YouTube's New Features: Longer Shorts & 'Add Yours' Stickers

Transcript

YouTube is currently experimenting with a so-called “Add Yours“ sticker, meaning “add your part of the story.” This means that as a creator, I can set a call-to-action, encouraging viewers to submit their own Shorts. These will then be marked as replies to the original Short when clicked on the sticker. Within this experiment, it’s unclear whether this will be the only way to see replies or if a viewer-submitted Short can also generate reach independently. I would initially assume the latter. As mentioned, it’s unclear. However, you should check with your viewers to see if there are people who might not want to respond publicly. I find this a bit tricky, just so you know.

What cannot be denied is that this is an Instagram feature that the YouTube team has been heavily inspired by. You could put it that way. Again, I have the feeling that YouTube is trying to please everyone and dance on all weddings, without committing to one direction and pooling resources to actually complete and excel at something. I find that a bit disappointing. It’s another feature that consumes resources and slows down necessary, pending development goals. That’s my take on it. Please share your thoughts in the comments.

At this point, a quick plug: We’re on our way to 1000 subscribers. Support us in reaching this goal so you stay informed about YouTube updates. And I’d say we’ll get back to the topic of Shorts, as there was an interview in the last few days on the Creator Insider channel where the YouTube CEO and Chief Product Officer, I think her name is Johanna, among other things, discussed longer Shorts. This is something that, in my opinion, goes against the fundamental concept of Shorts. If I want to upload a vertical video, I can do that. If I want to upload a Short to utilize Short features, I can also do that.

The logical conclusion would be to not call them Shorts but “Verticals” instead. Then I can vary in length and make the features available for Shorts also available for Verticals, thus offering viewers a better vertical video experience. That would be the logical conclusion, rather than simply making Shorts longer because it’s already possible to upload longer videos in vertical format. I have mixed feelings about this. What do you think? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Lastly, there’s a change regarding channel info boxes. In the settings, there’s now an option to provide a contact address that users can display by solving a captcha on the channel page. While there’s still the option to enter this email address, there’s no longer a way to solve the captcha and display the email. Whether this is an intended change or if it broke because YouTube once again moved UI elements around is currently unclear. We’re looking into it so you don’t wonder. And if you are subject to provider identification obligations, please make sure to either link to your legal notice where an email address is provided, or include the email address in your channel info so you can be electronically reached quickly, as stated in paragraph 5 of the Digital Services Act (DSA). You know what to do, please check if everything is in order on your end.

And I’d say we’ll see you next week for more YouTube updates. Until then, take care and keep going!