YouTube has brought a bunch of new livestreaming features to
its platform. These include the option to limit chats to subscribers only,
creating polls within chats, and creating clips from popular gaming streams.
What’s interesting about this group of features is that
these are all part of Twitch already and are used by Twitch streamers to engage
with the community, so it looks like YouTube has “borrowed” them from Twitch.
Let’s talk about these features in relation to YouTube. The option to limit chats to subscribers only is a useful one, as it can be used as a moderation tool to filter out irrelevant users and can be a good way for streamers to convince their viewers for paying. The in-chat polls can provide a simpler way for streamers to take their viewers opinions on different things in relation to the content they make and put out.
Lastly, the option to create clips can serve as a discovery
tool, as it will allow viewers to watch highlighted parts of long multi-hour
livestream videos. This will help save viewers’ time, while also keeping their
interest high. However, YouTube is allowing access to this particular feature
only to gaming creators with more than 1,000 followers for now, but plans to
roll it out to all users eventually.
YouTube seems to be trying to catch up with Twitch in the
livestreaming game, with YouTube Gaming, although Twitch remains to be the most
popular platform that offers livestreaming. Facebook is also part of the competition
with Facebook Gaming. YouTube may still have a long way to go in terms of
popularity within the livestreaming community, but is dedicated to supporting
streamers and helping them grow.
