In the latest statement, YouTube announced that’s opening up its ‘Go Live Together’ option to expand the feature to more users by the beginning of next week. The feature expansion will enable more collective content creation between users to provide creative considerations during live-streaming sessions in the app.
Back at the beginning of March this year, YouTube initially began testing ‘Go Live Together’ with a selected handful of creators and is now looking to roll out an expansion of the tool into the next stage for wider testing.
As explained in the official blog, the sequence example shown for ‘Go Live Together’ would allow YouTubers to invite another user to its stream, with the video then displayed in vertical split screens, providing new engagement and interaction options during a YouTube live broadcast.
Similar to Meta’s platforms where they provide co-streaming live videos, YouTube has arrived a bit late to the party as both Meta and TikTok have implemented collective live-streaming since the breakout of the pandemic in 2019, which is strange for a social platform that is solemnly based on streaming videos.
Nevertheless, the new opportunities that ‘Go Live Together’ would open for brands to run both live interviews or internal spotlight sessions on their YouTube channels, while also facilitating Q and A sessions. In addition, hosting brands will be able to rotate the guest on their live stream, unfortunately with a one-guest-at-a-time limitation.
So on top of being late to implement the new feature which other platforms have rolled out years ago, YouTube did not improve or brought anything new to the table, which could’ve set them apart and drawn live-streamers to rather use the new ‘Go Live Together’ as it has less creative limitations. One guest is less than TikTok (which recently expanded live-stream guests to five) and Instagram (three), but even so, it still adds new creative considerations for your YouTube live broadcasts.
On the other hand, for influencers and high-followed channels, the perks of collective live-streaming would be the same as guests would draw attention to both the host and the guest’s channels – creating more exposure for both parties. However, unlike Meta or TikTok there are no monetization incentives for creatives to benefit from live-streaming as there are no tools to be able to send virtual gifts.
How would ‘Go Live Together’ work?
The host will be able to screen guests before going live, while the guest channel and user information will be hidden during the stream.
YouTube will also allow pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll ads on Go Live Together streams, which will be attributed to the host channel of the broadcast.
YouTube says that all channels with at least 50 subscribers will soon be able to launch Go Live Together streams, with the roll-out beginning next week – though YouTube does note that it may take a few weeks to become available to all users.
Ultimately, we see the benefits of YouTube implementing Go Live Together, as it is always better to arrive later than never, however, we expected more innovative ideas and approaches from the tech giant to differentiate their offering to draw curiosity and incentives from creators to try out the new feature instead of making a limited form of live-streaming compared to its rival platforms.
Stay tuned to all the latest news by subscribing to ITP Live’s newsletter below or activate the push notifications to stay updated.