YouTube Adds New Social Tools for Streamers

As YouTube becomes more and more about live streaming, it adds new tools that enable streamers to add new elements to their live sessions. The recent pack of innovations is not about stream quality or visual enhancing, though; they are purely social, which makes this pack even more interesting.

The first new feature brought by this update enables a streamer to invite a guest by simply sharing a link. Of course, the guest should have at least any camera and a mic to participate. The guest’s channel and user info remain hidden during the stream, and only the stream starter will expose theirs. This measure allows streamers to invite guests that are interesting to them in spite of their low popularity. Due to this, some potential streamers featured on other users’ channels may overcome their fear or streams or of technical issues.

Another feature now notifies viewers when a streamer they follow is online. During live streams, a red ring is shown around the user’s avatar. You may have seen a similar solution on Instagram. With this ring, it will be easier for followers to track streams.

Soon, streamers that have at least a thousand subscribers can have an opportunity to add cross-channel live redirects. If you activate this, viewers will be redirected to premieres or streams on another channel right after your live stream ends. Another feature for Android users is two new view options in landscape mode, with a live chat engagement panel seen or hidden. Finally, the Live Q&A mode allows users to ask questions during live streams, and these questions can be pinned on top of the live chat. These three features are not here yet, but soon YouTube starts rolling them out.

If you are a streamer, do you find these changes useful in your activity? As a watcher, will you use them to find more interesting content? Let us know what you think in the comments!