YouTube begins testing ‘Play Something’ button to randomly choose a video

YouTube is reportedly testing a new ‘Play Something’ button. Once available, users can click it to have YouTube select and play a randomly chosen video.

Much like Google’s ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button, YouTube is experimenting with a feature that’ll choose a video to play. As first spotted by 9to5Google, the button appears just above the bottom bar of the app. When selected, a random video will begin playing. As of the time of writing, only select users are being given access to this feature.

As it’s being discovered, the Play Something feature utilizes the portrait orientation of YouTube Shorts exclusively. This does allow for videos to take the full-screen real estate when being played on a mobile device. Unfortunately, the feature currently can’t distinguish Shorts from the standard YouTube video format. Thankfully, this feature is still in its testing phase and hopefully YouTube will address this prior to a wider release.

When the video is playing, users have access to large buttons to like, dislike, and comment on the content. A share button is accessible on the right-hand corner of the screen. There’s also a timeline to use to skip around the video if the user desires.

This isn’t the first time YouTube has begun testing this feature. For over a year, the Play Something feature has been tested with select users. In previous testing phases, the feature appeared as a black-and-white YouTube logo.

Source: 9to5Google