YouTube Launching 5 New Features For Livestreams

YouTube is working on five new features for livestreams, with some currently in testing and others rolling out later this year. Take a look at these features and see how they will enhance the live-streaming experience on YouTube:

Go Live Together – YouTube is pilot testing Go Live Together, a collaborative streaming feature for mobile devices that allows creators to invite guests to stream with them by sending a link. The guest’s channel and user information, however, will remain hidden during the stream. As the host, you will be able to see streaming analytics in YouTube Studio and be credited with the ad revenue.

Live Rings – Live rings around a channel’s profile picture, aimed to increase discovery and viewership for creator’s livestreams, help viewers know when a channel is live. Tapping on a profile picture then directs the viewer to the active livestream. Live rings and will be extended across YouTube later this year.

Cross-Channel Live Redirects – Intended for creators with at least 1000 subscribers and no active community guideline strikes, cross-channel live redirects point viewers from a live stream or premiere to another livestream or premiere on their own channel. The channel being redirected to can add channels they want to allow to redirect to them, or to allow all channels to redirect to them.

Split-Screen Viewing On Mobile – For an uninterrupted view of two simultaneous experiences, Youtube will offer a split screen for mobile devices. In the lean in video and live chat experience, the live chat panel will be on the right of the screen. The collapsed live chat expands the video to a full screen in landscape mode, with the chat represented by the viewer count in the lower right corner. The split screen view will be fully launched this week.

Live Q&A – With live Q&A, a viewer can submit questions during a livestream through the creator’s question prompt. Answered questions will be temporarily pinned to the top of the live chat.