For 10 years, YouTube has served as a platform for video creators to share their content with the rest of the world. To celebrate its tenth year in the industry, YouTube is unveiling 10 new features designed to make creators' lives better.
One of these features has already been implemented. YouTube says it has set up a better ranking system for comments, so that high-quality comments that are most likely to get liked get to the top of the comments, while junk comments posted by trolls are not seen. It's unclear when YouTube rolled out this new system, but the video sharing network says it has been working so far, as the number of dislikes on comments has dropped by as much as 36 percent.
The other nine features have yet to be rolled out "in a matter of weeks," but YouTube does not specify a timeline to expect them. Most of these new features are minor tweaks that viewers will most likely not notice, but creators wanting a hand in managing their YouTube careers can definitely benefit from a few or more of these features.
One of the more notable features is an improved Creator Studio app, which will provide creators with more insight on what's happening on their channels and notifications to help them decide what to do with the information. YouTube has also decided to improve Creator Studio to allow for video management on the go. This new feature will let creators change their video thumbnails and enable or disable monetization from their mobile devices.
Creators will also be able to reach their fans more easily with new subscriber notifications, a feature that will also be good for viewers who do not want to miss out on the creators they follow by signing up for email or mobile notifications. Also, YouTube says it will place the subscription feed, and possibly the subscription buttons, in a more accessible place on the Android app so it will not be easy for viewers to miss them.
YouTube will also roll out new Card types, along with the existing cards that let creators raise funds, sell merchandise, and more. One of these new types will be a Channel card, which will allow creators to link up with other channels, a useful feature for those collaborating with other creators. YouTube is also experimenting with 360-degree videos, improving its livestreaming capabilities, and is pointing to YouTube Gaming as the dedicated app for game livestreams.
Creators will also be able to join a new creator community to help them interact and network with other creators. This is accompanied by an improved Creator Academy with new lessons added to the existing 50 or so lessons creators can watch in their own time.
To summarize, here are the 10 improvements YouTube has worked on and is working on for creators:
1. Better comment ranking system
2. Subscriber notifications
3. Better access to subscription feed
4. Improved Creator Studio app
5. Mobile video management
6. New card types
7. 360-degree videos
8. Livestreams and YouTube Gaming
9. New creator community
10.Updated Creator Academy
Photo: Esther Vargas | Flickr
