Apparently the developers at YouTube read web comic xkcd. Before posting a comment on the video sharing site, users now have the option to hear their words in text-to-speech, a feature suggested in a recent installment of the popular online strip.
YouTube comment threads are well known for what could be kindly called "lacking coherence." There's even a Firefox extension to remove misspelled comments. Now the site has decided to let users hear for themselves how little sense they make.
Whether "audio preview" will make any difference to someone whose entire comment reads "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" (actual comment from a featured video) is to be seen. I'm guessing most commenters will skip right past it in an effort to get their "first!" comments in there.
The placement of the button is interesting. It's exactly where the post message button used to be, meaning quick commenters will discover it only when they accidentally click the new button. Hopefully they'll do this with their speakers up at work.
No word yet from YouTube on the official blog, but it caused at least one user to suspect a virus.
[Thanks for the tip, Koichi and the xkcd connection, ami_the_geek]
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