A New Livestream Feature Makes Its Way To YouTube Shorts

YouTube Shorts were launched back in September 2020. The TikTok-like short videos helped many channels on the site to gain more subscribers. Now, there is a good piece of news for people who enjoy live streaming on YouTube. The platform recently launched a feature called ‘vertical live’ to promote live streams in the YouTube Shorts feed. The special feed is for the creators who are streaming in the vertical orientation. YouTubers can upload and consume content up to one minute long. No doubt, YouTube has taken another shot at TikTok by adding this new vertical livestream feature.

Sherry Lin, product manager for live at YouTube, stated:

“It’s the ability to go live vertically on your phone and have it show up now, starting soon, in the Shorts feed. We wanted this combined feed. We wanted that to bring Shorts and live closer together… You can go to the Shorts feed, and as you’re swiping through the Shorts feed every so often you’re going to come across a live, and it’ll have a big grey button that says ‘watch live’. Tap that, you can get into the live feed.”

YouTube Shorts Brings Vertical Livestreams

YouTube started testing vertical livestreams on the platform in August 2023. The platform finally started rolling it out to all users on February 7, 2024. According to the latest reports, the special feed is predominantly for people streaming off-the-cuff from their phones. Vertical Live supports all of YouTube’s existing fan-funding features, however, ads are not supported yet.

The best part is that YouTube creators can multi-stream both horizontal and vertical broadcasts to enjoy it however they wish. The all-new feature shows up in the feed similar to how TikTok Live broadcasts do. There will be a big Grey button saying “Watch Live”. Users will be able to tap on it to enter the chat.

YouTube Support page revealed that it will show up as two broadcasts and requires the use of third-party plugins. The new feature seems quite amazing. Overall, it has a positive response from all users. What do you think about this new vertical live addition? Are you excited to go live with the platform’s new feature? Do share with us in the comment section.