Earlier, we talked about some things that needed to be improved with YouTube.  But that was only the beginning.  There are so many more things that could make the experience better.  So without further ado, let’s take a look at Part 2 of the YouTube Wish List.

These Are Things We Want, YouTube (Part 2)

Tim Schmoyer, who gives us Creator’s Tips every Thursday, has quite a few awesome suggestions, and I still have a roster of wishes from Ronnie Bincer at Video Leads Online, which will complete this (initial) list.  So in no particular order:

A More Robust Editor

One of the big problems with uploading your videos is if something is just a bit off, you can’t do too much to it without re-uploading, and especially if you have a video with lots of views, you don’t want to start all over again.  A more robust editor would be great for tweaking older videos, adding outro slates, updating your video intro/bumper, etc.

More Access to YouTube Live Stream

This is by invitation only, for accounts in good standing, and there’s nothing you can particularly do to get on it.  But YouTube Live would be pretty awesome for those who would like to use more than a webcam for their events and putting them on Google Hangouts.  You can set up multi-camera events with this thing.  And you can even put ads on it.  So you see how valuable an option this would be for most people.  But, the help section does promise this is rolling out soon, so stay tuned.

Better Analytics Concerning Subscriber and Non-Subscriber Engagement

Tim mentioned this one, and I said, “Yes!”  This is a big one, because it’s very difficult to see how your subscribers are interacting with the video versus non-subscribers.  When you see your view count, how many times are your subscribers contributing to that total?  How many times do they comment?  You don’t need to know any personal information, just the general stuff.  Another big thing Tim mentions is “how does one video perform in converting non-subscriber views into subscribers versus another?”  And how many people see the video in their feed and don’t watch it?  These kinds of analytics would be extremely helpful in figuring out how your audience watches your videos.

Allow for More Than One External Linked Website

A few months ago, YouTube made it so that you could link  your videos to an external website.  Finally, you were able to get people to click on an annotation that took your audience off YouTube so you could do things that YouTube doesn’t allow you to do, like sell your own merchandise.  With reason, YouTube wants you to link to a site that is “all you,” and not something that tricks viewers into going to a non-relevant site.  But what if you have a bunch of relevant sites?  You can’t link to all of them, just the one.  So having the ability to send people to multiple relevant sites would be pretty awesome.

Better Ways to Collaborate and Interact with Your Audience

Right now, you can make comments, and maybe interact with people through social media.  And that’s about it.  But “video responses” could be much more interactive than they are now, where you could respond to a comment, common comments, or multiple comments, with video.

Improved System to Help People Know that the Annotations Are Not On

You may have turned them off, or didn’t know you ever turned them off.  So a little message somewhere in the bottom part of the player might be helpful.

Analysis of Average Retention

Right now, YouTube tells you the total watch time for your videos, but not the average retention, or how long a video is keeping viewers watching.  Knowing which ones keep the most interest can make it easier to know which ones to feature on the channel page and which ones to link to in the outro slate.  And going back to the subscriber/non-subscriber data, being able to distinguish the retention between those two groups would be helpful.

Mass Updates to Annotations

YouTube came out with Bulk Actions a few weeks ago, and you could do use almost everything with it except annotations.  If you have annotations that need to be updated, you have to go to each video and change each one individually.

Mobile Analytics

This is apparently coming soon, but right now you can only really see the views from a mobile device.  You can’t separate all the other data, though, from desktop viewing.

Is That All?

I’d like to thank Tim and Ronnie for giving me suggestions.  All of these would make running a YouTube channel better.  Read Part 1 here and comment below if you have any others to share.