YouTube Just Announced a New Update That Could Be a Game-Changer for Livestreaming

YouTube announced a number of changes to its livestreaming platform.

Los Angeles headquarters of You Tube
Getty

Image via Getty/FG/Bauer-Griffin

Los Angeles headquarters of You Tube

After dropping a host of redesigns to its website and mobile apps, YouTube is back with some added new features for its livestreaming service. Last summer, YouTube jumped onto the livestreaming bandwagon, but today announced a number of changes that the company says will make livestreaming with YouTube "faster, easier, and more accessible."

The most important new feature is streaming with a tiny bit of latency. "The fuck is latency," you may ask. Latency is the amount of time between the livestreamer and the audience. Most of the time, latency means there are delays in the stream. With chopping down the latency to just a few seconds, we should expect more real-time conversations between livestreamers and the viewers who watch them (although you should be ready for some buffering).

Speaking of conversation, YouTube has also added in easier chat moderation, including the ability to pausing the chat feed, the ability to hold certain messages for review, and the ability for moderators on your channel to share your hidden users list, so everyone can be operating with the same information.

Finally, YouTube is giving people the ability to stream from their iPhone and/or iPad directly from the main YouTube app. This is going to be a must for gamers who might be trying to livestream a new app on their iPhones; it alleviates the need for extra cables and connecting to your computer.

If you're living that YouTube life, you have to make YouTube livestreaming a part of your model. Find out more about their changes via their official blog.

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