YouTube Launches New 'Shared' Tab and In-App Messaging Feature

By Jessica Ferrera, Christian Post Contributor Sunday, August 13, 2017

YouTube now offers a built-in messaging system alongside a new way to share videos through personal or group messages.

Before, when YouTube mobile app users pressed the "Share" button on a video they liked, they were shown a menu of several platforms — mostly social media sites — where they could post the YouTube video.

With the newly added features, users of the YouTube mobile app can share videos through private messages. However, an invitation message has to be sent first and accepted by the recipient before a video can be privately sent. This applies even to those who were already added in a user's Gmail contact list.

There are several other ways to add YouTube contacts, such as importing people from the user's stock phonebook app. There is also the option to copy an invite link and send it to others via messaging or social media platforms.

Once these contacts have been successfully added to the YouTube messaging system, users can start sharing videos directly to them.

When users press the Share button on the YouTube mobile app, they will be shown a list of their added contacts. Videos can be shared to one or multiple persons. One group message can accommodate up to 30 participants.

Privately-shared videos will be saved to the user's YouTube app as messages and can be revisited via the new "Shared" tab in the mobile app's menu bar. This serves as a counter of videos sent in private messages so people can check back when their contacts have replied or commented to the videos they shared.

On other related news, YouTube has recently been on a rampage of implementing stricter rules for creators. In April, creators need to get at least 10,000 lifetime views before YouTube serves ads to their videos.

The following month, YouTube revealed a list of contents "not suitable for advertising" such as those that tackled the issues of politics, drugs, terrorism, hate speech, "inappropriate language," "inappropriate use of family entertainment characters," and more.