YouTube

Drama has been ongoing between Roku and Google nearly all of this year over the use of YouTube and YouTube TV on the biggest streaming platform in the United States. Today, Roku and Google have finally settled on a deal to keep the app available to Roku owners.

YouTube is expanding the availability of video chapters within the streaming app to more smart TVs and video game consoles.

Since the start of this year, Google has been testing a new YouTube app/experience for the regular Chromecast. The new YouTube Cast app looks to be widely rolled out for the 3rd-gen Chromecast and Ultra this week.

Google announced last month that YouTube would be retiring the dislike count on videos, a change that has already taken effect and has been highly controversial among users. For those who want to keep YouTube dislike counts alive a little bit longer, a neat browser extension makes that possible, at least for now.

Back in May, YouTube started testing “Listening controls” that looked to bring a dedicated music player to the main app for Premium subscribers. This UI is now widely rolled out for all videos.

There was no YouTube Rewind in 2020, and the Google company announced in October that the series was coming to an end entirely. That said, YouTube is still doing various “top” video lists for 2021.

Google has said before that the TV is one of the biggest areas where YouTube is growing, and as such the company has been improving its YouTube app on smart TV platforms. This week, the YouTube app for TVs is changing how it handles playlists.

YouTube on Android TV and Google TV devices are now seeing a limited rollout of autoplay video previews for all content on site.

The first YouTube video was uploaded by co-founder Jawed Karim on April 23, 2005. That seminal 18-second “Me at the zoo” clip now contains a protest of YouTube’s decision to no longer publicly show dislike counts.

Since 2019, Google’s video site has been experimenting with ways to de-weaponize the dislike button in response to targeted campaigns and to improve wellbeing. YouTube is now going ahead with hiding the public dislike count.

YouTube has announced that another slew of Twitch-like features are set to help tempt streamers to the video platform including Gifted Memberships and Live Redirect.

For most, the YouTube “Home” feed/page is very good at recommending videos that you’d enjoy watching. It can, however, get repetitive and YouTube wants to tackle that with “New to you.”

The Roku and Google feud erupted this week as the YouTube app is now set to leave the platform in December, but new information sheds more light on the situation. According to a leaked email, Google did in fact ask Roku for special search results around the YouTube app, an allegation that Google had previously called “baseless.”

The feud between Google and Roku rages on and it’s now escalating quite a bit. Following the removal of the YouTube TV app earlier this year, Roku and Google are once again failing to reach a deal, and the YouTube app will be removed as a result.

Earlier this week, Google announced a series of features across several products aimed at letting you make more sustainable choices. The company is now following that by prohibiting ads or monetization of content that denies climate change. 

With YouTube Rewind changing in recent years, including the lack of one in 2020, the Google video site said today that it’s ending the annual recap video, though a “different and updated kind of experience” might take its place.