I watch Vihart's videos, and the comments are full of low signal. All of the high quality comments are from G+ from anecdotal evidence. Let's look at the top ones on her Dragon Doodle video:
"Ever wonder why fractals are called "fractals"? It's because they have "fractional dimension". This idea comes from noticing that when you scale a 2-dimensional object up by a factor of 2, its area increases by a factor of 4, but when you scale a 2-dimensional Sierpinski triangle up by 2, its area increases by a factor of 3. With a normal 2D object, if you scale it up by a factor of 3, you'd increase the area by a factor of 9, but when you scale a 2-dimensional Koch snowflake up by 3, its area increases by a factor of 4. So fractals don't behave like normal objects. They behave as if they have fractional dimension"
First non-G+ comment? "Can I marry your mind, please?"
Or this one: "hey, no knock on community colleges, studied at a couple myself I just feel like everyone's giving this girl way more credit than is due, but like I said, that's just me, and it has been made clear by everyone and their mother watching this vid that it is ONLY me. lol"
Or this one: "Yeah, you're totally a dick."
General consensus is, YouTube comments are, by and large, shit. I don't think you're going to convince many people that they're worth it because you can find a few videos that might have slightly higher signal.
Frankly, I would like to see "unification" of comments so when I'm looking at a video, I can see what people are saying about it from around the Web, rather than the same video linked to from 15 different blogs. For example, if some new tech video comes out, and is covered by HN, TheVerge, Engadget, Reddit, etc, I end up having to visit 4 or more sites to see what people's reaction to the video is, rather than having them collated in one place.
As an employee of Google, you should realize you're in a groupthink environment. I absolutely despise the new Google+ change. The top comment on the most recent video I watched was a Google+ comment consisting of the title of the video plus ten hashtags. That was it. The other Google+ comments were similarly horrible and content-free.
At least with the previous implementation, you'd get a top comment that made you laugh once in awhile.
It's not really Google groupthink that YouTube comments suck, that's an external observation. Obligatory xkcd: http://xkcd.com/202/
It may be groupthink that G+ comments are better, but for my social stream, the people I follow, G+ is not a ghost town, it is a highly interesting place full of lots of thoughtful commentators. If I can filter comments by those whom I respect, and transitively, maybe one degree extended, it would be a vast improvement.
I say let people turn off the filters and leave the old comments as an option. Personally, first think I'd do is turn them off.
For the past 5 years I've been appalled by the amount of SPAM being generated on YT. Like this cute baby, then you'll love Ivans P800X Weightloss System 4.0. 56 thumbs up. Top comment. Every video.
I'm sure Google knew this was going to cause a stir. Every major interfact change that FB does causes mass outrage and even groups like "get 100,000 likes to petition for mark zuckerberg to switch back to the old FB" and such.
a lot of the pissed off ppl (not all) are the anonymous cowards that liked to hide behind throwaway identities, spammers, and people that generally like to read meaningless comments.
I am also an active G+ user and really enjoy several communities and groups that are of interest to me. What's really missing is the mainstream market: pics from last night, pet photos, moms, teens, etc. right now it is mainly super interweb savvy people who are active because they know how serious google is about G+
as a channel owner I am stoked about the change. i dont like getting used to new interfaces any more than the next person but I can definitely see how this will add a ton of value to my channel and YT in general.
"Ever wonder why fractals are called "fractals"? It's because they have "fractional dimension". This idea comes from noticing that when you scale a 2-dimensional object up by a factor of 2, its area increases by a factor of 4, but when you scale a 2-dimensional Sierpinski triangle up by 2, its area increases by a factor of 3. With a normal 2D object, if you scale it up by a factor of 3, you'd increase the area by a factor of 9, but when you scale a 2-dimensional Koch snowflake up by 3, its area increases by a factor of 4. So fractals don't behave like normal objects. They behave as if they have fractional dimension"
First non-G+ comment? "Can I marry your mind, please?" Or this one: "hey, no knock on community colleges, studied at a couple myself I just feel like everyone's giving this girl way more credit than is due, but like I said, that's just me, and it has been made clear by everyone and their mother watching this vid that it is ONLY me. lol"
Or this one: "Yeah, you're totally a dick."
General consensus is, YouTube comments are, by and large, shit. I don't think you're going to convince many people that they're worth it because you can find a few videos that might have slightly higher signal.
Frankly, I would like to see "unification" of comments so when I'm looking at a video, I can see what people are saying about it from around the Web, rather than the same video linked to from 15 different blogs. For example, if some new tech video comes out, and is covered by HN, TheVerge, Engadget, Reddit, etc, I end up having to visit 4 or more sites to see what people's reaction to the video is, rather than having them collated in one place.