumbnails and titles independently if you don't want titles which is nice
I don't really appreciate when UA-cam tests things on me. I know it's part of the experiment to not tell us, but I ended up really confused when I saw videos in my Watch Later playlist that I didn't remember adding.
That's why I'm glad for extensions like DeArrow, which helps with the thumbnails and sometimes even with the titles. It really made UA-cam more pleasant.
I'm still going to watch most of what I'm subscribed to, so I don't need every video to scream "watch me", even though that's what the algorithm promotes. I never did, and I never will.
Thanks for the video though! It's nice to get some confirmation about the things that are changing.
I usually don't put a lot of thought when looking at thumbnails. I read the title or sometimes just look to see who posted and how much time i have when I see it. 🙂
Everyone have a wonderful day.
Most UA-camrs have their style so i could guess who it is before reading
For channels I watch regularly, The thumbnail doesn't matter to me at all. If ThioJoe uploads a video, I look at the title to see if I want to watch it (Which usually I do) and I completely ignore the thumbnail. I do that for all channels I am subscribed to. I couldn't tell you if it changed, because I don't see the thumbnail in the first place.
The only times it makes a difference in how I interact with videos is when I look for videos from channels I don't know yet. There the thumbnail might give me an idea of how much work they put in and what kind of style to expect and stuff like that.
I sincerely hope the content consumers of youtube tactically use this feature. I'll be trying to delay clicking on a video I see where the thumbnail is of the creator with the click-bait-y 'shocked' face that I'm just so sick of. And wait until a more appropriate thumbnail shows.
I actually do skip a "STOP DOING X", "DON'T Y! Z Instead!", or "Do A, NOT B!" video until the thumbnail changes no matter how much I might be interested in the topic. If they try that 3rd one with arrows and a checkmark/x, thumb up/down, or smile/frown emoji, I may just be vindictive enough to avoid it indefinitely. Unforgiveable, degenerate behavior.
I have been using YT since they started and I can say that 90+% of the time me clicking on a video has NOTHING to do with the thumbnail. In fact, many times, the thumbnail will make me NOT click on a video, esp those ones that show the creator all shocked or surprised. Uggg... A well thought-out title and description is more likely to get a click from me.
But according to UA-cam this is not and the could even block the channel as being click baiting.
Yeah click baity titles and thumbnails completey push me away. It sucks seeing channels in respect start doing them
Have you seen Dearrow? It changes out thumbnails with still frames, and i think you can even have the titles be changed to less clickbaity versions
Suuuuure
Wait till people hear that they are constantly in some a/b test experiments in almost every single application or bigger website they use
DeArrow is a must nowadays, video titles and thumbnails cant be trusted anymore.
Hell yeah!!
Been using it since a while on rvx and it is a godsend. I can skip so many videos which are supposed to be like just a pic about something but someone decided to make 10 minutes video on it.
Really annoying feature honestly, now people can really optimize their nonsense clickbait. Thankfully, de-arrow exists.
Dropshippers and free robux scammers gonna like this
What is 'de-arrow'? I'm up for anything that will reduce clickbait thumbnails.
@@ziff_1 don't use it, it can remove relevant information sometimes. some videos even use the thumbnails as half the title.
LinusTechTips does this, they mentioned doing this to 'see' if viewers 'really do' hate what they claim.
@@mycelia_ow I've been using it for months now and never had an issue, if a title is unclear there's a button next to it to show the original title and thumbnail.
It's also noteworthy to say, that when watching youtube on a tv (especially a smaller one from further away), thumnail text is often easier to read than the title of a video.
We need an update for YT Spammer Purge, because their new tactic will start causing it to overfit or underfit depending on your settings I think. What they're doing is copying legitimate comments and not adding any suspicious content at all in the hopes you'll click on their profile based entirely on a provocative picture. If you have it set to ignore unususpicous duplicates it'll miss them, but if you have it set to clean up duplicates then dozens of legitimate comments will get caught in the crossfire. We need a mode that sorts all duplicates by time posted and then cleans up all of them *except* the original. If the original poster deletes their own comment it could cause one to slip through, but it seems like the best solution given that large scale duplicate cleanup could affect a significant portion of your comments
I have an extension that just forces the autogenerated thumbnails from the middle of the video, it's nice.
What is this extension?
@@rigurat The extension name is "Clickbait Remover for UA-cam"
I use it on Firefox, looks like there's a Chromium version as well.
Yes, please do tell.
