YouTube fans furious after controversial update puts Google results on search page
YOUTUBE has sparked fury after apparently testing a new feature that shows Google results in the app.
It means websites appear among videos when searching for clips on the site.
The feature doesn't appear to have rolled out to everyone.
But it was spotted by an eagle-eyed Reddit user, who it on the site.
The user had searched for "open beer with knife", which resulted in a list of possible videos.
However, after the fourth video was a new section called "result from the web".
This included a link to a web article about how to open a beer bottle with a butter knife.
And it also prompted the user to do a full search on Google proper.
Google has owned YouTube for years, so it's not a complete surprise.
And YouTube videos are regularly linked to from the main Google search engine.
But this appears to be the first time YouTube has surfaced Google links to users when searching for videos.
A screenshot of the change sparked fury on Reddit, with one user even branding it "garbage".
"I don't like this," wrote one user.
"If [I] were searching for videos in the Google app, this would be reasonable. I don't need search results when I'm looking for videos in a video app."
Another said: "That's really annoying. If I want a Google search, I'd go to Google.
"They should not treat users like tech-illiterate people."
And one moaned: "That would just ruin the YouTube experience.";
What was the first YouTube video?
Here's what you need to know...
- YOUTUBE'S first-ever video was uploaded 15 years ago – on April 23, 2005.
- It was a clip posted by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim, marking the beginning of the website's rapid and unstoppable rise to internet dominance.
- The video is titled "Me at the zoo", and is geo-tagged to San Diego.
- In the clip, Karim gives a short speech to camera in very low video quality by today's standards.
- He's standing in a zoo talking about elephants, who can be seen in the background.
- YouTube's inaugural video has now been viewed more than 90.2million times.
- It's received nearly 3million likes and has racked up more around 5.3million comments.
- Karim met fellow YouTube co-founders Steven Chen and Chad Hurley while working at PayPal.
- The trio went on to create YouTube, although Karim was officially an adviser to the site – rather than being an employee.
- He remained relatively unknown until Google purchased YouTube in 2006.
- Karim received 137,443 shares of stock, which was worth roughly $64million at the time.
- Watch the clip .
But some YouTubers are already big fans of the change.
"Sometimes I'm looking for a tutorial but I want a video explaining it," they said.
"And if it doesn't exist, now I have the option to do a quick Google search in the app."
And one added: "Personally I wouldn't like getting Google search results in the YouTube app, but I can see it being helpful for some.
"Making it an optional function would be best [in my opinion]."
Google hasn't rolled this out to everyone, so it's likely just a test.
Importantly, this means that the new feature could be scrapped before it ever becomes part of the general YouTube release.
We've asked YouTube for comment and will update this story with any response.
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