YouTube Creator Blog

From creation to community: creator updates from VidCon 2017

Saturday, June 24, 2017

With creators flying in from all over the world to meet one another, celebrate what they’ve accomplished, and get in some quality time with their fans, VidCon is one of our favorite events of the year. Aside from being just plain fun, it gives us a chance to show you what we’ve been working on at YouTube. In fact, just today we presented a bunch of new ways we’re hoping to support creators’ growth on the platform and now we want to tell you too.

Sneak peek at YouTube Studio Beta

Many of you use YouTube Creator Studio on desktop to help manage your channel. And while the current site has some useful tools (that won’t be going anywhere), we’ve decided it’s time to rebuild Creator Studio from the ground up. The new experience will be called YouTube Studio (easier, right?). It’s gonna be awesome, and we hope you’ll help us make it even awesome-r by joining our beta.

The overall plan with YouTube Studio is to let you do more in less time. The design will be refined (like… a lot), and we’ll add a number of new features that creators have already been asking for. A smart inbox that houses personalized suggestions for engaging with fans, collaborating with creators, and more is only one of a series of features we’re working on. And we’re going to need your help to make them better!

If you’re interested in being one of the first people to try out the beta, you can sign up here. The fact is, no one knows YouTube better than creators, so we want you to be the ones to tell us what’s working, what’s not quite working, or what you think is missing.

More love for comments

The relationship creators develop with their community is what makes YouTube unique. And since comments are such an important way for you to connect with your fans, we’re working hard to make them better – and your feedback’s already been a huge help.

First up, a few months ago we introduced a new feature called creator hearts. With just one click, you can now heart a favorite comment and show some love to the person who wrote it. You can also pin comments you like to the top of your feed to be sure that all your fans can see them. And we’ve seen that viewers love this kind of personal attention--they open these notifications at a rate that’s 3x higher than regular ones. We’ve also made it easier to manage the tone of the conversations on your channel thanks to a series of tools that let you delegate moderation to trusted members of your community, as well as a beta feature that automatically holds potentially inappropriate comments for your review.

Finally, we’re working on a new approach to comments that can help your fans get even more out of your channel. We call them comment topics, and they give viewers a way to browse comments according to (you guessed it) the topics being discussed. It's a great way to automatically highlight what's unique and interesting about the conversations on your channel. It’s also totally optional, so if you don’t feel like having comment topics, don’t worry, you can disable them or delete individual topics.

And now… making money

Over the last few months we’ve been really happy to hear that creators are using (and liking!) our new monetization tool called Super Chat. Designed to let you interact directly with your fans even more, Super Chat also represents a totally new way to make money on YouTube. Here’s how it works: during live streams, fans can purchase highlighted chat messages that stand out from the crowd. And over 65% of channels that use Super Chat have more than doubled their income during live streams. Super Chat’s already available for creators in 21 countries and today we’re adding 17 new countries to that list!

As you can tell, there’s a lot going on in the world of creator product updates – and a lot of it is thanks to you! We promise to keep working hard, and we hope you’ll keep helping us make YouTube the best place for you to share your voice, see the world, and connect with the communities that matter to you.

Posted by Manuel Bronstein, Vice-President of Product Management

A Message on Pride and LGBTQ Initiatives

Monday, June 19, 2017

June is a very important time for us here at YouTube. Since our earliest years, YouTube has come together to celebrate Pride and honor the contributions that LGBTQ creators and fans have made to our platform. From the It Gets Better campaign, to the thousands of inspiring coming out videos, to the emergence of popular transgender creators, the voices of our LGBTQ community have been key to pushing society in a more understanding and tolerant direction.

While we stand by that proud legacy, we realize that our commitment to give all LGBTQ creators a voice was unfortunately impacted by our Restricted Mode feature. Restricted Mode was originally designed as an optional feature for public institutions like libraries and schools to prevent the viewing of mature content on YouTube. But in looking more closely at the feature, we found that there was LGBTQ (and other) content that should have been included in Restricted Mode but was not, like kissing at weddings, personal accounts of difficult events, and speaking out against discrimination.

Our intention was never to limit this kind of content; having spoken to LGBTQ creators and YouTube employees, I understand just how important it is that teens and students be able to view it. That’s why we’ve updated our policies to explicitly allow these videos in Restricted Mode -- it still won’t work perfectly but over time our systems will get better. We apologize for these issues and want to reaffirm our commitment that YouTube is a place where all voices can be heard.

