They do.

So for anyone looking for an easy way to watermark YouTube videos without getting into video production or buying a one-off piece of software, this is probably a good solution.

Here’s a screenshot showing the annotation on the video embedded in my blog:

Using YouTube Annotations to Watermark Videos

Since Annotations are just an overlay on top of the videos (I think), web savvy individuals can probably get around this by downloading the YouTube video and uploading it to another video streaming service. And it happens all the time.

However, if you aren’t too concerned about it and you would just like to include a link to your blog or some other information (or add some “pop up humor” to your videos), YouTube Annotations can be a really fun and easy way to do it. You have some control over the size, shape, and color of the annotations, as well as the duration and some other aspects.

You can also create an annotation that links back to YouTube page (channel), where you can encourage people to subscribe to your videos. Just be careful about using arrow-shaped annotations to point to the Subscribe button, since the button won’t be present if your video is embedded on someone else’s blog or web site. Instead it might be pointing to an advertisement or other unrelated link.

Annotations are really easy to create. Once you are logged into YouTube, click on My Videos > Annotations and read the brief instructions. It might take a little bit of experimenting to find something you like, but the results could be very powerful, especially if you have a lot of “fans” showing off your videos. It even works on Facebook!

YouTube Annotations on Facebook

You can also create Captions for people with disabilities. But this post is already long enough…