Official YouTube Channel now has easy-to-remember URL

I suppose I can now brag that I have an easy-to-remember YouTube channel URL: youtube.com/scottcooley

It works, and although I’m not much of a video creator, there are in fact some videos I’ve created on there that feature my studio music recordings.

So, just making you aware you can find those and “watch” (listen) to them.

There’s a check mark there too, which I think means it’s “Verified.” I’m not sure what that amounts to exactly, but I think it means they consider me an “established” creator.

It’s what they call a “custom channel URL” and I guess I had to qualify as having the proper “eligibility” for it. Not sure if I really earned it or not, but maybe it makes me more of an established musical artist now.

So, if you type that into a browser address, it should resolve to this slightly longer one:

https://www.youtube.com/scottcooley

They give, they threaten to take away, people complain, then they give back. Such is the recent deal with YouTube checkmarks. They’re worried about you pretending to be someone you’re not, I guess, and they want you to earn it with subscribers, popularity, search hits, etc. It’s the same dilemma Twitter had with their check marks and getting rid of their blue verified badge – it’s hard to fairly measure what is of public interest or not. Similarly, Wikipedia has their “notability” critera, so average joes can’t claim to be important. The internet made things weird, and allowing people to self-publish creative works and sell them online complicated the matter. Who knows what they’ll do with the musical note channels, and whether some different rules will apply.

Also, I have a “channel” on the new YouTube Music service, which is kind of a different thing, but “pulls in” videos from the official channel:

https://music.youtube.com/channel/UCuucWWAbIKa4x0FFWzmKqbQ

I highly recommend YouTube Music and am a subscriber myself. Like a lot of people, I’ve tried out iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, etc., and prefer this service for many reasons. The huge difference is it gets you ad-free access to all of regular YouTube, in addition to the music part.

It’s the little wins like this that help independent musicians in their quest to have their music reach a greater audience, and so I think of it as an honor and privilege.

If so inclined, Subscribe to my new channel by clicking this: https://www.youtube.com/scottcooley?sub_confirmation=1