To offer a little more detail, here's the latest on our progress on Restricted Mode:

Our teams worked with dozens of volunteer LGBTQ employees and select LGBTQ creators to get feedback on our policies and we incorporated that feedback into our processes moving forward.
To date, over 12 million additional videos of all types—including hundreds of thousands featuring LGBTQ content—are now available in Restricted Mode.
We’ve published and broadened Restricted Mode guidelines to ensure that non-graphic, personal accounts of difficult events are available. For example, personal accounts of individuals who suffered discrimination or were impacted by violence for being part of a protected group will now be included in Restricted Mode, provided they don’t contain graphic language or content. Soon we'll have new content in Creator Academy to describe in detail how to make videos that will meet the criteria for Restricted Mode.
To help our systems get better, we invite creators and users to submit instances where they think we got it wrong. We review EVERY video submitted, and in those instances where we make changes to include videos in Restricted Mode, those lessons make our systems better.

On a separate note, earlier this year many creators, including LGBTQ creators, expressed confusion and concern about revenue fluctuations in the wake of advertiser concerns around where their ads are placed on YouTube. These were separate issues that unfortunately happened at the same time. As advertisers paused their spend on YouTube it impacted a broad range of creators. We have rigorous training to ensure that anyone who reviews content that’s been flagged for review ensures all content is treated fairly. For more information, please see our Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines in the Help Center.

Looking beyond Restricted Mode, we want to reiterate that YouTube is committed to enabling and promoting LGBTQ voices and resources on our platform.

To celebrate Pride, we’re promoting LGBTQ creators and their content as part of the launch of our fifth annual #ProudToBe campaign. Over the course of the next year, we'll celebrate LGBTQ History Month and International Transgender Day of Visibility. And on June 27, we will also introduce a permanent shelf on our US Spotlight channel to showcase LGBTQ videos throughout the year refreshed on a weekly basis.
Recognizing the specific needs of at-risk LGBTQ youth, we’re also partnering with the leading organization for crisis intervention services for this community, The Trevor Project. We’re investing in Trevor’s channel growth as well as audience development, to expand their reach. We’re also working with 25 global suicide prevention organizations to help surface assistance via phone and text at the time of need.
We're partnering to celebrate LGBTQ history with the NYC LGBT Community Center. Google.org recently announced a $1 million grant to the New York City's LGBT Community Center to support the Stonewall National Monument, the first LGBTQ dedicated landmark in the United States. As a part of this support, we're excited to announce opportunities in the near future for YouTube creators to share LGBTQ history with their audience through the Stonewall initiative.

Most importantly, our recent experience has taught us that we need to do a better job of listening to and communicating with our LGBTQ community.

Over the next few months we will be hosting a series of six Creator Roundtables in YouTube Spaces (in NYC, LA, Toronto, Paris, Berlin, London) focused on discussing initiatives that impact the LGBTQ community and on gathering your feedback to improve our products and programs.
We’ll also host Creator Council Advisory Sessions, both in person and virtual, to get further feedback throughout the year.

At YouTube, we’re proud to stand with the LGBTQ community to support equal rights. Through Pride month and beyond, we will continue to honor the goal of making YouTube a place that celebrates your voices and community. We want YouTube to remain a place where LGBTQ people and their families, friends and supporters can express themselves, empower others and find a place to belong.

Susan Wojcicki, CEO, YouTube

Hot and Cold: Heatmaps in VR

Friday, June 16, 2017

As creators, you're always thinking about new and unique experiences you can share with your audience. From prehistoric perspectives to epic battles, you've blazed a trail with VR to produce hundreds of thousands of videos that can transport viewers to far-off places and thrilling adventures.

When creating content in VR, it’s helpful to know what your viewers are focused on. Today we’re introducing heatmaps for 360-degree and VR videos with over 1,000 views, which will give you specific insight into how your viewers are engaging with your content. With heatmaps, you’ll be able to see exactly what parts of your video are catching a viewer’s attention and how long they’re looking at a specific part of the video.

We want to help you create your next immersive video. So using this tool, we’ve done some early research on what makes an engaging 360-degree video. Here are a few findings:

Focus on what’s in front of you: The defining feature of a 360-degree video is that it allows you to freely look around in any direction, but surprisingly, people spent 75% of their time within the front 90 degrees of a video. So don’t forget to spend significant time on what’s in front of the viewer.
Get their attention: While a lot of time is spent focusing on what’s in front, for many of the most popular VR videos, people viewed more of the full 360-degree space with almost 20% of views actually being behind them. The more engaging the full scene is, the more likely viewers will want to explore the full 360-degree view. Try using markers and animations to draw attention to different parts of the scene.
Keep different experiences in mind: The context in which people are viewing VR videos matters too. Some might be watching on a mobile and portable Cardboard, while others are watching on a desktop computer. For instance, we found viewers usually need a couple seconds to get situated in Cardboard, which isn’t needed for other devices. So make sure to give your viewers a few seconds before jumping into the action.

