Streaming live content via YouTube Live has been an indispensable tool for content creators to deliver music, sports, gaming and more from anywhere in the world. Live broadcasting is now available to virtually anyone with a smartphone and YouTube has just added some notable updates. Let's take a look at what's new.
Live chat allows viewers to interact with creators during live broadcasts, but that isn't a new feature. What is new is chat replay, which allows viewers to follow along with the conversations after the live broadcast ends. Live chat replays will appear exactly as they did during the live stream, of course minus the ability to interact with the stream yourself.
Automatic captions for videos were launched back in 2009, with one billion videos being auto-captioned since. YouTube will soon support English automatic captions for live streams, creating a cheap and easy way to make broadcasts more accessible. Live automatic speech recognition (LASR) technology will cut error rates and latency close to industry standards. This feature should become available within the next few weeks.
Location tagging is another new feature that can be added to both mobile live streams and uploaded videos. Viewers can click on the location tag and find other videos from the same place, or simply search for a location on the search results page to find tagged videos.
Super Chats, which are inexpensive, highlighted messages from fans to stand out during live streams, have gotten a new feature. Content creators now have the option to setup IFTTT (If This, Then That), allowing Super Chats to connect to over 600 internet-connected devices and services (lights, confetti cannons, etc.). This creates a whole new level of interaction. Super Chat is already available on Android devices and computers, and will soon be available on iOS.
It's great to see YouTube introduce new tools for creators and content will continue to improve as a result.
Source: YouTube
