YouTube adds a TikTok-style indicator to show when channels are live

Developers continue to make the YouTube platform interface more convenient and informative. This time they have added a new indicator showing that a particular channel is live streaming. Neal Mohan, director of YouTube products, announced this on his Twitter page.

YouTube adds a TikTok-style indicator to show when channels are live

The indicator is a ring with the word “Live” around the channel’s profile photo. Users will be able to connect to live broadcasts by clicking on this indicator and going to the corresponding page. This change will make it easier for users to find live streams when viewing content on YouTube.

The feature mentioned may sound familiar, since something similar is already in use on other platforms. For example, a similar effect of a pulsating ring around a channel’s profile photo during live broadcasts is in use in TikTok. On Instagram, a colorful ring around a profile photo indicates that its owner is broadcasting live. Seeing such an indicator in the news feed, the user only has to click on it to join the broadcast.

It seems that YouTube developers continue to draw inspiration from competing services such as TikTok. One of the most prominent examples of this is the Shorts section, which lets you view short videos in a vertically scrolling feed.

YouTube talked about the innovations of 2022

YouTube Product Director Neal Mohan recently shared the service’s plans for 2022 on the company’s official blog. Innovations will affect the most trending areas: short videos, NFTs, as well as the metaverse.

YouTube is going to bet on the short video format Shorts – a TikTok competitor. The format is incredibly popular, because only by the current moment the total number of views of Shorts has already exceeded 5 trillion. The service is going to actively develop this direction: last year a fund for financial support of the most popular authors took place. In the future, the functionality of Shorts will expand: there will be new video effects, editing tools, as well as means of communication between video authors and viewers – in particular, it will be possible to respond to a comment by recording a new short video. There will also be new ways to monetize Shorts throughout the year, such as ordering products directly from videos.

Another promising direction in YouTube is considered live broadcasts, which also has good reasons: from January 2020 to December 2021, the total time spent watching them more than tripled. Here the most important innovation will be the possibility of participation of several authors in one live broadcast.