We’re also excited to announce that for creators who want to go all in on VR and hone their skills, we’re launching our first ever VR intensive program at YouTube Space LA called the VR Creator Lab. Applications are open starting today.

It’s still early days in VR, and as we continue to add new tools to the platform, we’re excited to see all the awesome things you create.

Frank Rodriguez, Product Manager, recently watched Inside ‘Fusterlandia’: Cuba’s Kaleidoscopic Neighborhood from The New York Times

Your Content and Making Money from Advertising on YouTube

Thursday, June 1, 2017

In March we provided an update to changes we’re making to address advertiser concerns around where their advertisements are placed. Since then, we’ve held thousands of productive conversations with advertisers, and implemented additional controls to restore advertiser confidence. As a result, many advertisers have resumed their media campaigns on YouTube, leading creator revenue to return to a better and more stable state. We know that revenue fluctuations have been unsettling and want to reassure you that we’re working closely with our advertising partners to make sure that YouTube continues to be a great place for creators to earn money.

We recognize there is still more work to do. We know we have to improve our communications to you, our creators. We also need to meet our commitment to our advertisers by ensuring their ads only appear against the content they think is suitable for their brands. Here’s an update on some of the things we’re doing to provide greater transparency:

More detail around advertiser-friendly guidelines
One thing you’ve been clear about is your desire for more detail and clarity around our advertiser-friendly guidelines. In response to this feedback, we’ve updated our overall guidelines to provide more detail than before. While it’s not possible for us to cover every video scenario, we hope this additional information will provide you with more insight into the types of content that brands have told us they don’t want to advertise against and help you to make more informed content decisions. We know our systems aren’t perfect and we’re also working to further improve your ability to appeal impacted videos.

New guidelines around content that’s eligible for ads
We’ve heard loud and clear from the creator community and from advertisers that YouTube needs to broaden our advertiser-friendly guidelines around a few additional types of content. We’ve responded by adding new guidelines to take a tougher stance on:

Hateful content: Content that promotes discrimination or disparages or humiliates an individual or group of people on the basis of the individual’s or group’s race, ethnicity, or ethnic origin, nationality, religion, disability, age, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other characteristic associated with systematic discrimination or marginalization.
Inappropriate use of family entertainment characters: Content that depicts family entertainment characters engaged in violent, sexual, vile, or otherwise inappropriate behavior, even if done for comedic or satirical purposes.
Incendiary and demeaning content: Content that is gratuitously incendiary, inflammatory, or demeaning. For example, video content that uses gratuitously disrespectful language that shames or insults an individual or group.

While it remains the case that videos that comply with our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines can remain on the platform, our advertiser-friendly content guidelines focus on what is specifically eligible for advertising. Content that does not comply with AdSense Policies and our ad-friendly guidelines will not be eligible for advertising.

New Creator Academy course
Keep in mind that even if your video is approved for ads, what’s right for one brand may not be right for another. A home cleaning brand and a beer brand will likely choose to target very different audiences. Today, we’re launching a new course in our Creator Academy to provide additional detail around making your content appealing for a broad range of advertisers, if that is your goal.

We hope these new policies and guidelines provide additional information you can use to make the right decisions for your content. Every day we’re inspired by the stories you tell to audiences around the world. Thank you for being patient with us as we work to improve the ecosystem for creators, advertisers and users.

Ariel Bardin, VP, Product Management, recently watched “Tom’s Take: Ads Update” from Creator Insider

The winners of the US and Canada YouTube NextUp class of 2017 are in!

Monday, May 15, 2017

A few weeks ago, we opened applications to our latest NextUp program at YouTube Space NY which features a new twist: exclusive workshops and skill-sharing sessions designed and led by NBCUniversal’s prestigious creative executives.

We’ve been thrilled by the applications so far - more channels entered the NextUp contest this year than ever before - and now, we’re excited to announce the winners who will be attending the camp in New York later this month:

These creators will join us for week-long creator camp during the week of May 22 where they will learn new camera, lighting, and sound techniques, and receive coaching from the YouTube Partnerships team on how to grow their audience. As part of this NextUp program, they will also be eligible to receive a voucher for production equipment.

Through our collaboration with NBCUniversal, we’re also giving our NextUp winners access to some cool new sessions. These creators will join NBCUniversal executives for an exclusive fireside chat on the comedy development process which will cover the journey from ideation to completion and every stage in between. They will also have the opportunity to get an inside peek at the creative pitch process, which will include helpful tips on how creators can make their content even more compelling for commercial opportunities.

If you’re in France, India or Japan and would like to join us over at an upcoming NextUp program, we’re currently accepting entries through Wednesday, May 17th. For more information, visit youtube.com/nextup and follow the action on Twitter with #YTNextUp.

