Cleaning up YouTube by ignoring user comments

Filed in archive Internet TV on December 11, 2006

CBS now stands for Cleaner, Better, Site

For those of you who think that YouTube is becoming too corporate, here is a story that helps bolster your case.

excerpts from the New York Times:

One of YouTube's corporate partners is changing the ways that users comment on those videos.

... The comments on many of the videos posted by CBS have now been moved to a separate page; instead of sample comments underneath the videos, a link to "view all comments" takes users to a separate Web page where they can read comments without watching the video at the same time.

"We just want to make sure the front page is a little bit cleaner," [Quincy Smith, the president of CBS Interactive] said... "We thought it was a better user experience, and it gives us a second to weed out the completely unuseful comments."

CBS is not the only content provider on YouTube to filter out "spam" messages from the user comments; representatives from YouTube confirmed that the Web site will often use such filters if complaints are raised.

The CBS deal with YouTube ... has so far yielded positive results for the network. According to an announcement the companies made on Nov. 21, CBS videos were among some of the most-viewed content on the site during the first month of partnership.