YouTube’s new monetization rules kills ad revenue for small creators

It’s not a good time to be a small content creator on YouTube these days. Google just announced some new changes to its monetization rules and smaller channels are going to suffer for it. Under the new guidelines, channels will need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time within the last year to be eligible to earn ad revenue. Before YouTubers just needed 10,000 total views to be able to run ads on their videos. Now, even bigger channels that are part of Google’s Preferred program will have their content manually reviewed before ads will run on these videos. These new rules will be enforced starting February 20.

Source: Gizmodo

Google rumoured to launch new YouTube Remix music streaming service as early as March 2018

Google seems to be taking the fight to Spotify with plans to merge YouTube Red and Play Music. These plans have been divulged by the company back in July but we haven’t heard much about it. Now, it seems the new service, which has been internally called “Remix,” might be coming as early as March 2018. The service is described as “Spotify-like on-demand streaming and would incorporate elements from YouTube, such as video clips.” It makes sense for us to have these two services merged as a Play Music subscription already gives you access to ad-free YouTube content and Red originals, might as well put them in one less confusing service.

According to Bloomberg’s report, there is a possibility of Play Music taking a backseat to YouTube here, which will follow internal structuring where much of the Play Music team has been moved to work on YouTube-related projects. If it does launch by March, Google would need to get the music industry bigwigs to be on board. It has been reported that the record industry heads aren’t happy with the minimal revenue being generated by YouTube music videos. This move might appease them. Warner Music Group is reportedly on board already but Google is still negotiating with the likes of Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, and independent labels.

Source: Android Authority

YouTube maxes out HDR viewing on mobile app to 1080p

While it was limited to a handful of devices, Google added the ability to play HDR content to its Android app a couple of months back. And even if these devices were more on the powerful side of the spectrum, some have noticed performance issues once videos pushed to 1440p or above—the clips stuttered with dropped frames. To remedy the situation, YouTube has opted to take out these options. Now, HDR maxes out at 1080p so you can enjoy the content without the problems.

Source: Android Police

YouTube Kids introduces new features like child profiles and more parental controls

YouTube is looking to give more control to both the kids and parents with the new update to its YouTube Kids app. The app now supports multiple users, letting your child set up their own profile and have optional passcodes added to keep their brothers or sisters from messing with the profile (parents can still override the passcode). This also ties their profile to the same Google account and lets them switch between devices (including smart TVs) with ease. For the parents, the setup process has been improved as well. When you enter your child’s age, the app will adjust its look to suit the age range (the app does get a fresh new look to it). The app will also now let parents now information you put in during the initial setup process will impact what your child can watch.

The YouTube team is quick to remind users though that they are still working on making sure mature content gets filtered out. In the blog post announcing the changes, they encourage parents to block and flag videos that do get through the cracks and they promise they are working and “looking at ways to build an even better experience for families.”