Player for Publishers is a new video solution specifically tailored to the needs of the news industry, according to a post on the Google Europe Blog. It provides a video hosting, streaming, and ads management platform for European publishers, powered by YouTube.
The new solution has the “goal of reducing complexity and increasing reach and revenue potential, so newsrooms can focus on what matters most – creating stories that educate and excite, engage and inspire”, the post reads.
The Digital News Initiative, a collaboration between Google and news publishers in Europe, helped craft and customise the player. Pilot partners testing the service are located in Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, and Austria.
No information was made available in the blog post on a possible rollout of the service in other regions.
Text, images, and GIFs on YouTube
The YouTube Community feature, still in its beta version, has also been launched among a selection of creators only, with a plan to bring more YouTube users on board later.
“The brand new Community tab on your YouTube channel gives you a new, simple way to engage with your viewers and express yourself beyond video,” a post on the YouTube Creator Blog reads. “Now you can do things like text, live videos, images, animated GIFs, and more, giving you easier, lightweight ways to engage with your fans more often in between uploads, in real time.”
Viewers will be able to see these posts in their Subscriptions feed on their phones. These users can also choose to receive a notification when new content has been posted.
“Community is a special release for us because it represents the deepest product collaboration we've ever done with creators like you. We started by inviting creators in early to develop, in partnership with us, the tools they wanted to better engage with their fans.”
The blog post explained that YouTube Community is a first step and that it will roll out more features and functions, taking into account creator and fan feedback.
For more information about Player for Publishers, visit the
Google Europe Blog post
here.
To learn about YouTube Community, visit this
page.