Articles about YouTube

Google has today announced a raft of a new privacy features across a swathe of its products and services.

Google Maps is going to benefit from a new Incognito Mode just like Chrome and YouTube. YouTube itself is gaining a new option for automated history deletion, and Google Assistant -- recently dragged through the privacy mud along with other digital assistants -- is also getting new deletion options.

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Back in July, the YouTube app finally returned to the Amazon Fire TV platform. This was great news for both Google and Amazon, but more importantly, consumers were the big winners. Owners of Fire TV devices finally had an official app for watching YouTube.

Google and Amazon had promised that YouTube TV -- the search giant's live television service -- would come to Fire TV too, but for whatever reason, it did not debut with the return of the regular YouTube app. Thankfully, starting today, Fire TV owners can finally access YouTube TV on their devices -- as long as they have a compatible model.

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I am a big fan of YouTube. Not only do I watch videos on the site daily, I am also a paid subscriber to YouTube TV -- I love the service and happily part with my $50 each month. YouTube Music, however, is an entirely different story -- I kind of hate it. When testing it against Spotify and Apple Music, YouTube Music failed miserably. The user interface is just unnecessarily confusing. Quite frankly, I am not sure how Google got it so wrong. Sigh.

That's why I was rather bummed out by the news that Google will be pre-loading the YouTube Music app on all Android 10 devices, plus some new ones that will ship with Android 9. Yep, it will be foisted upon many unsuspecting customers. This includes buyers of Google's own devices, such as the upcoming Pixel 4.

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Almost immediately after having announced planned changes to the way channel verification works, YouTube has bowed to pressure from unhappy users and says it will rethink its approach.

Late last week, YouTube announced verification changes that meant many channels would lose their coveted check mark. Following a backlash, the company now says that no one will lose their verified status, so there is no need to appeal against it.

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On all branches of social media, account verification is what users yearn for. A little checkmark next to a username can lead to a massive increase in followers, and for creators this can in turn lead to a significant increase in earnings.

This is why there is a so much anger at YouTube's decision to introduce sweeping new changes that will see may users who have earned verification losing their verified status. As well as annoyance, there is a widespread feeling of confusion about what is happening, and why.

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Google has announced that it is killing off yet another of its messaging tools. This time rather than terminating a standalone messaging tool, it is the direct messaging feature of YouTube that is for the chop.

The cut-off date is less than a month away, but Google warns that some messaging elements -- including the sharing of videos through messages -- may vanish before the ultimate end date of September 18.

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I recently watched the Freddie Mercury (R.I.P.) and Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody" on HBO. The film was enjoyable, but not particularly good. It lacked depth and emotion, feeling more like a caricature of the band. Ultimately, it did a pretty good job of educating younger folks about the group, and highlighting their many great songs, so I suppose that is a good thing. While Mercury is a fascinating man, it would have been nice to have the other members of the band get more attention.

Queen's most popular song (and their best) is the film's namesake -- "Bohemian Rhapsody." The song and the band were before my time, so I first encountered the song when watching the movie "Wayne's World" as a child. I immediately recognized the brilliance of the music despite it being used as a prop in an iconic movie scene -- it also saw a resurgence on the radio at the time because of the Mike Myers movie. And now, the song "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen has achieved 1 billion views on YouTube. To mark the milestone, there is a new remastered version of the video (embedded below).

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"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

It’s the age-old question, one posed to nearly every child at some point in their formative years. In generations past, the answers were typically aspirational -- Doctor, Fireman, Astronaut, etc. However our current crop of young, Western-educated padawans has a different goal in mind: They want to be YouTubers.

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Like YouTube? Enjoy Netflix?

Then you’re a bad person! It’s people like you who are destroying our planet and dooming future generations!

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A few months back, we shared with you some very, very good news -- Amazon and Google were burying the hatchet. You see, the two giant companies were at odds, keeping their respective video apps from each other's hardware platforms. Then in April, the two companies announced that the feud was over -- YouTube was coming back to Amazon Fire TV, while Prime Video would come to Chromecast.

Wow! Great news, right? Well, yes and no. While it was undoubtedly positive, it was not immediate -- consumers would have to wait months for this to happen, sadly. Well, folks, today it finally becomes a reality!

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YouTube's on-going battle against hate speech on its platform continues, and the site has just announced new policies that it hopes will help to further curb the problem.

As part of its new rules, YouTube is now taking a tougher stance against discriminatory material, banning supremacist videos such as those that promote Nazism. Also banned are videos that seek to spread misinformation by denying that "well-documented violent events", such as the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting, ever occurred. Holocaust denial is also banned.

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YouTube CBO Robert Kyncl has confirmed that all of the company's Originals content will be made available free of charge.

Currently locked behind a paywall, Originals will become free and ad-supported. At the moment, it is not clear exactly when the change will happen, but it is certainly in the cards, meaning shows like Cobra Kai should reach a larger audience.

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Amazon Fire TV provides a really great media consumption experience. And yet, I do not use it. Why? Well, I am a huge YouTube user -- both the regular video service, plus YouTube TV, and unfortunately, Google kept those services off of Amazon's TV hardware. In a bit of "tit for tat," Amazon kept its own Prime Video from Google's Android TV and Chromecast devices. Ultimately, this hostility hurt consumers, which is very unfortunate.

Today, Google and Amazon finally bury the hatchet. YouTube apps are coming to Fire TV, while Prime Video is coming to both Android TV and Chromecast. Even Google's YouTube Kids app will be coming to Amazon's hardware!

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Often, our social media engagements seem like little more than momentary diversions. Someone might scroll through Twitter when sitting in a waiting room or browse Facebook over breakfast. These time commitments feel small in the moment, to the point of being insubstantial -- but over time, these "insubstantial" moments on social media add up. The average person spends almost two hours on social media every day, while the average teenager spends up to nine hours. One study suggests that most people will end up spending more than five years of their lives on sites like YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter.

Social media is eating up a lot of your time. While not all of that time is "wasted" -- it’s possible to learn things on social media, network with valuable connections, catch up with friends, and follow important news stories -- five years of your life is a big ask. Have you ever considered deleting your social media accounts? In this article, we’ll explore how to delete your accounts, whether going dark can affect your job prospects, and what you can do instead to limit your social media usage or online exposure.

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YouTube has never had the best layout. Despite going through numerous design changes over the years it’s always looked a bit of a muddle, and unearthing great content to watch has never been as easy as it should be.

What Google’s video site has needed for quite some time now is a fresh take to bring it more in line with its newer rivals, like Instagram and TikTok. Something like this.

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