YouTube Shorts now records… 2 billion views per month! Some creators have even built an entire audience on the platform just through short-form videos. And that may not end with this new viewing experience…
Currently, YouTube live streams are presented in the social platform’s usual letterbox format, which places more emphasis on live chat by displaying both on screen.
But a new format, which premiered early last month, it will fill the entire screen, with comments at the top.
In fact, YouTube wants to move more towards vertical video, testing a new full-screen viewing experience for live streams in its mobile app.
On September 6, 2023, the tech giant announced on its “YouTube Features and Testing Experiences” page:
“We are currently testing a new full-screen viewing experience on vertical live streams for mobile viewers. This new vertical live experience includes smooth live streaming and easily accessible fan funding features. During this test, creators can stream content vertically on mobile devices with the YouTube app or via desktop streaming software, and their vertical stream will be visible to eligible viewers who browse Shorts on the YouTube app. »
On YouTube, when you scroll through the stream, you will be able to see Full-screen live sessions which you can tap to participate.
The new full-screen vertical Lives will also appear in the Shorts feed, just like TikTok. Additionally, on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, vertical live broadcasts have become an important source of income for many creators. At the same time they constitute a more immersive and immersive experience in the mobile application.
This format represents YouTube’s latest effort to capitalize on the popularity of Shorts, the fastest-growing content format on YouTube over the past two years.
Last February, YouTube reported this The short films had exceeded 50 billion daily views on the application ! And as more people turn to the platform for a different type of content, YouTube is looking to capitalize on this interest with new viewing options.
Other new features for creating Shorts videos
While this new YouTube vertical live streaming feature is currently in “beta” or “experimental” and only available to a small group, the tech giant has also indicated that it plans to test other improvements soon.
Notably, the company introduced new features for creating Shorts videos from a horizontal YouTube clip, including the ability to enlarge and crop the original video.
Short film creators will also benefit from a new suggestions feature that extracts the audio clip and effect used in the video they want to recreate. Just like other features on TikTok and Reels.
The difference ? YouTube’s version will fetch audio with the same timestamp as the clip a user is replaying.
Other new features: Last month, the tech giant began experimenting with the ability to search for a song on YouTube by humming or recording the song playing. Those participating in the experience can switch between YouTube’s voice search and the new song search feature, and hum or record the song they’re looking for for more than 3 seconds to identify it.
Once they identify the song, they will see relevant official music content, user-generated videos and/or short films featuring the song they searched for in the YouTube app.
Not bad, right?
