YouTube goes social as the Community beta arrives

YouTube has just launched a new “Community” feature on its video sharing platform, which is designed to enable content creators to communicate with their followers in real time. Viewers may spot a brand new Community tab on their favourite YouTube channel from today, but the roll-out is limited at the moment, as the functionality is still in beta.

According to YouTube, creators can use the feature to post text, live videos, images, animated GIFs, and more, directly to their YouTube following. Followers can opt in to receive notifications for these posts, or can simply views these updates in their subscription feed, along with any new videos.

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. 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 your posts in the Subscriptions feed on their phones. They can also opt into getting a notification anytime you post.

The aim is to give content creators a better way to update and communicate with their followers, without having to resort to third party social media sites, such as Twitter or Facebook. Not that using any of these services is particularly inconvenient for many, and those with large communities on other platforms may not want or be able to migrate easily. Still, everything can be kept nicely in one place after this update, for those who would rather avoiding having to use multiple accounts and different sites.

Currently, the Community beta is only live for the following curators: John & Hank Green, to AsapSCIENCE, The Game Theorists,Karmin, The Key of Awesome, The Kloons, Lilly Singh, Peter Hollens,Rosianna Halse Rojas, Sam Tsui, Threadbanger, and VSauce3. Even if you’re not a follower, you can always go over there and check out how the new feature works. YouTube says that it will be bringing the feature to other channels in the future, after collecting feedback from the current list of curators. What do you think about the idea?