YouTube Testing New ‘Profile Cards’ That Showcase Channel-Specific Comment History

YouTube is testing out a feature that would lay bare a user’s comment history — though only on one specific channel at a time over the course of a 12-month period.

The in-development feature, dubbed ‘Profile Cards’, are currently appearing for some testers when they click on a profile name in the comments section of a video. (For most users, clicking on a user name in the comments section takes you to that user’s channel home page). However, the new Profile Cards showcase all of a user’s comments on that particular channel over the past year, Techcrunch reports. It’s worth noting that Profile Cards do not show the entire history of a user’s comments across different channels — only the channel where the Card has been clicked. Profile Cards will also only track comments over a 12-month period.

In addition to helping creators pick out some of their most avid supporters, Techcrunch notes that Profile Cards could also be harnessed by creators to get a handle on abusive users, and block them accordingly.

“It will help you get a sense of what this person is writing,” YouTube’s director of product management, Tom Leung, said in a Creator Insider video announcing the test last week (below). “We hope that it will strengthen connections with others in the YouTube community and will help creators recognize some of their best commenters.”

Techcrunch notes that the test appears to be well-received by the YouTube community, though it is unclear how many people have access to it thus far.

In addition to Profile Cards, YouTube is testing another new feature — among just “a few dozen creators,” Leung said — whereby creators will be able to add personalized text greetings on ‘Watch’ pages next to the ‘Subscribe’ button in a bid to help drive subscriptions. You can hear about both tests in the Creator Insider video below: