Creator Weekly: YouTube Second Chances, Twitch Co-Streaming, Shorts Editor Update

This week’s creator news recap is extra long, since there was no edition last week.

Why? I was at the Google Product Expert Summit in Dublin, Ireland ☘. It was a week of seeing old friends, learning new information and visiting the friendly, historic city. I’ll talk about it a bit more in this week’s live stream.

This week also marks the 10th anniversary of uploading content to my YouTube channel. I actually created the channel in 2013, then didn’t upload videos for a couple of years. And for most of that time my activity has been sporadic. It’s just the last couple of years I’ve been regularly active. I was hoping to reach 10,000 subscribers for some nice synergy, but I didn’t quite make it. I’m planning for the next 10 years to be a bit more focused.

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🗓 Ten Years Ago This Week: AMP Pages to Beautify the Mobile Web

To celebrate 10 years of Creator Weekly, I’m sharing highlights from 2015

Ten years ago Google announced the launch of the AMP Project, meant to improve the mobile web. Publishers liked the promise of possibly having articles featured in the Google Search Top Stories carousel.

Google dropped the AMP format requirement in 2021, replaced by page experience signals. Learn all about it..

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What do you know about YouTube Labs experiments? Take this week’s quiz.

Second Chances for terminated channels

YouTube introduced a pilot program to give some creators with terminated channels a second chance. Eligible Creators will see the option to request a new channel when they sign into YouTube Studio on desktop with the same account that was terminated. (Details)

Creators can appeal channel terminations immediately. If that appeal is successful, it restores the original channel.
This new policy allows the request to create a brand new channel. You cannot get your original videos or subscribers back.
When a request is submitted, YouTube considers “a variety of factors like whether the initial termination was particularly severe or included persistent violations of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Service, or whether there was behavior (on or off-platform) that harmed or may continue to harm the YouTube community, like channels that endanger kids’ safety.”
The option to create a new channel will not be available for a year after the original channel was terminated.
This is not available for channels terminated for copyright infringement.
This is not available for Creators who violated YouTube’s Creator Responsibility policies. This covers both on-platform and off-platform behavior, and prohibits intending to cause malicious harm to others, or “participating in abuse or violence, demonstrating cruelty, or participating in fraudulent or deceptive behavior that leads to real-world harm.”
This is not available if the original terminated YouTube channel was deleted.

This is rolling out slowly.

YouTube Expands Creator Access to Courses

YouTube is expanding ad-supported Courses to all channels with access to advanced features. This is a special playlist that has a course badge, and may be featured on the YouTube Courses page.

You can create quizzes for specific videos in the course, and all your courses will appear on a dedicated section of your channel page. Courses also have playlist-level comments where audience members can chat or ask for help. Once the course is complete, the viewer gets a special badge. (Learn more)
Note that there is no general option currently to create paid courses.

New YouTube Look and Engagement Features

YouTube is rolling out a new visual interface, meant to “provide a more engaging YouTube experience that’s easier to navigate and more fun to interact with.”

Cleaner and more immersive video player.
Improved double tap to skip (“seek”).
More seamless transitions between tabs on mobile.
Custom “Like” animation on some videos (like turning into a music note on music videos).
Smoother saving videos to playlists.
Comment Threading with a structured system for comment replies, meant to add a “more focused reading experience”.

New Options for Securing your Google Account

Google now lets you set up Recovery Contacts for your account. Add someone who you trust as a recovery contact. If you lose access to your Google Account, you can reach out to your recovery contact directly with a code that lets them confirm it’s really you.

Google also now lets you Sign in with Mobile Number with Android devices. It identifies your accounts using your phone number. It works with your previous device’s lock code, no password required.

TwitchCon Announcements

This week was TwitchCon with announcements of a bunch of new features.

