YouTube might make the subscribe button glow

Calls to action can be a contentious move, but YouTube itself seems ready to endorse creators’ “like and subscribe”s.

According to a report from 9to5Google, YouTube is testing a feature that makes the Subscribe button glow whenever a creator says the word “subscribe.” 9to5 says the process is completely automatic, so creators won’t have to do anything extra behind the scenes. It’s not clear right now if this is an opt-in feature, or something that will be implemented as a default across the entire platform.

As you can see in the example video here, the feature sends a quick zip of red/orange/yellow around the Subscribe button when the creator says “subscribe.” The animation lasts just a second or two, but it’s pretty eye-catching.

The feature’s in testing across an unknown number of creators/users, and for now seems to only appear on desktop. That makes sense, considering when people are watching on desktop, the button is right there below the video, prominently visible. It’ll be tougher to implement the feature across mobile and TV, where people usually watch videos on fullscreen.

We’re not sure how widespread this test is right now, or if/when the feature might roll out to YouTube’s user base at large. We’ll update this story if we find out any more details.