Coming soon: an easier way to use YouTube app on your TV

An Epic Rap Battle of History looks even more epic on the big screen, but finding the battle you want on your TV can take longer than it took Wallace to layeth the smackdown on Washington because of all the clicking around you have to do. That’s why you’ll soon be able to find videos you want more easily with the updated YouTube app for TV designed for the big screen, which will also bring you all the videos and playlists from channels. This update already started with Xbox One, and we’ll roll out the updated app to other streaming devices in the following weeks.

Find it all more easily with the guide

The channels you subscribe to and videos you care about will be a click away with a guide on the left side that’s just like the guide you see on YouTube on your computer, phone, and tablet. When you sign in, you can jump to all the latest videos from your subscriptions and recommendations in the What to Watch section, or pop on a playlist you’ve liked such as Blogilates’ Cardio AB Attack and turn your TV into a workout buddy.

See all the videos and playlists from channels

Your favorite creators are making new playlists every day, and with the updated YouTube app for TV you’ll be able to see all of them. With new channel pages, you’ll see everything they’ve curated for you, helping you find even more to watch from your favorite creators.



Tyler Breisch, software engineer, recently watched, “"No Diggity" - The Hangover Brigade covers Blackstreet.”

YouTube at Next Fest, presented by Sundance Institute

Film aficionados, take note: YouTube is proud to be a part of Sundance Next Fest for a second year, celebrating the renegade spirit of independent artists in film and music.

Last year, Sundance became the first major film festival to curate and screen a short film program exclusively featuring videos on YouTube at their Next Weekend summer festival. At this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, we also brought the YouTube experience offline, hosting panels, musical performances, parties, and even morning yoga.

Now, we want to help even more filmmakers succeed online. If you’re in Los Angeles, join us on Saturday August 9, at 2 p.m. at the Ace Hotel to hear about how you can can find and build your audience on YouTube. We’ll share tips on how to engage your fans and foster grassroots movements that help you raise money and spread your message. RSVPs welcome. And if you’d like to attend Next Fest screenings, you can purchase tickets on the Sundance website.

On YouTube, there are no limits to creative freedom. You can experiment and push the boundaries of distribution. With 1 billion unique users visiting YouTube every month, creators have an incredible opportunity to share their creative vision with the world. Check out the YouTube Creator Academy for tips on how to showcase your story to a global community.

Lucy Zhao, YouTube Creator Marketing, recently watched “The Beyoncelogues: Single Ladies.”

Four tips to make an impact with topical videos

Whether it’s Earth Hour, the World Cup, going back to school, or presidential elections - leveraging the excitement around events can help to grow your channel. But it's not as simple as you'd think to create a really great topical video. Here are four tips—from starting your research to optimizing for—to get you started.

1. Make it timely

Bad Lip Reading is always at the forefront of trending topics and breaking news. To most effectively capture search traffic they upload their topical content as close to events as possible.

2. Plan ahead

One of Bethany Mota’s strategies is to program seasonally around big events that are relevant to her audience. Last year her 5 back-to-school videos gained over 14.3 million views combined.



3. Make trending topics suit you

Make-up artist and body-paint guru Alexys Fleming cleverly captures viewers searching for trending topics that aren’t usually associated with beauty, such as the Super Bowl and movie releases. But she makes sure that the content is relevant to her loyal viewers by still focusing on special effects make-up.

4. Use playlists to repackage content

Laura Vitale combines old and new content in playlists for her most important events of the year. By doing so, she creates new ways for her freshest videos to be discovered, but also makes it easy to watch her back-catalogue to viewers who may be seeing them for the first time.

Jo-Roxy Vaegan-Lloyd, Creative Strategy, recently watched #sorrynotsorry - #hotmessmoves

Look ahead: creator features coming to YouTube

VidCon is the place where thousands of creators and fans come together every year to share their passion for YouTube and online video. We came to Anaheim today to offer them a sneak preview of new features and updates we’re releasing in the coming months. Here’s a look at the things we’ve been working on to help you make more your videos even more awesome, to reach global audiences and grow your businesses on YouTube.

