When it comes to any sort of online experience, internet comments will always be there to lower our collective faith in humanity. From those endless spam posts, to the most vile, offensive comments to likely ever see the light of day, one site is known for its comments more than any other, and that’s YouTube.
Currently, comments are shown by most recent, with a few comments being displayed at the top for their highest rating. But now, Google is utilizing Google Plus to favor relevancy over recency.
The new system will determine which comments are the most meaningful to the user, using factors like the relation of the commenter to that user, the amount of engagement a post receives, the post’s rating and even commenter reputation. This is all being done to eliminate the prevalence of spammers getting their links to shady sites to the top of a popular video’s comments.
Throughout all the innovations Google has been rolling out recently, one common theme is the role of Google Plus. Google continues to push the social network despite its inability to gain any real social momentum and compete with the powerhouse that is Facebook. A social network is worthless to Google if it can’t develop solid user base.
Also, no worries for those who like to still use a username for YouTube. Despite the site insistently “offering” the switch to using one’s real name, none of these changes are forcing that upon users.
Well, for now.