A live ring in action. | Screenshot: YouTube
YouTube is adding a new indicator to show when a channel is live streaming on the platform, its chief product officer Neal Mohan has announced on Twitter. It consists of showing a ring with the word “Live” on it around a channel’s profile picture when they’re live streaming, which you can tap to jump straight into the live broadcast. The feature should make it easier to find currently live content as you browse YouTube.
If the feature sounds familiar, it might be because it’s already used on a couple of other services. TikTok uses a similar pulsing ring effect on a channel’s profile picture if they’re live streaming when you scroll past their video in your feed. Instagram also shows a colorful ring around the profile pictures of live streaming accounts when they’re shown at the top of your feed.
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
Like Stories, which originally started out as a Snapchat feature before being rapidly cloned by basically every other platform out there, it seems the live ring UI was too perfect to not integrate into YouTube. But the biggest example of the inspiration YouTube is taking from TikTok is undoubtedly “Shorts,” a feature that lets you browse short-form video content using a vertically scrolling feed.