9. Content syndication and subscriptions

9.2. Other types of digital content distribution

Subscription to YouTube video channels or to video channels from other internet portals (such as Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc.) makes it possible to easily follow the contents they publish. Users who are subscribed to these channels receive alerts or notifications whenever new content is published.

Nowadays, many video channels are available on the Internet, where content may be found on virtually any subject of interest. Besides, many educational institutions already have video channels through which they offer learning contents for free.

Subscribing to a video channel is really easy: you just need to press the “Subscribe” button you will find on the page (or beside any of the videos in the channel). Of course, you will previously need a YouTube user account (or an account for another video portal). Once you are subscribed to a channel, you will see that the “Subscriptions” feed in the account (you may see it in the left margin in YouTube) will show all videos that are being published. Besides, users will receive automatic notifications on featured publications). If you want to receive an alert from the channel whenever a new publication appears (whether it is featured or not), you will need to configure the notifications settings in the account.

Frequently, after subscribing to a channel, several recommended channels appear on the screen, which are somewhat related to the channel to which the user just subscribed.

If, at one point, you decide to cancel your subscription to a channel, you should use a similar procedure to the one you used when subscribing. In this case, you will need to press the button “Subscribed”. A message will appear to confirm your cancellation.

Subscribing to a platform that provides electronic magazines and books grants access to a broad catalogue of digital content in text format. When it comes to the largest platforms (such as Kindle Unlimited, Nubico, Scribd), users frequently have to pay a monthly or annual fee for the subscription.

Figure 14 shows how subscription platforms for digital books in Spanish have grown by almost fifty percent in the year 2017.