YouTube Live broadcasts get better replays, improved Super Chat, and more
YouTube has made a number of exciting updates to its YouTube Live streaming service.
The new features are meant to expand the audience of YouTube Live broadcasters, and keep viewers engaged with content after broadcasts have ended.
The most interesting new feature is chat replay: When a user re-watches a live stream that has concluded, they can also re-experience the live chat that happened alongside it.
For live broadcasts in English, YouTube is launching automatic captions, where the company's AI will analyze the speech to produce captions in real time. The feature will roll out in the coming weeks. While they might not be as accurate as professionally provided captions, they have the potential to make some live streams more accessible to hearing-impaired viewers.
Starting today, creators can add location tags to their live streams. This will help users better find live events near them by filtering search results by location, or clicking the location tag on one video to explore other videos (including, now, live videos) with the same tag.
YouTube is also extending its Super Chat feature, which allows a live-stream viewer to pay to make sure their message is highlighted for the broadcaster. While Super Chats used to be only available for Android and desktop users, now iPhone and iPad owners can get on the fun. It's also now possible to set up IoT devices to enable Super Chat messages via IFTTT.com. Hard to know the exact situation where you'd want your light switch or coffee maker to fire off Super Chats, but rest assured someone will figure it out.
Topics YouTube
Monica wrote for Mashable's Tech section with a focus on retail, internet of things, and the intersections of technology and social justice. She holds a degree in creative writing from Brown University, and has previously written for Dow Jones Media, the New York Post, Yahoo Finance, and others. In her free time, she can be found attempting to cook Asian food, buying board games, and looking for new hobbies.
