YouTube begins beta testing with Community tab on channels

YouTube has provided a number of channels with a new Community tab. Channel administrators can communicate with their followers on this subpage. The Community section works like a timeline, on which text, videos and images can be placed.

At the end of August, there were already rumors about the arrival of a Backstage function that would turn YouTube into a kind of social network. Now YouTube has officially unveiled the feature, under the name Community. At the moment it is a beta test and the new tab is only available on a small number of channels. The Game Theorists and AsapScience, among others, are taking part in the test.

With the Community feature, YouTube wants to allow channel managers to better communicate with their followers. Previously, YouTube only allowed viewers to comment on videos; The new Community tab also allows a channel to post other messages, such as text and images. The tab can also be used for broadcasting live video.

Users who follow a channel will see the updates posted to the Community tab in their feed on their smartphone. It is also possible to receive a notification with every new post, which is an opt-in function.

YouTube says it will give more channels access to the Community functionality in the coming months. New functions also need to be added. There are no concrete plans for a major, official release of the functionality yet.