YouTube Community Launched; Lets Creators Connect With Their Audience

The world's largest video-sharing network, YouTube has introduced a Community tab for channels, which will allow creators to connect with their audience without publishing a new video. Apart from being a platform for discussions between creators and viewers, it also provides a notification system for viewers to stay up to date with the latest updates of their subscribed channel.

The new Community tab is currently being tested with 12 channels on YouTube, and is in beta. The company had said that with feedback, it will release an improved version to more channels in the coming months. The YouTube Community tab will allow creators to share photos, text messages, gifs, and even live videos with their subscribers.

With the addition of this tab, creators do not have to upload a separate video for every small announcement, and can just communicate it through the Community Tab. The tab is situated in the middle alongside the Home, Videos, and Playlists tabs. You can even enable push notifications for Community posts, letting users stay up to date with any new announcements made or content uploaded.

The Community tab gives creators another way to communicate with their fans directly and get feedback directly. It eliminates the need to make announcements on other social platforms like Twitter and Facebook. The tab could be used to announce upcoming videos and live streams, contests, and many other things. The tab is visible on desktop, and the latest version of Android and iOS.

YouTube made the announcement in a blog post on Tuesday, where it also details the complete list of 12 channels that currently enjoy the new feature.

"Community is a special release for us because it represents the deepest product collaboration we've ever done with creators like you. We started by inviting creators in early to develop, in partnership with us, the tools they wanted to better engage with their fans... This is a first step and, with creator and fan feedback, we look forward to rolling out new features and functions as well as including more creators in the months ahead," said Kiley McEvoy, Senior Product Manager, on the blog.

The Google-owned video-sharing platform recently updated its Android app to bring a new redesigned navigation bar alongside minor refreshes. In July, the company rolled out new comments UI which showed likes, dislikes, replies, and even let users sort them.

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YouTube Smart Offline will let users in India save money with overnight video downloads

YouTube Red already offers offline viewing of YouTube videos but it is more of a necessity in developing countries as data is a costlier operation. YouTube seems to have done enough to help those who do not have access to a steady data connection by letting them download and view the same videos offline. While these videos can now be viewed buffer-free, without a connection on a mobile device, they have introduced a new feature. Smart Offline, will let users queue videos to be scheduled to download overnight, when data costs are off-peak for many Indian mobile providers.

Smart Offline feature announced officially via the Google Blog, presents a smarter offline download tool for the YouTube app. "Today, we are beginning to roll out a feature called Smart Offline on YouTube that lets you take advantage of these cheaper data rates as offered by your mobile operator, without requiring you to stay up late at night," the company wrote on its blog.

Once on the latest version of YouTube, users will be able to tap a download button where they’ll be asked if they’d like to ‘download now’ or ‘save overnight’. Smart Download only works when using data over a cellular connection and not Wi-Fi. The videos will be ready to watch offline and on the go, with no buffering the next morning, the company said.

Source: Google India Blog

"In India, many carriers offer discounted data and promotions to subscribers during non peak hours. Smart Offline allows users to queue up videos until the cheaper data pricing comes into effect without having to stay up to initiate the download manually," points out 9To5Google.

This feature is rolling out now to Airtel and Telenor subscribers today and YouTube hopes to get this feature out to all Indian carriers. This feature is offered to all carriers who can contact a Google rep for more information.

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