Over the last 6 months or so, YouTube has been focusing more on developing Cards and End Screens as the primary tools for keeping fans engaged. At the same time, they’ve been slowly phasing out annotations. Last week YouTube officially announced the end of annotations.

While annotations have been an amazingly useful and innovative tool, many YouTubers have gotten into bad habits of using them in ways that feel spammy. Since there weren't many limitations on how annotations look and exactly where they were used in the video, they would often lead to a confusing or distracting experience that doesn't really benefit the viewer. Since End Screens and Cards have become the primary tools for engagement on YouTube, annotation usage has decreased by over 70%. Annotations were also not displayed on mobile devices, which makes up a very large percentage (60%) of YouTube’s viewership. Both End Screens and Cards are available on mobile devices.Beginning on May 2nd, YouTube users will no longer be able to create new annotations or edit existing annotations. You will be able to delete old annotations from any of your videos and, if you want to keep them, your existing annotations will still appear on your videos.Please email us and let us know if you have any questions or concerns about the end of annotations.Also, be sure to check out our blogs on End Screens and Cards for more information on understanding and utilizing these tools.