YouTube Removed Friends

YouTube Removed Friends

YouTube removed friends, sounds crazy right?  Well if you don’t believe me check for yourself.  I was surprised to see my disappear right before my eyes as I was working on one of my many channels.

Its a shame too, I spent a lot of time working to add great content to my channel in order to continue to accrue more friends.  A lot of people out there will feel cheated, channel owners and viewers alike.

Hopefully this is only temporary, but judging by the many changes that we’ve all seen in the past few weeks to YouTube’s appearance and even their analytics, its no surprise that YouTube removed friends as well.

YouTube Removed Friends | Google’s Announcement

You would think that before YouTube removed friends there would be an email sent out to all users, right?  Well we found Google’s announcement buried in their help section, here’s what they had to say:

Hey all,

Coming soon, we will be making some adjustments to Friends and Subscriptions which will allow for a much more streamlined experience.

Friends and Subscribers have overlapped in many cases and it’s been confusing how they’re different. Some people both “subscribe to” and “friend” a channel at the same time, making it hard to tell why you’re getting an update. Now, you will have all the information you’re looking for from one source, making your experience much more relevant, easy to view, and (hopefully) more entertaining.

You will have full control over which of your friends you decide to subscribe to. Those who you prefer not to subscribe to will still remain contacts in your Address Book, retaining existing friend-like features such as messaging. Stay tuned for more details around how to get started, including choosing which Friends to subscribe to!

Please feel free to leave your responses on this thread. I will do my best to answer questions, as well as deliver all feedback to the team.

Thanks so much,
Kendall

This post is bit confusing on several levels.  Many people would like to know what will happen to their existing friends.  Well if you don’t choose to subscribe to a channel then you will be put into the pages contact list.  Here’s what Kendall had to say about that in his post on why YouTube removed friends:
@Idachan There will be similar privacy settings around who can comment, just like there have been. I will give you more details around how to go about using those privacy settings once we start this transition.
Nothing…  I really don’t understand how this employee can justify the fact that YouTube removed friends by simple condescending remark that its users can’t tell the difference between friends and subscribers.  Moving on to Bulletins.

YouTube Removes Friends | Bulletins

So when I attempted bulletins on my site it still went out to my friends and subscribers.  However Google announced that although you can still bulletin friends, no new friends will be able to be add your channel, only subscribe.  That means that you’ll be grandfathered into all of your channels and users that you currently friend, but no more will be able to be added.  YouTube removed friends from your channel page and although you will still be able to add contacts, we are not quite sure what kind of settings they will have as far as messaging goes.

YouTube Removes Friends | Last But Not Least…

You will notice that on your new page you will not be able to see the pictures of those that are subscribed to your channel externally, that is when logged out.  Here’s what our friend Kendall had to say about that:

@PhilSt Presently you can see the number of Subscribers who are watching your Channel, but yes, you’re right in noticing there is a big difference there. Don’t worry, this feature will not be gone for long! Our immediate priority is letting Channel owners know who is subscribed to them. 🙂 I’ll have more information for you shortly & will be sure to follow up with details here.
I really liked seeing the subscribers to a channel, this is what created community.  So YouTube removed friends and the community just turned into numbers with no faces.  Don’t worry, if you’re a bit confused about this whole new set up, we will be covering this step by step and keeping you up to date on why YouTube removed friends and whether or not they will be making further changes.