YouTube rolls out a new notification system to its platform

YouTube is the biggest video sharing platforms in the world right now and millions of videos are uploaded to the platform every day. The videos can be anything, from funny videos to game/movie trailers to song videos to vlogs. Once the video is uploaded, the platform gives the user the option to customize the settings of his video. And it is because of this that the platform constantly updates its settings, rules and regulations. YouTube has now been updated once again as the notifications are automatically set to become personalized. This means that not every subscriber will get the same video delivered to their inbox.

The change was announced by the product team of YouTube through a blog post. With the new change, if the users want to receive notifications, they would have to click on ‘Subscribe’ and then hit the golden bell icon. Once this is done, users need to make sure the notifications are enabled on their account. If the user doesn’t hit the golden bell icon, then they might not receive all the video notifications from the creator. But the subscribed videos will still show up in the subscriptions tab.

The new change comes after the developers saw that the subscribers were getting overwhelmed by the number of notifications they were getting if they had subscribed to multiple channels. So, the users stopped the notifications completely. According to the product team of YouTube, the new notification change will make the users easier to understand. With the new change, the users can decide what they want to receive the notification about and they can even opt out from it.

“Through a series of tests and user research, we’ve found this updated name and visual design improves overall understanding of the default bell setting and makes it more clear that you won’t be notified about every new video upload,” the blog post reads.

Even the creators asked YouTube through Twitter to make certain changes to the YouTube’s notification system. They said that once the video goes live, the first wave of viewers was very important to their channel and for generating the advertising revenue.

James, a member of YouTube’s notifications team, said in a video about the product change, “Sometimes we’ve dropped notifications and we haven’t delivered them, and that’s on us. If you’re sending billions of these things to billions of users, even a small percentage gains can affect a lot of people.”

The notification change was basically aimed at the subscribers of the platform but the creators of YouTube are also getting something in it. YouTube is coming out with a new metrics that the YouTubers can use to better understand how many subscribers are getting their notifications. While another metrics will show the creators how many subscribers have signed up to receive all notifications but they might not have their notifications enabled on their account.

The new notification system and the product change of YouTube is currently being rolled out to the platform. People are having mixed reactions to the change, some are appreciating the transparency while others are saying that the notification system is too complicated.