Official YouTube Blog

Gaming gets a new home on YouTube

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Cross-posted from the YouTube Creator Blog

YouTube is where the world watches gaming. More than 200 million of you come to YouTube every single day to watch gaming videos and streams. That’s like the entire country of Brazil heading to YouTube daily. And that’s because of you, the community of gamers and creators who have turned YouTube into the gaming video platform it is today. From mobile gaming to strategy guides, Let’s Plays to Esports and charity live streams, you’ve created a place for everyone, from hard core to casual gamers.

We’re always working to make the gaming experience on YouTube better. Over the past few years we’ve focused on building tools and experiences that the gaming community has been asking for. That’s why in 2015, we launched YouTube Gaming, a standalone app for gamers where we tested new features like Game Pages for better discoverability, Super Chat and Channel Memberships to help fans show support for their favorite creators, Dark Theme and even a new live streaming platform based on the gaming community’s feedback. The response to these features has been so positive that we brought them over from the YouTube Gaming app to the main YouTube experience.

Today, we’re launching a new Gaming destination to give gamers a home on YouTube! You can find the new YouTube Gaming destination at youtube.com/gaming.

At the very top of the page you’ll see personalized gaming content based on what you like to watch. You’ll also see top live games and the latest gaming videos from your subscriptions, bringing the best of uploaded videos and live gaming to one destination. We’ve also built dedicated shelves for live streams and trending videos.

Everyone has a favorite game. You can now find gaming videos from all over YouTube, related to that specific game on new game pages. These include popular videos, live streams, and other games from the same publisher or developer. With tens of thousands of different game pages, you’ll be able to find content no matter how big or small the game is.

We want to do more to help our smaller creators grow on YouTube too, so we’ll be highlighting gaming creators who are “On The Rise” on the Gaming destination and in Trending. Each week we’ll showcase a new up and coming gaming creator to help more fans discover their content. This is launching in the U.S., and we’ll continue to roll this out to more countries in the future.

We have a strong and vibrant audience on the YouTube Gaming app, but the amount of gamers we are able to reach is far bigger on YouTube. After all, YouTube is where more than 200 million gamers come to engage with your favorite games and creators every day, watching over 50 billion hours of gaming content in the last 12 months alone. That’s why, in March 2019, we’ll retire the YouTube Gaming app and focus all of our gaming efforts on YouTube where we can reach our entire gaming community.

From creators like elrubiusOMG who has hit live gaming records, to Ninja, the fastest growing creator in YouTube’s history who helped usher in the era of Fortnite, or itsFunneh who became one of our biggest gaming creators by making us all laugh with Minecraft and Roblox videos, we thank you for building a strong gaming community on YouTube. We’re committed to helping gaming creators succeed and look forward to seeing how you all continue to shape the future of gaming.

Posted by Christina Chen, Director of Product Management, who recently watched Warbringers: Azshara

New tools for parents and content for older kids in the YouTube Kids app

Thursday, September 13, 2018

YouTube KidsApril announcement

What's more, YouTube Kids is growing up with our users. We have launched a new experience geared toward 8-12 year olds that includes additional new content, like popular music and gaming videos. If parents think their kids are ready, they can pick this "Older" version when setting up a new profile or updating an existing profile. The "Younger" version is the default content experience and will continue to have a wide selection of sing-alongs and age-appropriate learning videos. Parents can change between "Younger," "Older" and parent-approved content at any time. We've started to roll out the new older experience in the U.S. with plans to expand globally.

James Beser, Product Director for YouTube Kids, recently viewed "Water Bottle Flip 2" from Dude Perfect

Tools to Take Charge of Your Digital Wellbeing

Monday, August 27, 2018

Know how much you actually watch (new!): account menu

Remind yourself to take a break: Once you know how much time you’re spending in the app, you may want to set a limit. It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re having fun, which is why we’ll help you set up a reminder to take a break. Just head over to your settings and pick the amount of YouTube time that’s right for you. Once you’ve hit that limit, a friendly reminder will pop up on your screen.

Keep it to one notification a day: If you want more control over when you receive notifications from YouTube, you can bundle all of your YouTube push notifications into a single notification each day and set a specific time to receive your digest. Just go to your settings to choose when you’d like to receive your digest, and from then on you’ll only receive one notification per day.

Disable notification sounds and vibrations: Resisting the urge to check your phone when it buzzes is really difficult, and this can make it hard to fall asleep. So we’ve recently made a change to send all notifications without sound and vibration between 10pm and 8am. You can enable sounds and vibrations, or customize the start and end time in your settings.

