In what seems to be a test, YouTube is testing a new button that lets you start playing random videos on your phone or tablet.
The power of YouTube lies not only in its absolutely gigantic collection of the web’s content, but also in its recommendation engine. But, for users who just want to get content going without picking through a ton of options, a new button is starting to show up which makes it all a mystery.
As spotted by Android Police, a black button in YouTube’s mobile app allows users to start playing YouTube Shorts at random.
This is a bit redundant given that there’s a Shorts button in the bottom bar that’s much more obvious, but it’s not the first time YouTube has played around with this idea. A while back, a Reddit thread showed off a “Can’t decide what to watch?” widget in the home page which opened up random videos in the same viewing style as Shorts, but with full-length videos, with the caption “try a new way to discover videos.”
The folks at Android Police saw the same option, with videos under 20 minutes being shown in the clip below.
It’s unclear how widely this is being tested – we’re not seeing either option on our end – but it’s a nice addition nonetheless. If you’re seeing this, let us know in the comments below.
More on YouTube:
- All the ways YouTube doesn’t feel like a Google app
- YouTube crackdown leads to ‘hundreds of thousands’ of ad blocker uninstalls
- International YouTube Premium price increase underway in these countries
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