@@riguratDeArrow
@@rigurat It's probably "Clickbait Remover for UA-cam". There's also "DeArrow" which follows a crowdsourcing approach.
I actually thought I was losing my mind because of there being unfamiliar thumbnails for videos I already viewed or put into my Watch Later list
Ha ya we found this about a week ago on the smaller channel only, not the main channel. It's pretty neat and we really appreciate this option. Not a complaint, it's just now the time added to create 3 thumbnails has increased, of course. For us, the test didn't show results that quick though. I'll go back through the channel videos and see what the results may be today. So glad you showcased this option!
I miss early UA-cam when the thumbnail was just a frame from the video
Did they at least get to choose the frame?
I still do this, export a frame is easier then custom making up a thumbnail. Id rather spend my time on video capture and editing than thumbnail making.
At most I use an image scanned from my flatbed scanner for some projects but I am already editing that for archiving anyway.
They should let viewers vote and also choose "I hate them all"
Hate is engagement, that is how the industry works now.
I've never seen a creator thumbnails for years, I use an extension that picks a thumbnail at random from the middle of a video, helps with cutting down on clickbait
You should really only make one change with each variant of a split test, {e.g. different background colour}otherwise you can't be certain why people preferred a certain thumbnail. This is awesome though!
About the arrow, i think it depends on the typical viewer: so for Mr beast it might work, but thiojoe followers are mostly somewhat tech savvy adults (I believe), so for them red arrow is Movietone.
0:02 A Person On UA-cam jumpscare
Honestly thought this was already a thing, but I must be misremembering; I was surprised you didn't mention the video Veritasium made a long time ago about changing his thumbnails and comparing the results.
It's important to make a distinction between clicks from subscribers and clicks from anyone else since subscribers have a much higher chance to click a video from a channel they subscribe to even if the thumbnail isn't optimal.
Been seeing these A-B Testing thumbnails for a while. They made no difference on whether or not I clicked on the video. If I didn't click, it was because I didn't have time to watch the video or I didn't want to watch it... as such, I was a source of bad data for at least someone out there.
What I would like to see is automatic and manual options to mark a video as having ever been watched, or watched within a set time (e.g. [video] has been watched within the past 5 weeks).
Yes! Both! One color for "within the last year" and another for "watched over year ago"
While we're at it, how about a way to turn autoplay off on playlists? Why would anyone want that you might ask but I do, especially for Watch Later. I want the list to stop between videos so I can think about it for moment if I want, finish writing or reading a comment, and a chance to hit the like button before moving on.
My watch list gets full and I have to go in there and clear out "already watched" occasionally and a "Like and remove from playlist" button would be REALLY nice! 🙂
For me on UA-cam the tumbnail has a red bar below it if I was watched the video before ... usually works up to 2-3 years, by that point, Youtbe seems to forget.
@@KatyaAbc575 Huh, I don't see such bars. Do you have Premium?
Huh, that might explain why I frequently see thumbnails changing.
So that's why Good Mythical Morning will have video thumbnails change several times
Today? I heard other creators talk about this feature over a month ago already
5:55 congratulations, you have a fanbase with a working brain and an ability to think for themselves.
Ok? Not really
Thanks for the heads up! 👍
I've been seeing this for a while. I believe before UA-cam added this as a feature, there were already third party applications doing this.
So you're saying that UA-cam now is featuring automated clickbait optimization... Because that's essentially what comparing thumbnails is doing. It's better when your traffic is driven by your reputation not your clickbait
No because it factors in watch time, if it’s just clickbait it won’t preform well
You definitely did not watch the video
This test & compare is testing watch time base on the thumbnail given
If the thumbnail is a clickbait, then watch time will have reduce percentage performance.
That test is comparing what is showing accurate given information on the thumbnail and people willing to stay with that said thumbnail
ThioJoe always gives me the lowdown with no BS. Thanks
I'm using browser addons to replace clickbait titles and thumbnails, so i get to see neither of the uploaded images, but UA-cam will still count it.
what addon do you use?
@@Zaro2008 DeArrow
@@bjornroesbeke thanks
Austin Evans is going to LOOOVE this! He's so obsessed with "Is ____ a scam?" and will be making 3 thumbnails saying the same thing.
Been watching the Brew channel do this for ages, not sure if they were doing it manually or it was the automated test.
That's pretty neat. At least know I know why some thumbnails changed over these days.
Yo, it's actually pretty useful. I mean, when I make a thumbnail I got a couple good ideas, and as anyone I must choice one.