Dual format streaming - vertical and landscape at the same time - is now in beta. And while it originally was only available with OBS and the Aitum Vertical plugin, it will now be available using Streamlabs, Streamrun and Stream Elements. Join the beta waitlist.
The Twitch mobile app is updating to support streaming from Meta AI Glasses.
Twitch continues its focus on Clips for discoverability and to keep fans engaged even when creators aren’t live. To that end they are adding Auto Clips to automatically find and create Clips (even stitching moments together). This is still under development. They are also adding Clips reactions.
Watch Streaks are being rolled out to all channels. And now viewers can keep their streak going by watching Clips, Stories or Video on Demand within 24 hours of the stream ending (previously missing a stream would reset a streak to zero). Viewers have 24 hours after a missed stream to recover their streak. Again, Twitch recommends streamers publish Clips after a stream to give viewers something to watch. Learn more.
Co-Streaming is launching later this year. Main Broadcasters can mark a stream “Co-Streamable” by anyone or authorized channels. This will show the combined viewcounts of everyone Co-Streaming an event (individual channel viewership is still visible). This is meant for “large-scale, special broadcasts” like big esports events, official game announcements or community celebrations, and there will be special guidelines to prevent misuse.
For monetization with Combos (viewers use Bits to create big animations), Twitch added ways to better recognize supporters, viewers can trigger animations with a single tap, and its being integrated into the Cheering experience.
They are experimenting with discounts on channel subs and allowing Creators to create badge drops.
Twitch is working to increase the number of sponsorship deals available to streamers and moving Bounty board campaigns along with other sponsorship offers. These are available to all monetizing streamers.
Community Guidelines enforcement is changing so that lower-severity violations may temporarily block the ability to stream, but not access to Twitch altogether. Viewers will be able to continue watching VODs and Clips on your channel.
Twitch is adding new roles in addition to Moderator and Editor. There’s a new role for agents and managers that gives access to analytics and earnings, and a new Lead Mod role to manage other moderators and moderation settings.
There are two new Clubs, for Table Top and Retro Gaming.

Video Creator and Live Streaming Updates

YouTube Shorts Editor has an improved timeline editor that lets you move, reorder and change the timing of your Short elements. Watch how it works. There are other new improvements coming, including slip editing (for syncing to musical beats), splitting, and adding media directly from the timeline.

YouTube streamers with Memberships enabled can now start a livestream as public, then switch to Members only. You can give a sneak peek to non-Members or run a private Members-only Q&A at the end of a public stream. This can be managed in the Live Control Room for landscape livestreams. Learn more.

You can now leave voice replies to comments on your own YouTube channel. Add your audio reply in YouTube Studio. It can be up to 30 seconds long. Watch how it works.

YouTube Media Kit is rolling out to all channels in the YouTube Partner Program. This is a personalized, auto-generated PDF to highlight channel audience and performance to potential Brand partners. (Learn more)

Search with Google Lens in YouTube Shorts should now be available. See how it works.

A new YouTube Trends Report looks at YouTube Shopping. While beauty and fashion products seem to be the main focus, some creators have found success with their own fandoms, such as home improvement, crafts, or even their own books or other products.

You can now create vertical and square videos in Google Vids

Google announced the Veo 3.1 video generation model. It has “richer audio, more narrative control, and enhanced realism” with true-to-live textures. Google even provides the “ultimate prompting guide”. They also announced updates to the Flow AI movie creation platform with Veo 3.1

“Ingredients to Video” lets you use multiple source images to control characters, objects and style.
“Frames to Video” lets you supply a beginning and end frame, and Flow fills in between them.
“Extend” lets you create longer videos by generating new clips based on the final second of your previous clip.
“Insert” lets you add anything to a scene.
“Remove” lets you remove anything, and Flow reconstructs the background.

NotebookLM Video Overviews can now use Nano Banana to create illustrations based on the source image you upload. You can pick a visual style (Watercolor, Papercraft, Anime, Whiteboard, Retro Print, Heritage)..

You can now translate, dub and lip sync your Instagram and Facebook Reels between English and Hindi, in addition to Spanish and Portuguese. And soon you will be able to translate text and caption stickers, and it will expand to Reels with multiple speakers.

Facebook is making it easier to discover Reels, with updated recommendations that “learn your interests quicker”, friend bubbles that show which Reels your friends liked, and AI powered topic search suggestions to find similar Reels.

Facebook is shutting down its Gaming Creator Program in 2026. Dedicated partner support ends now, but Creators can monetize until the program fully shuts down.

StreamYard introduced a built-in Teleprompter. The script automatically scrolls as you speak. You can play, pause, replay and adjust the font size and text speed. (This looks really nice)

Restream can now capture isolated participant tracks locally. This means better audio and video for all participants, even with a so-so Internet connection.

Restream now lets you assign individual participants to specific scenes. That way when you switch scenes, participants will be automatically displayed or hidden.

Restream also has an improved dark mode design.

