YouTube launched in 2005 as a video sharing platform, and was acquired by Google (now Alphabet) in 2006. It has built an entire community of creators that run channels dedicated to topics like gaming, tech reviews, and beauty. It also houses news videos and entertainment such as music videos, movie trailers, and clips from late-night TV shows.
YouTube’s rapid growth has not been without problems. YouTubers typically make money from ads that run in front of their videos, but if they break the platform’s rules, their channels and videos can be demonetized. Executives and moderators have worked to combat harassment, misinformation, terrorist propaganda, hate content, and other abuse.
The Verge runs two YouTube channels, The Verge and Verge Science.
The longtime YouTuber, science educator, and author said he’ll take a break from creating videos while being treated and asked fans to send him recommendations for movies to watch and games to play that are “really dumb things that will not make you cry.” True to form, Green still manages to go off on an educational science tangent while sharing the news.
Linus Sebastian of LinusTechTips is stepping down as CEO of Linus Media Group effective July 1st, 2023, and is handing off the reins to Terren Tong, his former boss at NCIX. Sebastian says he’s shifting to Chief Vision Officer, which he thinks sounds like a “stupid, BS-sounding, made-up role.”
From our perspective, nothing will change — Sebastian will still be in lots of videos. Maybe more, he says.
YouTube first tested the feature with March Madness, and now you’ll be able to use it while watching the NFL Draft, which begins at 8PM ET. This seems like yet another test ahead of the full NFL season, where it would make sense for YouTube to launch this feature in full.
Blink-182 is stepping in on Sunday after Frank Ocean dropped out due to injuries. You can watch livestreams from six stages all weekend on the Coachella channel on YouTube starting tonight at 7PM ET / 4PM PT. And if you want to catch up on some of the best moments from last weekend, check out Coachella’s highlights playlist.
If young Metro don’t trust you, I’m gonna... tie you up in a decade of fair use litigation.
The first of the two Coachella concert weekends is about to start, and for those who couldn’t go (or are too old to find the idea appealing, or who bought an NFT but lost access to it in the FTX crash), YouTube is, as usual, streaming the event.
This year there are six feeds to choose from, and you can see the full schedule right here. I’ll probably check out Kaytranada from the Outdoor Theatre around 10:30PM ET.
InfoSec in 2023 is in a strange place. The leaked (and altered) security files on Ukraine that have been floating around seem to have emerged out of a series of Discord servers. Bellingcat says the trail leads through a Discord server focused on Minecraft and a Filipino YouTuber:
After a brief spat with another person on the server about Minecraft Maps and the war in Ukraine, one of the Discord users replied “here, have some leaked documents” – attaching 10 documents about Ukraine, some of which bore the “Top Secret” markings.
We’re still waiting for podcasts to drop on YouTube Music, but the streamer continues to take baby steps to support podcasts on the main platform. Now that you can designate playlists as podcasts on YouTube, creators can also file them under an official Podcasts tab on their channels, reports 9to5Google.
YouTube has issued a warning about phishing emails that appear to come from no-reply@youtube.com, an official email address. This serves as a reminder that even if an email looks legit, always double-check to see if the content passes the sniff test so you don’t get hacked.
(Note: if a link contains the string “confirm=no_antivirus,” it does not pass the sniff test.)
It feels like barely a week goes by without a prominent YouTube channel getting hacked to promote crypto scams. This time it’s Linus Tech Tips, one of the biggest tech YouTube accounts — with 15.3 million subscribers. The channel has been taken over by scammers live streaming crypto scam videos. These breaches have been happening for well over a year, and it’s beyond time YouTube helped protect creators from falling victims to this.
YouTube TV is making its new multiview feature available to all customers sooner than expected. The streaming TV service originally planned to start with an “early access” group and expand from there, but the March Madness fervor has proven overwhelming. People want their basketballs games. All the games at once.
I don’t think this will make up for the price hike it just announced — people are very upset about YouTube TV crossing beyond $70 — but it’s a nice gesture.
The tradeoff for instant gratification is that you’ll probably deal with bugs and some known issues.
[Twitter]
YouTube has rolled out some features in YouTube Studio so you can get your podcasts all set up for appearing in YouTube Music. But that’s still a little ways off: “Podcast inclusion in the YouTube Music app is coming soon to creators in the US,” YouTube writes on a support page.