And this is why I used browser extensions that replaced thumbnails and for the last weeks I simply block the network requests to prevent any thumbnail from loading...can't be arsed with this youtube bs
i hate people iwth these attitude. i hate these people hating thumbnails for no reason. life isnt perfect and youre not getting what you wish. i think these people should accept life and its problems and find ways around it than blocking it. i think it could be better. see if im correct
Thank you ThioJoe!!!!
Well, thumbnails can either be very appealing or extremely off-putting, but there's no doubt about YT's motivation behind changing them......more views, of course!! It's also another indication of their increasing use of AI.
As with you, Joe, and all other channels I'm subscribed to, I don't need a thumbnail to influence my decisions to view them. With channels that are unknown to me, it's just 50/50 because I'm more inclined to go for the title rather than the image. Either way, clickbaiting can just be pot luck for both the creator and the viewer.
The main core of success is the producer and contents themselves, and neither YT nor AI are good judges of either.
I tend to go by a video's title or the content provider rather than seeing the thumbnail.
Creators change titles too haha
thats probably not true
I use clickbait remover for UA-cam extension because I hate modern thumbnails
I vaguely remember thumbnails auto updating at some point, maybe it was around the time 1080p was introduced or when Flash was dropped.
This explains a lot. Thank you
Did you try a control test with the same image? I seen another video suggesting that the results can vary even using the same image.
Your videos are really informative.
That why your results are so close
People watch your videos anyways
You have a credible following
I wish I could set different thumbnails for different languages
I never click - just out of spite - on thumbnails with big red arrows, or the "sunbeams" or very thick white outlines, or overly surprised faces, and I do click if I see all 3 in one thumb, just to dislike/thumbdown it and then leave :)
Ah.. I thought creators were just changing the thumbnail to get more clicks :) thanks for the explanation.
You do create some great thumbnail though. May i ask what program you use for those?
ThioJoe - Slow down man! We love you. Don't die before your time. Take your time when you talk, no body is interested in a guy that talks like he's in a hurry. That's why I watch Nora O'Donnell or Lester Holt instead of the ultra Breaking News man (my wife loves) David Muir who raises my blood pressure when he come on with a blast. Be more relaxed, own your integrity as a good presenter and showman. If they want they can speed you up on the settings. Watch you often! JB from 34205usa -Be 66 in July. Lot's of love. Peace in Christ! Rest and Relax!
I've noticed thumbnails changing many times. Veritasium did a video on that, though from what I remember, they were changing it manually/trough the API. Does this one do the comparison like an AB test, in other words, do different viewers see different thumbnails at the same time, or do the thumbnails change periodically for all users? If it's the latter, there will be some error in the data, since I, and probably many others, just watch the videos from the creators I'm subscribed when I have the time, irrelevant from the thumbnail. And as you mentioned, the thumbnail sometimes changes while in the Watch Later playlist.
Just for transparency, I think all previous thumbnails should remain viewable to the viewers
revolutionary! A/B testing!
UA-cam tells creators that "human faces in the thumbnail work well for the algorithm, shocked or surprised faces are even better"
Suddenly the home page looks like a porn site.
This has been happening since the past year, and I'm pretty sure you already made a video/post on this, or maybe it was someone else.
2:57 I'm sure it does and also really doesn't, going by the phrase "Watch Time Share". I imagine that means they show each thumbnail to half of all viewers (or 33% if you have three tumbnails in the test). Then simply the thumbnail that contributed most to the video's total watch time is the winner. Extremely simple, elegant and effective, tbh, as it optimizes for the #1 thing UA-cam cares about - watch time
Meaning that if you have a clickbait thumbnail that mainly ropes in people who don't actually care about the video and click off almost immediately, and not anyone who actually stays for the video, then that thumbnail won't pull in a lot of watch time, making it a bad thumbnail because it doesn't actually attract an audience for the video. Similarly, having a thumbnail that gets only the people who are hyper-interested in the video's subject to click on it won't do well either (even if they all watch it 100%), because it doesn't draw in the potentially much larger group of casually interested people who'd maybe watch 50-70% of the video on average
So clickthrough rate obviously matters implicitly, but I don't think they measure it at all. They probably just measure the watch time, as the description suggests, because it's really the only thing that matters
Yeah I've seen nany channels do this - the thumbnail changing from when i first see it to when i see it on watch later, etc. it changes the title used as well.
*Thumbs up!* I'm talking about the nail-like ones. :)
guess we're a/b testing video thumbnails now
In your tests they are all almost the same, you need to use very different thumbnails to see a difference.
