YouTube Launches Mobile Live Streaming, Super Chat

YouTube is set to roll out its long awaited Mobile Live Streaming, as well Super Chat, a new feature which acts as a monetization tool. Unfortunately for the less successful YouTubers out there, users must have at least 10,000 more subscribers before being able to use these new features.

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YouTube just launched its long anticipated Mobile Live Streaming along with a monetization tool called Super Chat. There’s a catch though. You need at least 10,000 followers to have access to these features right now, although the company says it will be available to everyone at some point and baked into the mobile app.

While it’s cool that Mobile Live Streaming if finally here, YouTube has some catching up to do, since Facebook Live, Periscope, and Instagram Live have already established themselves with users, and you don’t need 10k followers to access them either. YouTube should have been dominating this space for a while, but instead will be playing catchup.

One interesting add-on to Mobile Live Streaming is Super Chat, which allows broadcasters to monetize the chat during a broadcast. What happens is that if a viewer wants to get the attention of the broadcaster, they’ll make a payment (there’s not much info about how that’s set up yet) which will then highlight the message and keep it pinned to the top of the page (see the graphic on the right). This remains there for up to 5 hours.

Many YouTube broadcasters are complaining that there are no filters yet supplied with Super Chat in order to keep some of the more vile comments that frequently happen now during a live stream at bay. Remember this is an early iteration of the feature though, so hopefully it will improve over time. You can see how this would be useful to a broadcaster with a lot of followers though.

Again, the big problem with Mobile Live Streaming and Super Chat is that they’re so late to be launched. Facebook is making a substantial dent in YouTube usage, which may turn into a landslide when it gets its monetization features online. In the meantime, if you have 10,000 followers, give Live Streaming a try.