Finding a textual information online is simple and now only takes a few seconds, but the same cannot be said for those contained in a video. The search within a movie requires the preventive analysis of what is said by the person appearing in it, a practice that is today complex and mostly not accessible to the general public if not by leveraging subtitles where available. We’ll get there, sooner or later. The initiative announced today by Google represents a first step in this direction.

YouTube: the key moments of the videos

The Mountain View group announces that in the English SERP (results pages) of the search engine will begin immediately to appear the key moments of the streaming videos on YouTube, as can be seen in the attached screenshot below. The indexed clip is accompanied by a sort of timeline on which the points where a given topic or topic is addressed are placed. The information is taken from those indicated by the authors by inserting a timestamp in the description.

It will thus be sufficient just one click (or a tap on mobile devices) to start playback exactly from that moment, not having to deal with the need to search for the exact point of the movie following the opening by moving forward or backward. Let’s imagine that a feature of this type can be useful especially for content such as tutorials or for conferences or live events, without forgetting seminars and lessons. At the moment it is not known when the rollout will come to affect other territories.