It was previously known that YouTube planned to add a social network feature to its core service. The company has finally made it official with its announcement of the YouTube Community.
The new feature is said to allow creators to better engage their audience through text, GIFs and images, among others. The goal is to keep creators from moving to competing platforms by providing them more tools to connect with the audience apart from video content, reports TechCrunch.
Apparently YouTube had been testing the new service for the past months with several creators to get their feedback. The service is now being launched in public beta with the group of early testers.
The new feature can be accessed by way of the Community on a creator’s channel. From here the creators can share images, test posts and other contents that would allow them to build their community of followers within YouTube itself.
Essentially, the Community page is a kind of mini-social network inside the channel’s page. But for the time being, the Community feature will remain in testing and YouTube will be listening to feedback regarding features and functionality. Alfred Bayle
source: technology.inquirer.net