YouTube announced this week the rollout of “Thumbnail Test & Compare,” a new tool for creators to see which thumbnail performs the best.
When creators publish a new video (or update an existing video), they can test up to three thumbnails, which will be shown “evenly” across viewers, the company explained in a post.
YouTube encourages testing thumbnails with distinct differences, such as variations in layout compositions, backgrounds, and text overlays, to ensure a comprehensive test.
Creators can test thumbnails on a variety of content, including regular videos, podcast episodes, archived livestreams, and public long-form content.
Over the coming weeks, Thumbnail Test & Compare will become available in YouTube Studio on desktop to all creators with access to advanced features.
By default, children will be able to read, but not write, comments under both of these content settings modes.
(This option is generally the first step into the main YouTube experience, after using the dedicated YouTube Kids app as a younger child.)
Parents can view and change their child’s settings from the parent settings on YouTube or via Google’s Family Link parental controls app, YouTube notes.
More recently, however, the Kids Online Safety Act has gained steam, demanding more robust parental controls from platform makers.
After launching parental controls in 2021, YouTube rolled out a handful of product updates to make YouTube safer for teens in November 2023.
YouTube announced on Tuesday that it’s launching new Shopping features that allow creators to curate shoppable collections, better plan their shoppable videos, quickly monetize older videos and more.
The launch of the new features come as TikTok Shop is seeking to take on YouTube Shopping and other competitors in the space.
TikTok is reportedly aiming to grow the size of its TikTok Shop U.S. business tenfold to as much as $17.5 billion this year.
YouTube is launching “Shopping Collections” to allow creators to curate products from their favorite brands for users to browse through.
By allowing users to connect their Fourthwall shop, YouTube is making it easier for users to create and manage their content directly in YouTube Studio.
With the aim of identifying criminal suspects, U.S. police departments are increasingly relying on a controversial surveillance practice to demand large amounts of users’ data from tech companies.
So-called “reverse” searches allow law enforcement and federal agencies to force big tech companies, like Google, to turn over information from their vast stores of user data.
Reverse searches effectively cast a digital dragnet over a tech company’s store of user data to catch the information that police are looking for.
Microsoft, Snap, Uber and Yahoo (which owns TechCrunch) have all received reverse orders for user data.
Some companies choose not to store user data and others scramble the data so it can’t be accessed by anyone other than the user.
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Google is shutting down its Podcasts app in the U.S. in a matter of days.
In 2020, YouTube Music offered a similar transition strategy to move music listeners away from Google Play Music ahead of its shutdown that same year.
However, the Google Podcasts app continued to be maintained for years because YouTube Music wasn’t ready to support podcasts until more recently.
By the end of 2023, YouTube Music was able to support podcasts globally, and, by February, they had the ability to upload their RSS feeds, too.
From its earlier statements, though, the plan is to discontinue Google Podcasts in 2024.
YouTube is launching a version of Shorts that’s only for members, allowing creators to share short-form videos exclusively with their paying viewers.
The new feature gives paying subscribers access to additional content, on top of their current membership perks, which include things like custom emojis, badges, livestreams and more.
YouTube says creators can use the new option to share a special announcement, product drop or limited-time deal.
The expansion means regular creators will be able to post exclusive videos that only paying subscribers can view.
The exclusive content will be displayed with a star icon, indicating that it’s only available to paying subscribers.
With TikTok potentially poised for a U.S. ban, YouTube is touting how well its own TikTok competitor, YouTube Shorts, is paying off for creators.
TikTok’s year-old fund, which replaced TikTok’s $1 billion Creator Fund, is now exiting beta.
YouTube first introduced monetization options for Shorts creators in September 2022, with its plans for expanding the YouTube Partner Progam (YPP).
But starting in early 2023, Shorts creators could meet a new threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views over 90 days.
What’s more, YouTube notes that creators participating in the partner program for Shorts often monetize in other ways, as well.
The biggest content creator on YouTube, MrBeast announced on Monday that he’s filming a game show for Amazon’s Prime Video.
On X, he wrote: “Big news gamers I’m going to be filming the largest game show in history and releasing it on Prime Video!
Over 1,000 contestants, $5,000,000 prize, and many other world records.”Big news gamers I’m going to be filming the largest game show in history and releasing it on Prime Video!
Prime Video has leveraged big name creators to develop new shows in the past.
“It’s going to be the largest game show in history, with the most contestants any game show has ever had, with the largest cash prize in history,” MrBeast said in an interview with YouTubers Colin and Samir.
YouTube is now requiring creators to disclose to viewers when realistic content was made with AI, the company announced on Monday.
YouTube says the new policy doesn’t require creators to disclose content that is clearly unrealistic or animated, such as someone riding a unicorn through a fantastical world.
It also isn’t requiring creators to disclose content that used generative AI for production assistance, like generating scripts or automatic captions.
They will also have to disclose content that alters the footage of real events or places, such as making it seem as though a real building caught on fire.
Creators will also have to disclose when they have generated realistic scenes of fictional major events, like a tornado moving toward a real town.
