If you are a regular YouTube consumer, you will surely have seen how some videos show a large number of annotations throughout or at the end of the video, annotations that sometimes take up so much space that they do not allow us to enjoy the video itself. Also, depending on the user who posted the video, it is likely that the warmth of it leaves a lot to be desired and all the work you have done editing the video is useless with very poor quality annotations.
For just over a year, YouTube implemented a new card system, a system that unifies the way in which we can offer additional information to the followers of our channel. The cards are placed in one of the corners of the video and offer us, for a short time, information related to other videos on the same channel. These cards have limited space and at no time affect the viewing of the videos. They are also compatible with mobile applications, something that does not happen with annotations.
After living together for a more than prudent time to check which was the option most used by users, the YouTube video platform has just announced that annotations will no longer be available as an option to add additional information to videos, so that we are only going to add cards. YouTube's decision is motivated by the use that users make of them. Currently only 30 of the users make use of the annotations, so it does not make any sense to continue offering them as an option to complement the videos.
This measure comes into force on May 2, date until both services will be available, but from that date we will only be able to add extra information through cards. All the videos that currently offer annotations instead of cards will continue to show them but we will not be able to edit them, and if we do it will be to replace them with cards.