If you’ve watched a video on YouTube recently, you may have noticed an “i” icon appearing in the top right corner of the photo. This symbol is a new feature called “Cards” that YouTube sees as an evolution of annotations.
Clicking on this icon opens a card that displays additional information about the video, which has been added by the video creator.
According to YouTube, there are five different card types supported so far: associated website, fundraising, merchandise, video, and playlist.
All cards have one thing in common: they link to something. The website, video, and playlist options are probably the easiest, as they are used to link to an external website, another video, or a playlist.
Merchandise is similar to a website, except that it links you to a store where an item can be purchased. Fundraising finally links you to a website that aims to raise money, for example, Kickstarter.
Creators can add the “Cards” feature to either their old videos or future ones. This is done in the following way:
1. Under your video, click the Cards icon that appears fifth in line (you must be the creator of the video and be logged in to your YouTube account to see the icons and have administrator rights.) Alternatively, you can simply go to your video management.
2. Click on the bar to the left of the video that says “Add card” and select the card that suits you.
If you choose to fundraise or commercial products, please note that only certain external links are currently allowed. The full list of permitted sites is available here .
This restriction does not apply to linking to a related website. Although in this case, your external link must comply with YouTube for a location to be accepted.
Specifically, the website you will be linking to must comply with AdWords policies, YouTube's advertising policy, and its community guidelines.
An interesting aspect of this feature that is of interest to video creators is that the cards also work on mobile phones.
Please note that the Cards icon is always displayed in the upper right corner of the video. It is possible that creators may want to either delete or modify it at some point. YouTube gives you the option.
As a simple viewer, you can also choose not to see it if you turn off your comments, either by clicking the gear icon on each video's page, or by turning them off permanently through the playback settings .
However, it seems that the cards provide creators with an additional option to connect to content that is important to them. Expect to see more videos using this feature in the near future.
