What you’re seeing is the updated share functionality 🥳 It links to a brand new feature: the Video Watch Page! Instead of the big blue button copying your Google Drive link like it used to, that button now copies the Watch Page URL for your video. The Watch Page provides a whole new viewing experience for your audience, whether they are students, parents, or other teachers.
More importantly, because viewing is happening on this page instead of on Google Drive, we’re able to collect viewer analytics and share those important insights with you!
When you share your video, the Watch Page is the page where your users will watch your video (hence the name!)
Clicking on "Copy Share Link" will produce a unique watch page URL that you can share anywhere you'd like! Additionally, depending on the privacy settings you have selected from the Video Watch Page, this will allow you to collect analytics data about who has seen your video, how often, and when. 🧐
When users access the Watch Page link, they will see the video in a new browser tab where they can play, pause, rewind, replay, and mute the video. Depending on the privacy settings you have selected, they may also be asked to sign in to watch the video. This will allow the views of your video to be tracked in your Viewer Analytics.
If you choose to have someone sign in to watch the video so you can collect analytics, the Watch Page will display the user's email address in the top right, the title of the video on the bottom left, and feature the video in the center.
Additionally, if you click on the three dots in the bottom right hand corner of the watch page, you will see a few more options for playback, including Playback speed and Picture-in-Picture!
Playback speed allows you to adjust your video playback speed so you are able to watch it from 0.5x - 2x the speed of the original video.
Picture-in-Picture allows you to pop the video out of the webpage into a floating window so you can continue to watch while working in other browser tabs.