YouTube's new feature, which it calls Hype, will highlight smaller channels and allow people to discover new content creators.
Users can push the Hype button to a platform-wide leaderboard by clicking on the video they like and want to be featured. The new feature is similar to Trending videos, but instead of focusing on the videos users watch the most, it focuses on smaller channels and what people choose to recommend.
The feature, which has been in the testing phase and has been launched in Turkey in recent months, has been activated for some content creators with under 500 thousand subscribers.
YouTube's product management director Bangaly Kaba says that when a YouTube channel reaches 500 thousand subscribers, things change and it is an important turning point in terms of both growth and income. Kaba states that big channels tend to get more views, are suggested more as they are watched, and get watched even more, entering a cycle. Therefore, he says that the Hype feature is useful for breaking this cycle.
Apart from this, he states that channels offer their fan base a way for the people and channels they love to be successful. Kaba also states that users want to discover things they would not otherwise discover or that YouTube would not otherwise recommend, and that this feature will provide this desire to users.
YouTube plans to personalize the Hype leaderboard, which will be created for each country, for each user over time. Kaba says that Hype will not affect the traditional YouTube algorithm, but he notes that there may be more filters and topic-specific leaderboards in the Hype section soon, and that hyped videos will start to be shown in a new section in the recommendations feed.
