Considering how hard YouTube has been pushing to be taken seriously as a livestreaming service the fact that it took them so long to introduce clips is… weird. Finally, the video sharing platform is testing a new clipping feature to allow viewers to save some their favourite moments in a brief highlight video. It’s a feature that’s been around for some time on Twitch, the largest live-streaming website available, so it makes sense that YouTube is cribbing from their rival’s notes.
The actual clips themselves can range anywhere from 5 seconds to 60 seconds long and when they’re saved, they’ll be provided with a new URL to make posting and finding them that much easier. Both creators and viewers will be able to clip videos but the feature is currently limited to desktops and Android devices. Sorry iPhone users, you’ll have to wait a little longer to get your hands on those sweet clips.
Today we are launching an experimental version of Clips on YouTube. Check out videos on the Creator Insider channel and test it out yourself!
Clips are 5-60 sec, shareable, segments of content (Live/VOD) that live on top of the original video.
More info: https://t.co/5fJyorxjrj pic.twitter.com/DVWNQ2BoEx
— Lester (@Chen) January 28, 2021
YouTube clips you behind the ear
The reason it’s so surprising that it took this long to implement the feature is that it’s been a fairly essential tool for content creators to spread the word of their content across other platforms. Having stream highlights that can easily be saved and shared around social media makes for a great way to market oneself.
Yet if livestreaming on YouTube was your preferred method the process of obtaining these short clips was so much trickier and frustrating that it wasn’t really worth the effort. Clips might make YouTube a more approachable platform for new streamers and should hopefully make the lives of it’s established users that much easier. Just make sure you’re not being mean when you clip something otherwise YouTube will be cross and quietly ask you to maybe not be so nasty. Like that will work.
(Source: The Verge)
