Youtube Annotations

Having not been in for the actual lesson introducing us to the topic and brief, it was difficult for me to understand why there was a brief set about this, as from my knowledge Youtube annotations are just pop up comments used by people who do vlogs and videos to just add to their own comments at certain points to the video or simply to expand or comment on something that they mentioned during it. In most cases they are used for linking its audience to other videos in relation to the video itself or link to advertisements or video responses that other users have made and have linked to the video. 

However, once i'd looked at the prezi on blackboard I started using the links to research the different kinds of Interactive Youtube videos. A lot of them, such a the Jamie Oliver 'Give me a slap' video, primarily just for Play seemed just completely pointless. There were quite a lot of these examples listed, which i don't understand the purpose for them. I think most of the time Youtube users switch off the Youtube annotations button off, I know i do, because a lot of the time they are useless and annoying pop ups that get in the way of videos.

However, When looking into the Story element of Annotations I seemed to be less pointless, and more intriguing. The video below of 'Choose a different ending' was a really great concept to look at especially as i personally didn't think this could be achieved on Youtube(shows how much i know about recent technology) but I thought it was a great idea, considering how many people nowadays use Youtube, and bring in a more profound element of interactivity, instead of just comment and video responses, its audience can inevitably choose how the story unravels, using numerous outcomes and paths using these annotations within each chapter of the story. 

I really like the idea of of the story unravelling, but after looking at a few examples using this notion of letting the audience being the decision maker, it was apparent that a lot of these involved a moral dilemma, and really questioned peoples morality, such as in this interactive story, about a Zombie Apocalypse, where you are asked to either let a man in, or leave him to die.

I think If I was to create a narrative using annotations i would use these as inspiration more than i would a campaign using then for advertising and links to further inspiration, because i love the fact stories are becoming more virtual and interactive. 

Having looked at the whole horror aspect producing this based around that theme would be the best route to take, however, if i wanted to be more creative I'd want to expand the idea from an old fairytale, however, mixing it up a bit to change the stories path into several different outcomes.