YouTube Highlight Reel

Have you ever wanted to watch a 20 minute TED Talk but didn't have the time? With YouTube Highlight Reel, you can convert a long YouTube video into short form content with a simple click of a button.

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Inspiration

It's no secret that the popularity of short-form media consumption has been growing exponentially over the past several years. According to a study conducted by Forbes, videos under 60 seconds made up 57% of YouTube views in July 2022, compared to only 11% in July 2020. However, long-form content still provides valuable insights that may get overlooked by users who get deterred by their high minute count. We wanted to provide users with a way to quickly preview a video's key insights, allowing watchers to decide if they want to watch the full video or move on to a different topic.

What it does

YouTube Highlight Reel is a Google Chrome Extension that integrates directly onto the YouTube player and allows users to generate a highlight reel with the click of a button. When activated, the extension plays the most rewatched moments of the video and skips through the rest of the content, providing a streamlined experience for users to preview a YouTube video. This extension is primarily intended for educational and self-development videos, but can be utilized for all videos with rewatch statistics.

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Not only was this event our first hackathon, but it was also our first time creating a Google Chrome Extension. We're extremely proud to have put together a working product for the final presentation given our limited experience and the short timeframe. Additionally, our adaptability and creativity skills increased tremendously throughout the competition, as switching from a Flask environment to a fully JavaScript project was a difficult, but ultimately the right decision that ensured we finished the product on time.

What we learned

In terms of technical skills, it was Mohit's first time developing in JavaScript, so he got to familiarize himself with the language and learn a lot about creating backend functionalities using the language. Additionally, Shiv learned how to utilize the regex library and coordinating multiple asynchronous JavaScript functions. Beyond techinical skills, we also improved our project management skills significantly by creating an extensive plan for the project pipeline, adapting and changing functionality when needed, and finishing with a functioning extension.

What's next for YouTube Highlight Reel

In future iterations, we plan to improve the quality of our highlighted portions by identifying and including another metric for determiningthe most valuable portions of a YouTube video (potentially by analyzing the script for keywords). This will allow us to cross-check highlights generated from the most replayed statistics and provide a more impactful set of highlights to users.

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