• YouTube Creator Studio: Did you know that after Rebecca Black uploaded “Friday,” she went on a school trip, not knowing for several days the video was going viral? To help you manage your videos on the go, the new YouTube Creator Studio app lets you see analytics, manage your videos and more. The app is available now on Android and launching on iOS in coming weeks and you’ll see some redesign of the Creator Studio on desktop too.

• Audio Library, now with sound effects: You’ve used the hundreds of free songs in the Audio Library on millions of your videos. But until now, you’ve had to go through extreme lengths to make your own zombie screams and fighter plane sounds. To make your lives easier and videos better, from today you now have thousands of royalty-free sound effects at your disposal. We’ve also added more tracks to the Audio Library.

• 60 (yeah, six-zero) frames per second: Your video game footage with crazy high frame rates will soon look as awesome on YouTube as it does when you’re playing, when we launch support for 48 and even 60 frames per second in the coming months. Take a look at some preview videos on the YT Creator Channel. Make sure you’re watching in HD!

• Fan Funding: Your fans aren’t just watching your videos, they’re also helping support your channel through services like KickStarter, IndieGogo, Patreon and more. We’ll be adding another option for you, where fans will be able to contribute money to support your channel at any time, for any reason. A handful of creators are testing this feature soon on desktop and Android, including Dulce Delight, Fitness Blender, The Healthcare Triage, The King of Random, Soul Pancake, Steve Spangler Science, The Young Turks, and Thug Notes. If you’re interested in trying it on your channel, sign up here.

• Creator Credits: Collaboration is a key to great videos on YouTube. You’re already giving your collaborators shout outs in your video descriptions. But what if those text-based shout outs were tags that let viewers click through to their channels, or let you search for a collaborator based on their work and location? That’s our vision for Creator Credits, stay tuned for more. 

• Subtitles contributed from fans: More than a billion people watch YouTube each month, but not all of them speak the same language and some are deaf or hard of hearing. Automatic speech recognition and automatic translation on YouTube can help, but your fans can do an even better job. In the coming months, your fans will be able to submit translations in any language based on the subtitles or captions you’ve created, helping you reach even more viewers. You can try this out now on Barely Political, Fine Art-Tips, Got Talent Global and Unicoos. 

• Info Cards: Annotations are useful, but not as ridiculously good looking as say, Blue Steel. In the near future, you’ll see our new interactive information cards with a clean look, which you’ll beable to program once to work across desktop, phones and tablets.

• SiriusXM & YouTube: We love supporting artists, and so do our friends at SiriusXM. That’s why we teamed up to launch “The YouTube 15,” a weekly show on SiriusXM’s Hits 1 hosted by Jenna Marbles and featuring the biggest names and rising stars in music from YouTube. 

• More ways to playlist: Along with playlists analytics we recently added to analytics, expect to see more ways to create playlists, so that all the time you spend building them translates into easier discovery for viewers and better results for you.

We take your feedback seriously, which is why we’re focusing on these areas that you’ve told us are most important for you. So keep your comments coming on Google+ or Twitter. We’ll be working closely with you to bring these features and more to the creator community in the future.

Matthew Glotzbach, Director of Product Management for Creators, and Oliver Heckmann, Vice President of Engineering for Creators, recently watched “VGHS Season 2 Trailer - HFR Version”

Making messages and comments easier to use

Whether you’re Epic Rap Battles of History and swimming in feedback from fans, or you’re just starting up your channel, you can now connect with your fans faster and more easily through new messaging and commenting features rolling out this week. It’s part of our goal to give you everything you need to connect with fans around the world, and here’s an overview of what you’ll find:

Improved messaging

• Get context faster: Threaded conversations to make it easier to follow ongoing conversations you’re having.
• Help fans quickly contact you: It’s easier to send a message to any creator on YouTube. Just go to the channel’s “about” tab, click the “Send message” button and compose your message.
• More awesome, less junk: Your new messages section includes spam detection to filter out unwanted messages. Laterz trolls. 

