YouTube’s latest feature – a new Community tab created to let creators engage with fans in real-time and in ways that transcend video – was developed alongside several of the platform’s most beloved creators, the company announced today.
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YouTube creators have for years posted videos on the Google-owned streaming service, but if they wanted to engage with their community of fans they turned to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.
Community is a special release for us because it represents the deepest product collaboration we’ve ever done with creators like you.
YouTube today announced that it is launching Community, a new social networking feature aimed at helping creators connect with viewers. YouTube sought to develop Community “to give [creators] easier, lightweight ways to engage with fans more often in between uploads, in real time”, according to a senior product manager Kiley McEvoy.
Now in its beta stage, Community arrives in the form of a new tab that sits apart from the videos page on a YouTube channel.
It’s not clear from YouTube’s announcement post how far the social networking aspects go, but it was previously rumored that content posted by content creators could also be made available to share on other services, for example, a amusing picture shared on YouTube could be sent to Twitter, Facebook, or other services, setting up YouTube to become a hosting service for content a la Instagram or Imgur.
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Viewers will be able to see Community posts in the subscription feed on their phones, and they can opt to get post notifications from the channels they subscribe to, just like they do with videos. Community itself will be limited to creators selected by YouTube – whether or not the platform will open it up to everyone probably depends on its success in regards to engagement. McEvoy put out a list of 12 channels the company has rolled out the beta version for, adding that it is looking to bring more of them on-board. It can also debut the “messaging” feature which had been previously been spotted by a select group of users in the last couple of months. (This shift is occurring as the above platforms have increasingly moved toward video).
