Between one quarrel (with Russia) and another (against Vanced), YouTube is preparing for the umpteenth revolution, this time in the name of podcasts: that’s what it is.
A few days after the last “load” of news in its favor, YouTube has announced a small improvement for YouTube TV, even if more intriguing implementations lie ahead for the platform’s podcasts. Meanwhile, the big Y continues its crusade against illegal alternatives, and is preparing to face the ax of Russian censorship.
In recent days, Google has taken legal action against YouTube Vanced (which among other things allows you to view Y’s content without advertising), as a result of which the related project was interrupted, although the developers have assured that it will be It is possible to use the app for its entire life cycle (2 years). Not paying for the result, Mountain View has moved on to the second round, tightening the noose around the neck of the project in question using Play Protect, the Play Store’s antivirus that, now, the YouTube tool manager has to be marked as harmful and to be removed. Vanced, aka YouTube Vanced Manager.
Another controversy involving YouTube is the one with the Russian authorities. In the past few hours, Roskomnadzor, the communications regulator in the Russian Federation, has accused YouTube of participating in the information war against Russia, and is preparing ipso facto to initiate, in the light of article 13.41 of the local Code of Crimes administrative measures, two administrative measures against the platform in question, guilty of not having removed contents judged to be false about the Kremlin’s “special military operation” (the invasion of Ukraine in short). In the event of a conviction, Google could be forced to pay the equivalent of 95 thousand dollars (8 million rubles) which, in the event of a repeat offense, would reach 20% of the American giant’s annual income.
Controversies aside, there was no shortage of news in the “builders” quota for YouTube. The platform, through a twitter on Twitter, explained that it had started the roll-out, via remote server activation, of the picture-in-picture mode in favor of YouTube TV run on iPhone and iPad (therefore on devices with iOS and iPadOS). Curiously, this implementation comes when on iOS only a preview of a similar feature appeared in favor of standard YouTube.
Regarding future projects, Podnews managed to get their hands on an internal Google document, 84 pages, from which we can deduce much more than just the roadmap of its podcasts. In particular, it is explained that the facilitated importation of podcasts will be tested via a special RSS feed, and that such contents, added with audio ads sold by Google and third party partners, will be centralized in the new home youtube.com/podcasts (still not working although do not redirect to the YouTube home). Finally, in favor of the creators of audio first, new metrics will be made available and, last but not least, it will be possible to export the data processed by YouTube to the main performance analysis platforms for podcasts (eg Podtrac, Chartable and Nielsen).