YouTube Creator Updates: Live Stream Reminders, Paid Hype, and Super Chat Goals

Transcript

We briefly touched on the notification for upcoming livestreams in the Shorts feed last week and were able to get confirmation from YouTube: it’s actually an experiment that is about to roll out. The reminders, as they are officially called, will be rolled out to all creators as we suspected, and will automatically display a notification prompt - in all of the creator’s shorts when a stream is scheduled within the next 24 hours. The experiment will run for the next two weeks and then transition to a post from the YouTube team for release. That means we have about two weeks of testing, and then we should see it more widely.

If you don’t like Shorts at all, you can click on the 2x2 box at the top of the Shorts in the standard YouTube app - it will take some time to roll out - and say, “I want to see fewer Shorts.” Then you’ll be shown fewer Shorts temporarily. This should actually have relatively little impact on your numbers because people who use this feature would presumably watch fewer Shorts anyway, according to YouTube. That makes sense. However, I wonder why it’s only temporary and why users will be bothered with Shorts in their feed again after 30 or 60 days. They could just turn them off completely. That’s at least my way of thinking. Oh well, good question why it was done this way. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Live redirects had a small issue in recent weeks: users were not being redirected properly. However, the bug seems to have been found and fixed by the YouTube team. Nevertheless, streamers who broadcast live on YouTube should still make their viewers aware of the importance of turning on the autoplay feature. There are reports that it works without autoplay as well. But if you have autoplay enabled, you’re definitely on the safe side. There may also be another bug that hasn’t been fixed yet: viewers on smartphones who watched Shorts first essentially load a Shorts overlay but remain in the horizontal stream. This is a very strange situation that occurs very rarely. In this case, of course, closing and reopening the app completely should fix it until it’s ultimately resolved.

Now let’s move on to paid Hypes. We’ve already complained that the Hype feature is actually useful and allows you to share three free Hypes per week for creators you want to support. In one of YouTube’s blog posts, they mentioned the possibility of testing this feature as a paid Hype as well. This means viewers would pay to be able to distribute more than three Hypes per week. We have at least received confirmation that there will also be a 70/30 revenue share for creators with these paid Hypes. I think it’s commendable that YouTube is not enriching themselves here but treating it as transaction revenue for creators. It is currently being tested in Brazil and Turkey. As soon as the feature becomes available in more countries, you will of course hear about it on this channel.

Let’s stay with the transaction revenues, as we have already discussed the Super Chat Goals a few times, which have been postponed several times - what is known as a pushback. Another experimental phase with 20 to 30 percent of total users is currently underway. There should be another update from the YouTube team by the end of the month, and the launch is expected to be completed by the end of the year. Whether the schedule can be kept remains to be seen. But you know that here: you are always up to date.

Now let’s move from transaction revenues to YouTube Studio Mobile, as it now also has a horizontal mode, known as landscape mode in English. This is quite nice for viewing graphics. But first of all, I wonder: who really analyzes analytics in depth on their phone? I mean, it’s nice that you can see the charts…

YouTube Updates: Community Engagement and New Features

An interesting piece of news: We’ve been talking to someone at YouTube and we’re currently collecting topics for a management presentation. You’re surely familiar with PowerPoint - one of the slides can be designed by us as a community with content or desired features. I’m collecting ideas from all possible sources, and you’re more than welcome to share your suggestions in the comments. Then I’ll create a big list and we’ll let the community vote on it. This way, we can see which features are most wanted and which are less so. Afterward, we’ll submit the top 10 features that our community, including the YouTube Gaming community, desires. I think this is a great initiative that we should all participate in!

I already have a list of at least 12 ideas, but I won’t reveal them yet as I first want to hear your wishes.

Thank you for your participation! See you next Saturday for more YouTube updates. Stay healthy and active!