YouTube has effectively brought its Originals to an end, the company has announced. Though YouTube Originals won't be entirely eliminated, the company has revealed that it'll reduce its funding for this kind of programming to only two categories: YouTube Kids and Black Voices. That may not be a big deal going forward, however, as YouTube Shorts has ushered in a new era of creator-generated content for the platform.
Volvo is a company that made its name on safety, and like many other automakers, it's currently working on transitioning from traditional vehicles to electric vehicles only. While completing its transition from a mix of EVs and combustion-powered vehicles to pure electric vehicles will take some time, Volvo is looking towards that future and aiming to solve some of the problems it sees arising for owners.
Google announced its Google TV app in late September 2020 in an effort to better compete with Apple TV, Roku, and other dedicated platforms. Unfortunately, having "TV" in the name immediately drew comparisons to YouTube TV, along with questions about the differences between the two products.
A dark time for YouTube TV subscribers is coming to an end sooner than expected. Following the removal of Disney-owned channels from the service last week, YouTube TV has shared news that the channels would be returning by the end of the day on Sunday. Last week, YouTube TV shared that it would remove Disney-owned channels like ESPN, Disney Channel, and ABC from its programming guide. The news came as a result of the two companies' failures to meet a new agreement to keep the channels on the service without raising the price of the subscription. Following the removal, YouTube TV shared that it would offer a $15 discount to all subscribers while Disney content was unavailable on the service.
YouTube will be hiding the dislike count on all videos from public view, keeping the thumbs-down button but hiding the overall count of how many other people have clicked it. The decision follows a trial to YouTube to see whether masking negative feedback would make for less harassment, as well as reentering exactly what it was added for in the first place.
Dwindling signs of a deal between Roku and Google will leave new Roku streaming devices without YouTube and YouTube TV access from early December, it's been revealed, as the on-demand contact fallout continues to bite. Roku removed the YouTube TV app from its channel store back in May, amid contentious accusations from both it and Google about unreasonable licensing demands.
YouTube is a name that's mostly associated with on-demand Internet videos, but it has also become Google's umbrella brand for its multimedia streaming service. The transition from Google Play Music to YouTube Music wasn't exactly the smoothest, and some features that may have been considered a staple of free tiers were walled behind subscriptions. That, however, is changing for users in Canada next month, but those free YouTube Music users will have to give up watching music videos there in exchange.
Google's commitment to Wear OS has been cast into doubt because of the lack of development and improvement before Wear OS 3 was announced last month. It also seemed like Google was snubbing its own wearable platform when something as basic as a YouTube Music app was unavailable on Wear OS while ironically present on Apple's competing watchOS. That finally changed with Wear OS 3, but only for the extremely small number of smartwatches. Thankfully, that has now changed, and YouTube Music is going out to even more and older Wear OS devices.
If you're tired of waiting for a live stream to end so that you can watch it with captions, YouTube's latest announcement includes some good news. The company has revealed that its automatic captions feature is now available to all creators on the platform, including accounts that didn't meet its previous subscriber requirement.
While climate change denial videos can remain on YouTube, they'll no longer rake in advertisement dollars. The company has announced plans to strip ads from climate change denial videos amid a larger crackdown on misinformation. The decision appears to have been largely driven by YouTube's partners that don't want their products appearing alongside these videos.
At long last, the end of the official YouTube Rewind series is here. YouTube confirmed that the viral video compendium has grown to a point at which it is no longer needed... or at least YouTube doesn't feel the need to make one. After the debacle that was the lack of appreciation from users over the Rewind 2018 video, then the not-a-video Rewind of 2019.
Although they have been around for years now, podcasts are becoming big again in the age of music streaming. Rivals Spotify and Apple are already gearing up for war, and even Amazon, which has its own Amazon Music subscription service, has jumped into the fray. It's no surprise, then, to hear that YouTube may be setting its sights on the market since it also does music streaming. Unfortunately, Google is no stranger to podcasts, and the confusion that might ensue could open up old wounds over the Google Play Music fiasco.