YouTube announced a major platform update on Tuesday (October 15), introducing over two dozen new features across its web, mobile, TV, and YouTube Music app, including collaborative playlists and fan badges.
Among the most notable additions is a revamped collaborative playlist feature for YouTube Music, allowing users to build, share, and vote on playlists with friends and family through unique links or QR codes.
This new feature appears to be a direct response to Spotify‘s similar functionality. Spotify launched Jam, a real-time collaborative playlist feature, last year. Jam expanded upon Spotify’s existing Collaborative Playlist feature from 2020 and the Blend option introduced in 2022, which creates shared playlists based on multiple users’ music preferences.
Additionally, YouTube Music is also introducing new customization options for playlist thumbnails, including the ability to use personal photos or generate images using AI technology.
Later this year, YouTube plans to implement a voting system enabling users to rank videos within playlists, facilitating community interaction and content curation, it said in a blog post.
The update also provides more precise playback speed controls, letting viewers adjust video speeds in 0.05 increments, versus 0.25x previously.
Mobile users will also benefit from an improved mini-player functionality, which now allows viewers to resize and reposition the player while browsing other content. The platform is also rolling out visual improvements for landscape mode viewing on Android devices, featuring larger thumbnails and enhanced text visibility, with iOS updates scheduled for later this year.
“Whether it was greater control, richer personalization, or useful features, we’ve been hearing from our users that they wanted to get the most out of YouTube in a way that’s unique to them.”
YouTube
YouTube is also launching a Sleep Timer feature for all users, following successful testing with Premium subscribers in August. This tool automatically pauses video playback after a set duration. Spotify has had the same Sleep Timer feature since August 2022.
Meanwhile, YouTube is also introducing a new badge system to YouTube and YouTube Music. Users can earn badges for being a top listener and can showcase their earned badges in their profile’s “You” tab.
“We’re starting with just a few at launch, with badges that celebrate unique-to-YouTube milestones, such as being one of the first set of paid members of a creator’s channel, or correctly completing quizzes,” YouTube said.
The launch of fan badges comes about a month after YouTube announced Communities, a dedicated space for creators to interact with their fans and audiences.
For TV viewers, YouTube is enhancing the viewing experience with a more cinematic interface and improved Shorts viewing capabilities. The update includes a new user interface that enables viewers to read comments and browse shopping features without interrupting their viewing experience. Additionally, channel pages now feature automatic video previews.
“Whether it was greater control, richer personalization, or useful features, we’ve been hearing from our users that they wanted to get the most out of YouTube in a way that’s unique to them. These updates are a direct result of that valuable feedback, and they represent just the beginning of our ongoing effort to make YouTube better for everyone,” YouTube said.
These updates are part of YouTube’s broader strategy to enhance its music and video offerings as it competes with streaming rivals like Spotify and TikTok. The timing is particularly notable as Spotify expands its video ambitions, having launched full-length music videos in beta for Premium users across 11 markets in March. Earlier this week, it expanded this feature to 85 new markets, though the US remains excluded.
While the collaborative playlist feature appears to be challenging Spotify’s similar offerings, the enhanced mobile and TV experiences aim to keep users engaged within the YouTube ecosystem amid growing competition from short-form video platforms like TikTok. YouTube Music has been steadily rolling out new features to stay competitive, including a July update that allows users to search for songs by humming, singing, or playing a tune directly into the app.
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