If you’re someone who likes to click around a lot while you’re surfing YouTube (and, let’s face it, you either are or you’re lying), you may notice that it often takes quite some time to load a new page when clicking around related videos. It’s not a excruciatingly long pause, but it’s definitely noticeable, and Google wants to do something about it. An article in Gizmodo reveals the ways in which YouTube’s programmers hope to cut down on this ‘lag’.
The article notes how clicking on related videos is now a common enough practice that YouTube is ready to assume people are doing it. As a result, the site will begin pre-loading the first chunk of related videos, so that ultra-impatient people (like myself) won’t have to stare a black screen for even a single second. Also, the site will stop downloading the YouTube player every time you access a new video. These two speed upgrades form the basis of lag reduction. It’s all explained in a couple of videos embedded in the article.
The lag on YouTube videos is far from a major problem, but I’m sure YouTube sees every second a viewer spends loading a video as a second in which he or she is reminded of other, more productive things to do. By streamlining the loading process, YouTube can ensure that we will never leave our video-watching trance.