Is time of upload taken into account? difference in time zones etc... whether the viewers saw multiple versions of the thumbnails etc.. I honestly think the % difference isnt that big of a margin to make much of a difference and too many other variables to take into account.
I'm intrigued whether, if you ran the same test multiple times using the same three thumbnails on one specific video, whether the outcome would be consistent for one of the thumbnails
For me the title is more important when i'm considering what to watch.
joe got this feature yes
This gave me the final push to install DeArrow. I noticed the extension a while back but didn't bother with it, this seems like a good time to jump onboard..
Been happening for years i guess, would always notice when i see a video in the morning vs the next day or even later in the day. It was even for smaller tubers so i just though people manually changed em to get more attention
Explains why I've been seeing this for a while.
creators have been doing this for years. I think there is just a new tool to make it easier
@@igorlima8666 No, not a new tool increasing it's usage. At 0:38 he says that it was in testing before but it's been now rolled out to everyone.
Is that why people change their thumbnails about the same fay the video is uploaded?.
I've been seeing these changing thumbnails for a while, actually. Usually I notice it because youtube serves me up _both_ variants. Usually after I already skipped over a video, so it makes it feel kind of scummy. It's like they're trying to trick me into clicking on the video by changing the thumbnail and maybe I don't notice that it's the same. Whenever I see that I make a point of specifically _not_ clicking on it, because I wasn't interested in the video before. Changing the thumbnail is not going to make me interested in it now.
Oh, I thought it was the end of arrows and people looking really surprised. ;)
Which is worse for the algorithm: People not clicking on the video at all VS. People clicking on the video and closes it after 5 seconds.
With “clicking on the video”, there’s a higher chance of seeing an ad.
You want to say, that not the channels changing sometimes the thumbnail randomly, but this feature were tested? I started to think, that many uploadets change their thumbnails later, because they are not satisfied with the original one
Haven't UA-camrs been doing A/B thumbnail testing on their own for ages? I sort of welcome the automation, even for experienced creators thumbnail choice may be unfortunate.
Memo to creators: I am mainly a viewer and subscriber. If your title or thumbnail says NO or DON’T. I will most likely block and not watch. Hyped up titles are a turn off. Likewise ‘’creators’’ who just recycle other content literally, or copy the idea down to the last detail. Again blocked etc.
Two thoughts:
1 They are trying to help creators make better choices in thumbnails and
2 They are keeping programmers busy until they really need them.
I've had the feature for a while on one UA-cam channel I manage. Haven't used it yet though. I can see how it would be useful though.
Luckily i have a browser extension that changed the thumbnail to a random frame of the video
i already saw thay with cgp grey videos
Next will be with the title
I don't care what sort of toenail it puts up, as long as it tells the truth
the lebron james one was kinda funny to see the results on because the version of the thumbnail that made me click was the loser LMAO
This video inspired me to install dearrow. I'm already sick of clickbait and this will only make it worse.
Most videos these days, 95% of the lore is in the title and thumbnail which always makes videos seem way more intense or intriguing, and then the actual video is very mediocre.
Eg We survived the most insane car crash, heres what happened! = someone drove into us at 5mph, everyone was fine
You should make a video about how viewers can correct subtitles on videos with auto generated subtitles.
the amount of times I went to some semi recent videos just to get confused when did I watch this I don't remember the thumbnail
I can see the thumbnail you have used right now says huge changes in the exact same size and font as the thumbnail you showed at 0:29 with the higher click through/watch rate 😋
When you started showing more of your examples I noticed that a lot of yours that get higher click through make the person looking at the thumbnail pose a question to themselves such as "why does no one use it?" Or "what couldn't a reformat fix?." The virus final boss one and impossible to detect are more like you telling them something versus a hook that draws them in.
There's a logic problem with this test. I follow a number of channels, and I watch all videos from the channels I follow. I dont watch them because fo the thumbnail, I watch them when I get around to it. So if the thumbnail changes, and then I click it, that will be read as a positive indicator, but in reality, it just means I currently have a spare 20 minutes.
Thanks!
Im becoming more convinced that eventually youtube will develop thumbnail profiles for people and dynamically match a thumbnail to a user.
Thanks for this
I have been seeing different thumbnails on videos for quite awhile.
Maybe, then, when my book is finished, its cover design might be more intriguing than its title.
Need A B & C titles now, just like thumbnails
I've had this for over 2 years
Is watch time based on the timeline of the video vs literal time? For example, I watch some videos on 1.5x because some people just talk too slow.