YouTube HYPE, Livestream & SuperChat Updates
The YouTube Shorts feed now has the ability to save sounds and music for later use in the Shorts editor as a creator.
Transcript
The YouTube Shorts feed is getting the ability to save sounds or music for later use in the Shorts editor as a creator. I think this is overall a useful feature that we don’t need to discuss further. So, let’s move on to the YouTube Chrome Extension for shopping affiliate stories. Of course, it’s only available in the USA at the moment. We know that YouTube Shopping in the US works similarly to the Amazon Affiliate Program worldwide. This means you can link products below the video with affiliate links and the creator earns from the sales.
Now, this Chrome Extension is intended to make it easier to find products when you’re browsing and think, “Oh, this product would be suitable for the affiliate program.” It’s frustrating that once again, it’s only available in the US and the affiliate program isn’t being rolled out further. But we have to work with what we’ve got and use competitor products until YouTube offers something similar.
A very interesting story, which we already discussed in May, is Super Chat replies. This means that within a Super Chat, I can click and there are a series of replies that are 100% rolled out. This has been active for a few days now, since August 1st. So, if you see Super Chats, you can now click in and view the replies or write your own. Let me know what you think about it. I think it’s a great feature.
And while we’re on the topic of live streams, there’s new information about AI live stream summaries. We’ve discussed this before: AI will summarize live streams. There are enough data being collected, and it was unclear how much data is actually needed for an AI summary to be created. Well, we now have a concrete value. I’m quite surprised by this, but it seems to be a step towards transparency. We’re not complaining. AI summaries for live streams will only work if there were over 30 non-repeating English messages in the last 2 minutes. And they won’t work in the EU due to AI restrictions. We’ll see when this might be the case in the EU. But if you’re in the UK or other English-speaking countries, you may already be seeing these features, although they won’t be available on this channel for now. Even with 30 messages in 2 minutes—a message every 2 seconds—I don’t think that’s too much. Please share your thoughts in the comments!
Live Streams and Mid-Roll Ads
Live streams are really taking off today. Previously, live streams on YouTube were interrupted by ads, often resulting in an asynchronous experience for viewers. From August 5th onwards, this will be resolved with picture-in-picture ads. This means the screen will be compressed, and the ad will run alongside the stream with black bars at the top and bottom. After the ad, the screen will expand back to normal, and the stream will continue.
I’ve suggested as a feature request that automatic subtitles should be enabled by default during these mid-rolls, as this could be particularly useful for talk shows or similar formats. Let me know what you think about this!
Another experiment is currently running in Turkey, Taiwan, and Brazil: YouTube Hype. Originally conceived as a paid feature to boost videos into the trends, this idea was quickly abandoned. Now we know more: Hype is a new way for viewers to interact.
Hype is available for channels with fewer than 500,000 subscribers, no community guideline violations, in the Partner Program, and with videos uploaded within the last 7 days. Viewers can then “hype” these videos. These hyped videos will be displayed in a separate section on the Explore page.
I’m curious how prominent this Hype feed will be and whether it really leads to more people seeing these videos. Please share your thoughts in the comments!
ADD yours Sticker
The ADD yours Stickers are now in full rollout and will be available to everyone by the end of August/beginning of September. Have you tried them out yet? Share your experiences in the comments!
That’s it for this week. Thank you for tuning in! Subscribe to the channel so you don’t miss any more YouTube updates. See you next week!
Written by
Martin Koytek
Producer of the kw.media YouTube tutorials and point of contact for YouTube consulting, courses and creator support.