YouTube wants creators to share the Hype

The 2024 edition of the annual Made On YouTube presentation included a typical assortment of product announcements. YouTube’s upcoming features include new community-building tools for creator channels, enhancements to the platform’s AI suite, and a new monetization format called Jewels.

One of the more intriguing features revealed at Made On is Hype, which will let users bring attention to their favorite content. The videos that receive the most Hype show up on a centralized leaderboard. The idea is to spotlight emerging creators who are building close communities but are not yet at the top of the charts in terms of views or subscribers.

Creators will be eligible to receive Hype if they have fewer than 500,000 subscribers. YouTube has already tested Hype in Brazil, Turkey, and Taiwan, and it will expand to other regions in the “coming months.”

The introduction of growth-oriented features like Hype is part of YouTube’s broader plan to turn channel pages into fan hubs. These Communities, as YouTube will call them, will feature fan art, video discussions, and more. This layout shift will serve the creators who are already thriving on YouTube’s Community Tab, where non-video uploads like images and polls can haul in significant viewership.

To help creators dive into those Communities themselves, YouTube will overhaul the Comments tab in its YouTube Studio app. AI-suggested replies tailored to each user’s style will give YouTube an answer to the creator-inspired AI chatbots Instagram is reportedly developing

AI, which was the main theme of the Made On presentation a year ago, is still a top priority for YouTube. The Dream Screen feature, which suggests backgrounds for YouTube Shorts, will get an upgrade through Google’s video generation model Veo. That means AI video generation will soon be directly integrated into YouTube Shorts, though it’s already easy enough to post AI-generated videos on the format. Veo users on Shorts will be able to generate up to six seconds of video based on their prompts.

YouTube is also following suit with its competitors in the realm of monetization. Jewels, a currency for one-time gifts, will be available on vertical live streams in the U.S. Though YouTube’s streaming community already has a lot of monetization options, the addition of Jewels will allow YouTube-based broadcasts to function like the big-money streams on platforms like TikTok.

Other features mentioned during the 2024 Made On YouTube presentation include upgrades to the YouTube app on TVs and a YouTube Shopping expansion that will bring ecommerce features to new regions. To get the dish on everything that was discussed on the Made On stage, head over to the YouTube blog.