YouTube has made live streaming enhanced and more engaging by announcing its 5 latest features for creators and viewers.
To add new features and improve the overall experience of live streaming, there are some features that are currently in testing phase and might be rolled out anytime this year.
These features are disclosed in the YouTube’s own Creator Insider Channel by their product manager. Here takes a sneak peek at them.
- Go Live Together
- Live Rings
- Cross Channel Live Redirects
- Split Screen View in Two Different Modes for mobile devices
- Lean in Video and Live Chat Experience
- Lean Back or Collapsed Live Chat Experience
- Live Q & A During Livestream
Now let’s find out the detailed information about each factor and also see how would they benefit you while going live on YouTube.
YouTube 5 New Features for Live Streaming
1) Go Live Together – A Feature for New Mobile Collaborative Streaming
First feature that YouTube is running as a small pilot project is “Go Live Together”. This feature is a new face of collaborative streaming.
Here creators will be able to invite and screen their guest before going live. During the live show, user information and guest channel will remain hidden to the viewers.
It is also to be noted here that streaming analytics and YouTube analytics will be shown to host only as generally happens in any other live stream. For guests who will join the live stream will not get this privilege to see the streaming analytics.
Adding to this, advertisements during the live stream in a way of pre-roll and mid-roll ads will also appear during the go live together stream and would be attributed to the host channel only. Guests will no way be benefitted with ad revenue generated during the live stream.
YouTube is also looking to expand the number of creators who have access to this feature, after the pilot testing of “Go Live Together”.
2) Live Rings
The second feature receiving the attention is the Live Rings. This feature will appear in a form of red circle around the channel’s profile picture with integrated live text up front. This ring feature will appear only when the channel will stream live.
According to the source, Live Ring feature will increase the discovery and viewership for creators’ livestream on YouTube. When people will tap on the profile picture with the live badge ring, they will be redirected to the active livestream.
Live Ring feature is now available for certain screens on mobile devices and will be extended later this year.
3) Cross Channel Live Redirects
The third feature that is ready to be launched is Cross Channel Live Redirects. A very innovative feature that YouTube has come up with.
Today, the channel with having over 1000 subscribers can access the feature of live redirect where they can redirect their viewers from a live stream or premier to another live stream or premier hosted on their own channel.
Nevertheless, they can’t send their viewers to a livestream or premier conducted on another channel.
By introducing this feature, YouTube will now allow creators with at least 1000 subscribers and no active community guideline strike, to direct their viewers to live stream or premier hosted on another channel. That’s why named as “cross channel live redirect”
4) Split Screen View in Two Different Modes for Mobile Devices
The fourth feature that is introduced by the team is the “Split screen View in two different mode for mobile devices”.
Under this feature, they will prioritise the interrupted view of a live stream by using a split screen approach with two different viewing experiences for the mobile devices:
- Lean in video and live chat experience view.
- Lean back or collapsed live chat experience view.
In the lean-in video and live chat experience, the live chat engagement panel will be placed in the right side of the screen, replacing the live chat overlay from the classic view.
On the other hand, lean back or collapsed live chat experience will allow the video to be played full screen while watching in landscape mode. The live chat will then be represented by the viewer count in the lower right-hand corner. If that clicked will bring the viewer back into the lean in mode.
In the lean-back view, a teaser of key moments will be shown in chat like polls to make sure the viewer doesn’t miss them.
YouTube will begin to roll out both the views to viewers and might launch fully by the end of next week.
5) Live Q & A During Livestream
The fifth feature YouTube is going to roll out this year is Live “Q & A”.
Under this feature, viewers can submit their questions during a live stream based on the creator’s question prompt.
Questions taken by the creators and answers for them will be temporarily pinned at the top of live chat so that other viewers can be encouraged to submit and deepen a strong connection with the community.
For more information about the new features of YouTube on Live Streaming, you may refer here.
Summary
YouTube is now the fastest evolving online platform. Every day tons of videos are uploaded for personal and professional use. Today videos have become a major source of information. And YouTube is topping the major video hosting platforms.
For you to stay relevant, it becomes very important to know about all the latest features and updates of YouTube that have been launched recently. In the above list, we have compiled the most relevant features that are unique and most important from the business point of view.
Feel free to discuss in the comment section, which of the features you liked the most and would use in your account to grow your audience and ultimately your business.