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YouTube will remind users to ‘keep comments respectful’ before posting
YouTube is taking new steps to weed out bullying, hate speech and other kinds of nasty comments.
Patreon’s 3 million supporters are good news for independent creators
Patreon has had one clear goal since it launched in 2013: to help artists, influencers and internet creators make money by letting them offer membership services directly to their fans. And that effort seems to be paying off. Today, Patreon announced there are now over three million people supporting creators on its site, of which there are more than 100,000 to date. What's also notable is that the company was able to accomplish this milestone in a rapid manner, going from two to three million supporters (aka patrons) worldwide in just one year.
Hiding in plain sight: The YouTubers' crowdfunding piracy
I never imagined I would be watching Kitchen Nightmares, starring the world-renowned chef Gordon Ramsay, in my downtime on YouTube. I knew of Ramsay and his ruthlessness from shows like Hell's Kitchen, but I had never heard of Kitchen Nightmares until a few weeks ago, when an episode popped up on YouTube's Trending section. Next thing you know, I'm hooked and watching full episodes of it on my phone instead of the usual sneaker videos. But aside from Ramsay's rants at owners of filthy restaurants, something else caught my attention -- these uploads weren't from Fox, which owns the rights to the show in the US. Instead, they were from an unofficial channel called "Kitchen Nightmares Hotel Hell and Hell's Kitchen." And as if that wasn't brazen enough, the owner explicitly asked viewers for donations to fund the uploading of copyrighted content.
YouTube's Rewind 2018 becomes the site's most disliked video ever
YouTube's latest Rewind video, the annual recap touting "the videos, music and trends that defined YouTube in 2018," has become the most disliked video ever in the website's history. The previous holder of this dubious title was Justin Bieber's Baby, which over the course of eight years racked up an impressive 9.8 million dislikes. YouTube's 2018 Rewind, meanwhile, charged ahead of this figure in less than two weeks, passing 10 million dislikes (according to LikesCounter) early on December 13th.
Mental health and the relentless YouTuber life
Jacques Slade was spending a week at the beach recently, away from the internet and his responsibilities as a full-time YouTube creator, where he's about to reach 1 million subscribers. It was supposed to be a time to relax and enjoy life. But being stress free, even on vacation, doesn't come easily for him. Slade, who makes videos about sneakers and technology, said he couldn't fully enjoy it because he was worried about not having anything to post on YouTube when he returned. "I don't have content for the next four or five days," Slade worried. "What's that gonna do to me? What's that gonna do to my bottom line? When I come back, are people still gonna watch my videos?"
YouTube creators can hype prerecorded videos with 'Premieres'
While YouTube users have been able to schedule prerecorded videos for years, until now there hasn't been a seamless way to build anticipation for those videos. But there's a feature being launched at VidCon 2018 called YouTube Premieres that's going to change that. This tool will let creators hype future on-demand videos with a dedicated public landing page that they can link to before a video is live on their channel. Right now, YouTube creators tend to go on other social sites like Instagram or Twitter to let their followers know about incoming videos, but there wasn't a way for them to direct people to a specific page on YouTube -- not for prerecorded videos, anyway.
YouTube looks to merch and memberships to make creators more money
YouTube is having a busy day at VidCon 2018. Aside from launching Premieres, a feature that lets creators hype prerecorded videos with a public landing page, the company is also announcing new ways for them to make more money. For starters, channels with more than 100,000 subscribers will now have access to Memberships, which will allow viewers to pay a monthly fee of $4.99 to get exclusive access to badges, emoji, livestreams, members-only videos and shoutouts, among other perks. This is exactly what YouTube was already doing with Sponsorships, though that was available only to a select group of YouTubers. If you're a creator but don't meet the 100,000-subscriber threshold, YouTube says it hopes to bring Channel Memberships to more people in the coming months.
Logan Paul hasn’t learned his lesson
Logan Paul, the YouTube star who came under fire recently after posting a video of a corpse, is at the center of yet another controversy. This time around, Paul is facing backlash for uploading a video in which he's seen shooting two lifeless rats with a Taser gun. As if that wasn't enough, in a now deleted tweet, he joined the Tide Pods internet challenge, suggesting he'd eat one of the detergent capsules for every retweet he got. Perhaps that's just his sense of humor, but Paul should have known that everything he does from now on will be heavily scrutinized.
Logan Paul forced YouTube to admit humans are better than algorithms
YouTube is no stranger to controversy. Many of its top stars have been in hot water recently: From PewDiePie making racists remarks, to a "family" channel with abusive kid pranks, the company's been under fire for not keeping a closer eye on the type of content that makes it onto the site. Most recently, Logan Paul, a popular YouTuber with more than 15 million subscribers, faced backlash after posting a video that showed a corpse he came across in Japan's so-called "Suicide Forest." That clip, which was eventually taken down by Paul himself, forced YouTube to cut almost all ties with him and to figure out ways to prevent another situation like this.
YouTube stars are blurring the lines between content and ads
Beyonce, Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian and Kendall Jenner are just some of the celebrities under the microscope for using social media to shamelessly plug sponsored products. Advertising without proper disclosures has become a growing problem with influencers that have thousands or millions of followers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And it's happening on YouTube as well, where it's often hard to tell whether videos from big-name "content creators" are paid ads or genuine reviews.
