Just while I was stumbling upon Youtube looking for a few relaxing video clips to spice up my breakfast, I was surprised and super excited that Youtube has finally started rolling out the most wanted feature (of mine) -- viewers can now "expand" the video to window size!

Ok, it might be quite confusing to those who don't usually use the expand feature. "Expand" is a button that locates on the lower right corner of every youtube video (this feature is only available if you are watching the clip on Youtube.com). Once you click on it, it will expand the video clip to the size of your browser window, and change the resolution automatically from 360p to 480p. 

It is a very good feature for most people, though if you are using a hi-res monitor, it could still be too small. You certainly could switch the video to fullscreen mode, however not everyone would wanna sit still, do nothing and watch those random people singing their lungs out (don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Jayesslee and Christine Grimmie), and this new enhanced expand feature seems to be the solution for all.

As soon as I pressed the "Expand" button, the video clips was immediately zoomed in to the size of the safari window. Awesome, but that is not all. Google has done a beautiful job so that you can do almost everything without leaving this beautiful expanded video clip.

Video Controls

Video controls is now automatically hidden just like the way it is in fullscreen mode. You can bring up the video controls tool bar by moving your mouse or click anywhere on the video, and it will automatically appear in the middle of the window. Despite of the usual playback control, Youtube has added a thumb up and thumb down buttons for you to show your appreciation (or otherwise...) without leaving the video clip.

Related videos

If you move your cursor closer to the bottom of the video, you will get a large roll up menu that shows you all the good stuff related to this video... and you.

You can choose from among Related videos, your feed, your watch later list, top picks in Youtube, and of course the videos you added to favorite, and the result will display in a marquee just right on top of the menu items. This is some very handy feature that allow you to do so much more all in one place without leaving the video screen.

In-Video Search

This new expand feature is such a well thought out enhancement (and get me thinking if that has anything to do with Google TV...). If you move your cursor closer to the top of the video, a search bar will appear! You can do a search directly in the video, and the results will show up at the bottom of the screen just like the "Related to..." results. This is a brilliant UX enhancement and I believe it will help engaging visitors to stay on Youtube and increase the pageviews.

Cons? Of Course

There is one problem, and I think it could very well defeat the purpose of all these user experience enhancement. Whenever I move the cursor outside of the video, I get the "Related To..." tool bar, which pretty much covers half of the window, making it very difficult to watch the video if I want to do something else at the same time. Youtube definitely needs to fix this when they are rolling out this feature officially if they want this new investment a success.

It seems that right now all these features are only available on Safari, which got me thinking though -- shouldn't they start with Google Chrome instead (maybe it does in Windows, but oh well I wouldn't know as I only tested with my Mac)? Nonetheless, I love these features and hopefully Youtube will roll them out across all browsers and operation systems very soon.

Do you like these features? Will it be more convincing if this is what the future Google TV gonna look like?