Caitlin Morrissey, Senior Partner Manager, recently watched “How Far I’ll Go - Disney’s Moana - Live Performance by 4-year-old Claire Ryann” from a previous NextUp winner

An update on Restricted Mode

Friday, April 21, 2017

It’s been a few weeks since we posted about Restricted Mode so we wanted to give everyone an update on where things are. Restricted Mode is designed to be an optional feature that helps filter out more mature content from view, so that institutions like schools and libraries as well as people who prefer a more limited experience would feel comfortable offering access to YouTube. We want to clarify that Restricted Mode should not filter out content belonging to individuals or groups based on certain attributes like gender, gender identity, political viewpoints, race, religion or sexual orientation.

What we’re fixing
Back in March, our community alerted us that our systems were not working as intended, in particular, that we were unintentionally filtering content from Restricted Mode that shouldn't have been. After a thorough investigation, we started making several improvements to Restricted Mode. On the engineering side, we fixed an issue that was incorrectly filtering videos for this feature, and now 12 million additional videos of all types -- including hundreds of thousands featuring LGBTQ+ content -- are available in Restricted Mode.

We’re listening
We also spent time over the last few weeks talking with creators and third-party organizations to better understand their experiences and questions. One thing we heard loud and clear was people’s desire to report videos they believed were being inappropriately excluded from Restricted Mode. Starting today, we’re providing a form to allow creators and viewers alike to give us feedback about this. We will use this input to help improve our automated system going forward.

More transparency about how Restricted Mode works
We also heard that many people simply wanted to know what gets a video taken out of Restricted Mode. Here are some clearer guidelines creators should think about if they want their videos to appear in Restricted Mode:

Discussion and depiction of mature topics:

Drugs and alcohol: If you’re talking about drug use or abuse, or if you’re drinking alcohol in your videos, your videos will likely not be available in Restricted Mode.
Sex: While some educational, straightforward conversations about sexual education may be included in Restricted Mode, overly detailed conversations about sex or sexual activity will likely be removed. This is one of the more difficult topics to train our systems on, and context is key. If your music video features adult themes like sex or drug use, that video will likely not make it into Restricted Mode.
Violence: If your video includes graphic descriptions of violence, violent acts, natural disasters and tragedies, or even violence in the news, it will likely not appear in Restricted Mode.
Mature subjects: Videos that cover specific details about events related to terrorism, war, crime, and political conflicts that resulted in death or serious injury may not be available on Restricted Mode, even if no graphic imagery is shown.
Profane and mature language: Inappropriate language including profanity like “F bombs” will also likely result in your video not being available in Restricted Mode.

Thanks to you, our community of fans and creators, we’ve made progress over the last few weeks. Though Restricted Mode will never be perfect, we hope to build on our progress so far to continue making our systems more accurate and the overall Restricted Mode experience better over time.

Johanna Wright, VP of Product Management, YouTube

Introducing Expanded YouTube Partner Program Safeguards to Protect Creators

Thursday, April 6, 2017

For millions of creators, making videos on YouTube isn’t just a creative outlet, it’s a source of income. We set up the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) in 2007. Today, more creators are making a living on YouTube than ever before. However, with this growth we’ve started seeing cases of abuse where great, original content is re-uploaded by others who try to earn revenue from it. To help protect creator revenue, we recently made it easy for anyone to report an impersonating channel. To date, this change has helped us terminate hundreds of thousands of channels violating our policies. Now, we're taking another step to protect creators by updating the thresholds required to join the YouTube Partner Program.

Starting today, we will no longer serve ads on YPP videos until the channel reaches 10k lifetime views. This new threshold gives us enough information to determine the validity of a channel. It also allows us to confirm if a channel is following our community guidelines and advertiser policies. By keeping the threshold to 10k views, we also ensure that there will be minimal impact on our aspiring creators. And, of course, any revenue earned on channels with under 10k views up until today will not be impacted.

In a few weeks, we’ll also be adding a review process for new creators who apply to be in the YouTube Partner Program. After a creator hits 10k lifetime views on their channel, we’ll review their activity against our policies. If everything looks good, we’ll bring this channel into YPP and begin serving ads against their content. Together these new thresholds will help ensure revenue only flows to creators who are playing by the rules.

If you’re a new creator who’s just started building your channel, our YouTube Creator Academy has tips on making great original content and growing your audience to help you get to 10,000 views and beyond. Once you’ve applied for YPP, you can check your application status in the Channel tab in Creator Studio, under Monetization. We want creators of all sizes to find opportunity on YouTube, and we believe this new application process will help ensure creator revenue continues to grow and end up in the right hands.

Ariel Bardin, VP of Product Management

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