YouTube Red
A paid subscription service for those who love to watch/listen to YouTube is almost ready for launch. YouTube Red will launch towards the end of next month, according to sources speaking to Re/Code. It will include an update to its music service 'YouTube Key', which was launched in beta last autumn, plus the ability to watch all YouTube content ad-free. The subscription fee is expected to be $10 per month.
With the new subscription model about to launch, YouTube has been sending content creators/owners letters with new terms to agree to. Such creators are told that this service will be a "new source of revenue over time that supplements your advertising revenue". In the letter YouTube says that its partners, which currently produce 95 per cent of content watched on YouTube, have already agreed to the same T&Cs. YouTubers must respond before 22nd Oct or their videos could be made private, and therefore lose views/monetisation.
Re/Code reporter Peter Kafka thinks that the $10 subscription fee is rather low. Music labels and copyright holders were already expected to take most of that cash in a music-only subscription, so video content creators may be looking at very slim pickings from this subscription model.
Twitch going HTML5
The TwitchCon event took place this weekend in San Francisco. In a keynote speech it was announced that the Twitch Player live streaming video controls and players will change over to HTML5 in Q2 2016.
The Twitch HTML5 transition will be another nail in the coffin of Adobe's Flash. In January this year YouTube demoted Flash to stream videos via HTML5 by default. In its first conversion steps, Twitch started to roll out HTML5 video controls a couple of months ago.
In other Twitch news, users will be able to create custom thumbnails for past broadcasts and highlights. Furthermore the Whisper private messaging app will be updated with a popup window feature and conversations that can be continued between your desktop browser and mobile app.