YouTubers will need at least 10,000 views to make ad money
YouTube has been busy tweaking its service and community lately. It just rolled out a live TV-streaming feature, and recently moved to better identify offensive content to prevent ads from being displayed on those videos. The latest update to its Partner Program slaps a 10,000 channel view minimum requirement on creators before it will allow ads to be displayed on those sources' videos. In a few weeks, the company will roll out a review process to evaluate new applicants for the partner program. These steps are designed to weed out illegitimate channels and prevent them from earning ad money off the service.
Explore Japanese gaming culture in 360 degrees with MatPat
Matthew Patrick is best known as the guy on YouTube who uses math, science and rabid curiosity to build intense, unexpected narratives from the stray plot threads of movies and video games. As the Game Theorists' MatPat, he asks if Mario is secretly a sociopath and questions if Sega's blue hedgehog really is the fastest mascot in gaming -- and then backs up his allegations by covertly teaching viewers about actual psychology and the speed of sound. Now he's expanding his passion for making entertainment educational with a travel show called The Global Gamer. Oh, and he's doing it in 360-degree virtual reality -- and you can watch the launch exclusively right here on Engadget.
PewDiePie's Twitter temporarily suspended after ISIS joke
Yesterday, popular YouTube personality PewDiePie made minor headlines for losing his Twitter verification checkmark. Today, he was briefly suspended for the service. "I did this yesterday as a joke," he explained on Youtube, teasing users who view Twitter verification as a status symbol. "But then America woke up and that's when shit got stupid." Overnight, Kjellberg says an account parodying Sky News posted a fake news story claiming he lost his verification status for having "suspected relations with ISIS." Later, the YouTuber referenced the article on Twitter, joking that both he and JackSepticEye had joined the terrorist organization. Later, his account Twitter account was suspended.
YouTube fame to game developer: A chat with CaptainSparklez
It's a strange day when a YouTube star named CaptainSparklez gets bigger billing in a headline than the co-founder of Activision, but here we are. YouTube phenom CaptainSparklez, whose real name is Jordan Maron, has partnered with Activision co-founder Howard Marks to develop Fortress Fury, a competitive mobile game. Maron and Marks operate at seemingly opposite ends of the video game industry, but working together, they've found common ground and cultivated more than 1 million downloads of Fortress Fury in its first few weeks on iOS and Android. In a video interview, the unlikely duo tell us how they first met (Grandmother Sparklez makes an appearance), and how the industry is evolving with crowdfunding, YouTube and eSports.
YouTube millionaire PewDiePie responds to his haters
Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, made a lot of money last year. His company, PewDiePie Productions, brought in about $7 million in revenue, mainly off of Kjellberg's YouTube videos where he plays video games and reacts in silly ways. With those videos, he's also raised more than $1 million for charity over the years. Kjellberg has 37.7 million subscribers on YouTube and about 9 billion views overall -- considering that he receives ad revenue based on the number of views his videos get, it's not surprising that he's making serious bank. However, When news of Kjellberg's revenue hit the 'net, quite a few people responded with anger, outrage or thinly veiled jealousy, as they do any time that PewDiePie's revenue goes public. This year, Kjellberg made a video addressing the money issue, including a brief description of his not-so-glamorous life before YouTube.
YouTube star PewDiePie made $7 million in 2014
Last year around this time, word got out that Felix Kjellberg, a 24-year-old Swedish bro known online as PewDiePie, made $4 million a year by playing video games, recording his reactions and uploading the resulting videos to YouTube. At the time, he had 27 million YouTube subscribers. Today, Kjellberg has 37.7 million subscribers on YouTube and his company, PewDiePie Productions, pulled in roughly $7.4 million in revenue in 2014, according to Swedish newspaper Expressen. It looks like this whole "watch people play video games on the internet" craze is here to stay.
PewDiePie joins MLG.tv with exclusive BroKen streams
PewDiePie, the internet's most famous YouTuber (this sentence wouldn't have made sense 10 years ago), has signed a deal to bring episodes of his "BroKen" podcast to launch exclusively on MLG.tv, with the premiere stream tonight. "BroKen" stars PewDiePie – normal name Felix Kjellberg – and fellow streamer CinnamonToastKen. "Our vision for MLG.tv is to make it the home for premium content and producers like PewDiePie and his show 'BroKen,'" MLG VP of Programming Ryan Wyatt said. "This type of programming deal with PewDiePie, one of the biggest stars in digital media, is a great example of the premier talent we have joining the growing MLG.tv line-up." PewDiePie brings in $4 million a year in ad revenue, The Wall Street Journal reported in June. Earlier in September, PewDiePie announced that he would permanently disable all comments on his YouTube videos, forever and always.
YouTube gains translated caption support, tears down another language barrier
Aside from being powered by memes, likes and tweets, today's internet is strongly fueled by viral videos. King of the latter, YouTube has added yet another trendsetting feature to its repertoire. The Google owned video sharing service now gives its content producers the ability to add subtitles to their videos in over 300 languages. Leaning on Google Translate's software, this new feature gives YouTubers the option to add or request translated captions for their videos anytime during the content's lifespan. So, whether you're a casual vlogger, or an aspiring director hoping to have your recent short reach a broader audience, you now have to opportunity to snag some views on a global scale. Just be sure to remember us little people when those awards for best foreign film start rolling in.
