YouTube has announced that they’ve implemented “Live rings” on mobile in order to make it even easier to see when your favourite creators are streaming.
Announcing the new feature on Twitter, Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer, announced that the company is “really focused making it easier for users to find livestreams on YouTube so we’re rolling out the Live rings feature on mobile!”
“YouTubeCreators streaming live will now have a ring around the channel avatar & clicking on the avatar will take you directly to the livestream,” Mohan continued, explaining that YouTube’s new “Live rings” feature works exactly like all the others on the market, so using it should hopefully be quite intuitive.
With Instagram and TikTok essentially perfecting the live ring UI which YouTube has eagerly lifted, the only surprise is that the feature hasn’t been implemented sooner, especially considering the company’s invigorated focus on Shorts, which, like TikTok, exposes you to a vast variety of creators, one of which might just be live.
Really focused making it easier for users to find livestreams on @YouTube so we're rolling out the Live rings feature on mobile! @YouTubeCreators streaming live will now have a ring around the channel avatar & clicking on the avatar will take you directly to the livestream. pic.twitter.com/QylUbpktum
— Neal Mohan (@nealmohan) February 18, 2022
While this is definitely a nice feature to have if you want to keep up to date with what creators are streaming about, it’s hardly the only way that live content is highlighted on the platform. With scheduled videos and or livestreams already getting a place within your subscriptions tab, and livestreams stealing the first spot again once live, it can often be difficult to miss livestreams since they’re shoved in your face so much.