We’re dedicated to making sure that you have the information you need to better understand how you use YouTube and develop your own sense of digital wellbeing. We hope these tips are a good start.

Posted by: Brian Marquardt, Director of Product Management, who recently watched Take a Break: Backstreet Boys in Las Vegas

More VR in more places

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

Experience YouTube VR on Samsung Gear VR, powered by OculusShare your VR experience with the YouTube community

Enjoy new, exclusive VR contentPortugal. The ManHayley KiyokoIbtihaj MuhammadThe Female Planet series

SoKrispyMedia

Erin Teague, VR Product Lead, recently watched “After Solitary 360.”

Building a better news experience on YouTube, together

Monday, July 9, 2018

kicked offSupporting journalism with technology that allows news to thriveannounced

Expertise. We’re establishing a working group with news organizations and experts from around the world to help us develop new product features, improve the news experience on YouTube, and tackle emerging challenges. News organizations including Vox Media, Jovem Pan, and India Today are early members of the working group. We’re looking forward to having more join as we convene the group in the coming weeks.

Innovation Funding. We will provide funding across approximately 20 global markets to support news organizations in building sustainable video operations. Provided on an application basis to news organizations of all types, these grants will enable our partners to build key capabilities, train staff on video best practices, enhance production facilities and develop formats optimized for online video.

Support. We’re significantly expanding our team focused on supporting news publishers. These specialists will be based around the world and support partners with training and best practices in formats, audience development, day-to-day platform operations, and sophisticated technical integrations.

hereMaking authoritative sources readily accessibleProviding more sources and context on breaking news

Expanding Top News and Breaking News

Showcasing more local news, starting with the U.S.trust

Providing context to help people make their own decisionsGiving users more sources of information on topical searches and videos

Investing in digital literacy education- Neal Mohan, Chief Product Officer and Robert Kyncl, Chief Business Officer

VidCon 2018: Helping creators earn more money and build stronger communities

Thursday, June 21, 2018

The next big steps for creator monetizationSuper ChatTicketingMerchandiseChannel MembershipsFameBitChannel Memberships$4.99eligible channelsMike FalzoneSimon and Martina

MerchandiseLucas the Spiderplushie

Introducing PremieresmusicsciencegamingCommunity TabStoriesLeroy SanchezJacksFilmsJackson BirdAri FitzCorridor DigitalInanna SarkisNeal Mohan, Chief Product Officer, recently watched "Lucas the Spider - Plush Introduction."

YouTube Music and YouTube Premium launch in 17 countries: It’s all here

Monday, June 18, 2018

a new music streaming service

It’s ALL here. Not just music videos, but official albums, singles, remixes, live performances, covers and hard-to-find music you can only get on YouTube.

Recommendations built for you. A home screen that dynamically adapts to provide recommendations based on the artists and songs you’ve played before, where you are and what you’re doing. Chilling at the beach? Need some motivation? The right music is right here, built just for you.

Thousands of playlists across any genre, mood or activity. Try “A Dose of Sun” for brighter tunes on a cloudy day, “The Pop Hotlist” for the biggest hits around the world or “Distrito Latino” for Latin pop hits of the moment.

Smart search so we’ll find the song, even if you can’t remember what it’s called. “That space-themed Spice Girls song in the desert.” Here you go. You can also search by lyrics (even if they’re wrong). It’s “Hold me closer, Tony Danza,” right?

The hottest videos. We’ll keep you on top of what’s hot! The hottest videos in the world right now are right there, on their own dedicated Hotlist screen. Today in the U.S., it features “Nervous” by Shawn Mendes, in the U.K, it’s “Drippy” by IAMDDB, and in France, it’s "Fais moi la passe" by JUL.

Ad-free listening, downloads and more. Get YouTube Music Premium to listen ad-free, in the background and on-the-go with downloads. Plus, your Offline Mixtape automatically downloads songs you love just in case you forgot to. For a limited time, get three months free of YouTube Music Premium here, ($9.99 per month after, $14.99 per month for a Family Plan)*.

YouTube Premium also launches todayYouTube PremiumYouTube OriginalsCobra KaiImpulseF2 Finding FootballThe Sidemen ShowhereFamily Plan

Try YouTube Music and YouTube PremiumPlay StoreApp Storemusic.youtube.comyoutube.com/premium*YouTube Music Premium is $9.99 per month and YouTube Premium is $11.99 per month for individual memberships in the U.S. Pricing and Family Plan availability varies by country. South Korea will only offer YouTube Premium at the current price of YouTube Red.

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