Transcript

Hey there! I’m Martin, and in today’s YouTube Update from 02/25/23, we’re discussing some exciting news. Let’s start with YouTube Podcasts, an ongoing experiment we’re part of as Creators. We can now release our YouTube playlists as podcasts, which means we can add special descriptions, titles, and a series thumbnail, similar to the old series playlists. The thumbnail has to be square, though. The podcast will then be displayed either on the podcast page or in the YouTube Music section. Whether this is necessary is up to each Creator to decide. I’m thinking of labeling our YouTube Patron as a podcast and seeing where it goes. It’s basically just a playlist, and if I don’t want it anymore, I’ll simply stop creating it. This could be an interesting and entertaining experience.

Next up, we have an experiment for iOS users with YouTube Premium. If you’re on iOS and have YouTube Premium, you might be able to get 1080p videos. Don’t worry, 1080p is still available without Premium; Premium customers just get a slightly higher bitrate and thus better quality. In my opinion, this isn’t necessarily needed. If I want more bitrate as a Creator, I’ll upload the video in 1440p or even 4K, like this one here. That automatically gives you a higher bitrate because a different encoder is used. Of course, as a Creator, you have to consider whether uploading in 4K or 1440p is feasible due to technical limitations.

Moving on to some Membership updates. First, the good news: Starting in early March, there will be a feature that allows you to make exclusive videos for members available to the public after a certain time. This means members will have access to my videos a week earlier. Whether this is a good or bad thing remains to be seen. We’ll definitely be keeping an eye on it, and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s available. Maybe we’ll even check it out together in a stream if you’re interested. Let me know in the comments! I know some of you who have enabled Memberships will be very happy about this update. So let’s throw a party emote in the comments!

The second update is a bit less cheerful, depending on how you interpret it. The “Membership Giving” feature, which allows Creators to gift 5 memberships per month in the $500 tier, has been delayed. You might be disappointed it’s not available right away, but here’s my guess: It could be related to the fact that Targeted Gifting hasn’t been introduced yet. Targeted Gifting would mean you can select specific people as a Creator to gift memberships to, instead of just gifting 5 memberships and hoping someone gets them. I speculate this feature might be waiting for the introduction of Targeted Gifting and could already be ready but is holding off for the clarification of the other feature. Feel free to share your thoughts on this in the comments!

YouTube Updates: Wait or Release Immediately?

I’m curious about your opinions! Should we wait for the update or release it as soon as possible?

Subscribe to our channel to stay on top of all YouTube news! We’ll be back for you next week. Until then, stay creative and keep pushing!