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YouTube getting smart TV updates, Communities with posts, and more

At Made on YouTube 2024, Google announced the latest features for Creators that also enhance the viewer experience.

Next year, the YouTube app on smart televisions will let creators organize their videos into seasons and episodes for easier browsing. They’ll also have the option to “begin playing a video automatically” when viewers visit a channel page. These immersive previews are meant to let creators convey “what their channel is all about.” That is rolling out in the coming months along with a subscribe button in the player and ability to view links as scannable QR codes. 

Fans will be able to “Hype” new videos from creators with 500-500,000 subscribers to increase the chance of it appearing on a new, country-specific Leaderboard under Explore. A video has to be less than a week old. Hyping joins likes and sharing, but won’t won’t influence/impact YouTube recommendations or search results. This is currently being beta tested and will come to more countries in the coming months.

Similarly, (vertical) livestream viewers will be able to react with “Jewels” that you use to purchase Gifts.

At Made on YouTube 2024, the company also announced how channel pages are getting a new “Communities” section that lets creators and subscribers share text and photo posts (“What’s on your mind?”). Sort options let you see just Creator posts, as well as Top and Newest. This is already live for some channels and expanding to more in early 2025. 

Meanwhile, creators have a new “Community Hub” in the YouTube Studio mobile app that replaces the Comments tab. It includes AI-powered reply suggestions that are “tailored to [their] style.” Besides highlighting “Top comments,” a carousel will highlight key comments from the community. 

YouTube is expanding its AI-powered auto-dubbing feature to make videos available for more audiences. English can be dubbed into Spanish, French, Italian, or other languages, and vice versa. 

Meanwhile, Google DeepMind’s Veo video generation mode is coming to Dream Screen in YouTube Shorts for backgrounds and standalone clips.  

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Avatar for Abner Li Abner Li

Editor-in-chief. Interested in the minutiae of Google and Alphabet. Tips/talk: abner@9to5g.com

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