YouTube's new Video Speed Dashboard

Gives a nice look into how your YouTube download speeds compare to others

Online video provider, YouTube keeps rolling out features and tools.  On Thursday, the company launched a Video Speed Dashboard in an attempt to inform its users just how fast their videos are downloading in comparison to others nearby, other regions, different ISPs and across the globe. 

The information provided is pretty straight forward.  By heading over to https://youtube.com/my_speed, YouTube will show users their average video download speed for the past 30 days.  The most useful feature is the comparison results of other nearby ISP's.  For example, in my results, my average speed was 1.96 Mbps over the past 30 days - I'm signed up with the awful San Bruno Cable.  If I was with AT&T, I could be getting an average of 3.45 Mbps, which is almost double my current speed, I'm highly considering it now. 

It's interesting to observe how this feature ties into Google's overall effort to "make the Web faster."  Just a few days ago, Google announced it would be running a trial of its own high-speed fibre optic network, available to "at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people."  The network could potentially deliver speeds 100x faster than what we are used to in most of the US.  The Speed Dashboard could potentially show comparison's to YouTube's network in the coming year. 

YouTube admits the dashboard isn't really meant for anything but information.  In a blog post the company said, "Some users will find it interesting to compare their city's average YouTube speed with the rest of the world's. Some will discover they're running at slower speeds compared to other users with the same ISP. A higher YouTube video speed translates to a better and faster experience not just for YouTube videos but for the Web in general; and by making this speed data available to users we would like to continue our ongoing efforts to make the web faster."