These new messaging features will replace the old inbox, which will go into read-only mode starting next week. Don’t worry, you’ll still be able to read and download all of your inbox messages, along with your contacts, for the next few months, but you won’t be able to send or receive anything new.

Improved commenting

• Fine-tune filtering: You can choose to view just comments from your subscribers, check for popular comments across your channel, or review comments for a specific video. 
• Easier comment review: Want to review comments that need approval? Find and check them all from one place on the comments page. 
• Search and ye shall find: Looking for comments on a specific topic? There’s now a search box to help you find comments that include the keywords or hashtags you’re looking for.

We’re aiming to create tools that help you connect with your fans faster and easier, then get back to making awesome videos. Let us know how they’re working for you by using the “Send feedback” link in your dashboard, or hit us up on Google+ or Twitter.

Jeffrey Lee-Chan, Software Engineer, recently watched Game of Thrones: Learning the Moves

Four tips to hook your viewers on YouTube

People can choose to watch anything, anytime on YouTube—so what can you do to keep them watching your videos? The first few seconds of any video are critical to getting your viewers' attention and convincing them that they want to watch your content. Here’s how some of YouTube’s top creators do it, and how you can do it too:

1. Start with a question
CGP Grey starts his video with a question—“how many countries are there?”—to get the viewer thinking. The human brain will always want an answer to a question posed. By asking an intriguing question at the top of his video, he makes sure the viewer will stick around to find out what the answer is.

2. Brand with a bang
Epic Rap Battles start every episode with high powered music, a shouting narrator, and their name bursting out of the screen. Their branding is strong and engaging, and the intro feels integrated into the content itself. New viewers immediately know what the show is about, and are primed to watch some high-energy fun.

3. Tell them what they’re going to see
Within the first five seconds the viewer knows exactly what this video will be—a detailed run-down on liquid liner. By providing immediate context, Michelle shows people what they’ll get by watching the whole video and why they should stick around.

4. Hit them with a cold opening
Colin jumps right into action, drawing his viewers into his walkthroughs immediately. Rather than starting his walkthrough in a more straightforward manner, Colin’s raw intensity and enthusiasm are a more captivating introduction.

For more tips on developing your creative strategy (and much more), visit the Creator Academy.

Devin McNulty and Jeremy Kaye, Creative Strategy, recently watched Giant Bubbles Popping in Slow Motion

Making sure your subscribers count

Subscriptions are one of the clearest ways you can see how you’re doing on YouTube. When people subscribe to your channel, it’s a signal they like what you’re doing and want to see more. We know your subscribers are hard-won, and that’s why we recognize big subscriber milestones with things like access to programs at the YouTube Space and our Creator Rewards program.

It’s extremely important to us that these numbers stay meaningful, so that you can be sure that when your sub count grows, it’s because you’re building a community of real fans who are going to keep watching and supporting you.

With that in mind, we’ll soon implement a new process to improve the accuracy of subscriber counts. It’s similar to existing ways we ensure that other site metrics, like views, are free of spam and abuse, and keep YouTube a fair playing field for everyone.

On June 16, we’re going to remove suspended accounts from all channels’ subscriber counts. This means some of you will notice a minor drop in your subscribers. To be clear, these are not active viewers, so you shouldn’t see any impact on your views or watch time.

From there, we’ll have an automated system in place that removes suspended accounts from subscriber counts as they occur. And, we’ve built our system so that if something goes wrong for one of our viewers and their account is suspended in error, these changes are reversible.

You don’t need to do anything to prepare for this change. Just keep being you, and making YouTube great.

Katie Hushion, YouTube Operations Specialist, recently watched Cute Bunny Jumping Competition.