Free Channel Memberships for YouTube Premium Users: The Big Experiment in April 2024!

Transcript

I’m on vacation and this computer is dying, so please excuse the noises the fan is making. So let’s get right to the mobile news. They’re getting new priorities. The team is working on vertical live streams, which means it will be rolled out there first, allowing you to press a button, enter a few letters, and then select who among the co-chatters should be tagged. These tags will of course be highlighted for the recipient just like on desktop, meaning they’ll be displayed in a different color so you know you’ve been tagged. That’s a really good thing! The whole thing is still being built for horizontal live chats once vertical live streams are ready and can be rolled out in a stable version. There’s no specific date for that yet, though.

Let’s move on to desktop and the Shorts in the feed. There was a bug there where views weren’t displayed correctly. That’s been fixed now, so another issue checked off the list. Staying on the topic of Shorts and desktop: Shorts thumbnails and the desktop version likely won’t be making a comeback anytime soon. Don’t get your hopes up too much there. YouTube is fully focusing on smartphones. So if you want thumbnails for your Shorts, you’ll need to upload them from a mobile device, either Android or iOS. There will be a text editor for Shorts thumbnails that works on mobile as well. That’s scheduled for late February to late March. We’re in the launch period, so keep an eye out.

Text editor means you can simply take some text and place it over the frame. Moving on to Member Gifting with 2x F-Free Memberships. It still only works for accounts that are actually main accounts, not brand accounts, in the YouTube Partner Program. It should be prioritized for this quarter, but there’s definitely nothing happening in March, so there’s a big question mark for the next quarter. We’ll keep watching and I’ll keep you updated.

Staying on memberships: Targeted Member Gifting will definitely not be available in Q2 2024. However, another experiment is set to launch next month, where premium users get a free membership. We’ve seen this before and wondered what happened to it. It seems it’s moving forward, but beware: There’s a rumor that you won’t have a free membership available every month, only once when upgrading to Premium. I actually think that’s a bit of a shame if it turns out to be true. During this experimental phase, feedback should definitely be given that monthly would be preferred, so YouTube gets a strong signal.

Let’s continue and stay with transaction revenue: Moving on to Super Chats. There will be likes for Super Chats, a pretty interesting story for both mobile and desktop. The full launch is scheduled for around March 20th, about two weeks from now. Additionally, there should be a Super Chat update at the end of April that introduces Super Chat replies and threads. We don’t yet know what that will look like, but I can imagine it being very interesting. It could also be used to draw attention to a topic and then discuss it - I could see a Super Chat being a really exciting feature, especially for channels focused on tutorials or explainer videos. Motorcycle channels or DIY channels come to mind there.

A US-only or US-first launch with a few English-speaking countries: In about 1.5 months, YouTube Playables are set to return. That means if you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber, you’ll be able to play small games on YouTube for free. Whether that’s necessarily useful remains to be seen. But it also confirms a rumor: Some Stadia developers - Stadia was Google’s gaming platform - have now moved to YouTube and are continuing work on their Crowdplay feature. Crowdplay was originally a way for Stadia users to join another Stadia user’s stream. That interface is set to be expanded, and there’s work being done to include a button in streams by the end of 2024 that lets you buy and download games.

Current Updates on YouTube and Gaming

It’s important to connect a suitable third-party platform with YouTube. Currently, there are options like Epic Games and Battlenet, for example. In my opinion, these are all just rumors, but this interface between the two accounts already exists. This means that you can ultimately click a button, buy the game through Battlenet or Epic Games, download it, and join the streamer. In this vision, there is also talk of affiliate keys. When we look at the ecosystem in the YouTube and YouTube Live space, we know that Epic Games offers so-called Creator Codes, which are exactly that: a revenue share, a kind of affiliation when selling keys. That’s why Epic Games is actually the strongest partner you can imagine here. Definitely an interesting story that gaming creators should keep an eye on.

That’s it for today. If you have any further questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. Otherwise, subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss any updates. We’ll see you again next week from the regular studio with a working computer. Until then, take care and keep going!