Google Wants To Let You Search For a Song By Humming It

pcmag.com:

Soon you might be able to hum a few lines from that song you can’t get out of your head and have Google identify it for you.

Google announced this week that it’s currently testing some new features for Android. One of those new features is the ability for someone to search for a song on YouTube not by name, but instead by humming. You’ll also be able to play the song and have YouTube search for it similar to Apple's Shazam, but where’s the fun in that?

The feature is currently in beta testing on the site for a small group of Android users.

If you happen to be part of the experiment, you’ll be able to toggle between YouTube voice search and the new song feature within YouTube search. When you select the new song search option, just hum or record the song you’re trying to find for at least 3 seconds.

Once YouTube can identify the song, you’ll not only know what it is but also be sent original music content as well as user-generated videos and shorts featuring the song within the YouTube app.

Beyond the new search functionality, Google also started testing a new channel shelf in the Subscriptions feed this week. That test bundles together multiple uploads from a single creator within a period of time to a single shelf within the Subscriptions feed. The idea behind the move is to put less pressure on creators to upload multiple times a day and also to make it easier for people to find the content they’re looking for.

Last week, the app also started testing Q&A stickers for Shorts on mobile, which allow creators to ask their viewers questions within videos they can answer in the comments.

You can keep track of all of YouTube's current experiments on its Support page.

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