Save a video, read it in two minutes

An hour-long talk is a big ask on a weekday. Most of the time you do not need the whole hour. You need to know what was said, and whether the way it was said is worth your evening. That is what a video entry in your morning letter is for.

How it works

In the YouTube app, tap Share, then Note That Down. We read the video's captions, the same text you see when you turn on subtitles, and summarize what the speaker actually said: the main claim, three points, and the one line that stuck. The entry shows the runtime, so you know what you are signing up for before you press play.

We summarize the talk, not the fact that it is a video. You will not read that someone "discusses" something. You will read what they claimed.

When a video has no captions

Some videos have no captions at all, usually short clips, music, or uploads where the creator turned them off. We cannot summarize what we cannot read, and we will not guess from the title. Those videos still appear in your letter, with their title and a link, under a short note that says there were no captions. Nothing you save is dropped.

Videos worth saving

Long conversations and podcasts filmed for YouTube get the most out of a summary. They are the hardest to fit into a day and the easiest to judge from a transcript. Lectures, conference talks, and explainers do well too.

Some talks are worth watching for the delivery: a commencement speech, a performance, a story told well. When that is the case, the verdict says so. It will not mark something as a skim just because it has few facts. A summary can tell you what a speech argued, but it cannot give you the speech.

Try it

Next time a video shows up in your feed and you think "later", share it instead of adding it to Watch Later. Tomorrow morning you will know in two minutes whether later should ever come.