Apple is discontinuing the Clips video editing app. The simple app has been free on iPhone and iPad since 2017.

Edits has more than 250 new sound effects, new text styles and fonts, and custom colors.

Lindsey Gamble: When Viral Tracks Become Legal Traps for Brands: Why It’s Time to Rethink Music Use on Social Media

Web Publishers and Search

Blogger is testing new AI-powered features linking posts to Google Search (I’m not a fan, but if you see the option, check it out).

Medium is updating their Partner Program. There will be small changes each month over the next six months. In the first change, 5% of payouts will be shifted to stories that get external traffic from social media or search. That will be especially for external traffic that converts to paid Medium members.

Tumblr responded to a recent surge in scams by listing steps you can take to keep your account safe.

Google Search now has a more prominent “Sponsored Results” label for ads. There is also a new “Hide sponsored results” control to let you focus on organic results.

Bing introduced the data-nosnippet HTML attribute. This lets you mark specific sections of a web page's HTML so they don’t appear in Bing Search snippets or Copilot AI-generated answers, even though the content is indexed. Some examples of why you would use this: protect premium content, exclude comments and reviews, hide legal boilerplate, suppress outdated or promotional content.

Social Media

Facebook now uses AI to surface your uploaded photos and suggests “fun edits and collages” you can create and share. You need to enable cloud processing of your photos to start. This is available in the US and Canada.

This seems like a good Facebook update? Prohibiting Ads About Social Issues, Elections or Politics from Running in the EU Due to Regulation

Hollywood Reporter: Why Influencers Suddenly Love Facebook. (No Joke.) “It’s My Biggest Source of Income”

Instagram has a new award - Rings - for creators “who don’t just participate in culture - but shift it, break through whatever barrier holds them back to realize their ambitions.” Winners will have a gold ring around their profile photo, and receive a physical ring.

Instagram Teen Accounts will be guided by “PG-13” ratings, and can’t opt out without parental permission. Meta says it will be like the movie rating, but it’s not clear how that translates to short video and images. This will also apply to AI chat safety.

Threads added group chats to DMs.

Threads is also tweaking their algorithm to show more “content about timely events and from people who actively drive conversations”, and less content from accounts you originally followed on Instagram. The suggestion for creators: post directly to Threads, rather than resharing Instagram posts.

On Pinterest you can turn off Generative AI recommendations by topic. That means that if you like AI art you can see that, while getting fewer recommendations for AI-generated fashion posts. The settings are under “Refine your recommendations.”

The Etymology Nerd: Why platforms are killing the hashtag “By removing the hashtag, tech platforms are redistributing organizational power away from the users and toward themselves”

Communication and Collaboration

Meet has new AI-powered makeup filters. I find it a bit weird, but that’s probably because I don’t usually wear makeup.

If you have Meet meeting participants who tend to ramble, or you want discussions to be more focused, the meeting host can now set a timer.

Google Keep reminders are now saved to Tasks. All Keep reminders with a date and time will be saved to Tasks and show up in your Google Calendar.

Gemini in Gmail can now suggest meeting times based on your discussion and calendar availability.

Gemini can now summarize conversations in the Google Chat mobile app.

Gemini in Google Sheets can now follow complex compound requests, including automated complex formatting, data structure, organization and filtering.

Microsoft Copilot can now create documents in multiple file formats (including spreadsheets, PDFs, and PowerPoint presentations) and can connect to third party services like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Contacts.

More AI Updates and Tips

Opal, Google’s AI-powered mini-app generator, is expanding to more countries. In addition to the US, it is available in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, Panamá, Singapore, South Korea, and Vietnam. It’s also easier to debug your workflows.

You can now use Google’s Nano Banana image editing model in the mobile Search app via Google Lens and AI Mode.

Microsoft released its first text-to-image AI generator called MAI-Image-1. It supposedly “excels at generating photorealistic imagery, like lighting”.

VSCO announced AI Lab, a suite of AI-powered photo editing tools aimed at photographers. It’s starting out with a “Remove” tool that erases elements from images.

404 Media: Wikipedia Says AI Is Causing a Dangerous Decline in Human Visitors “Ironically, while generative AI and search engines are causing a decline in direct traffic to Wikipedia, its data is more valuable to them than ever.”

Platformer: How platforms are handling the AI slop backlash.

Nieman Lab: AI-generated news sites spout viral slop from forgotten URLs.

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