YouTube takes a page out of the Twitch playbook with subscriber-only chat for streamers

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Over the past couple of years, YouTube has worked on establishing itself as a streaming platform where gamers can stream their gameplay live to their followers, much like Twitch. Borrowing a few plays from the Twitch playbook, YouTube just added a few features that will make live streaming more enjoyable for both the streamer and their viewers.

According to a new YouTube Help post, the company is looking to make its platform more streamer-friendly. The first major update that YouTube has recently pushed out is the ability for a streamer to select subscriber-only chat.

This will make it so you have to be a subscriber to participate in that streamer’s live chat. This service has been available for large streamers for a while, but it is now available to every streamer on the platform.

The platform also added polls to YouTube stream chats. Polls are a great way for a streamer to interact with their audience, and it allows the audience to have some input on a streamer’s content.

The last new feature is the ability for a streamer’s audience to share clips on the stream. This feature has been incredibly popular on Twitch and is a great way for people to discover new content creators on the platform. For now, YouTube’s clip feature is only for users with more than 1,000 subscribers, but the platform said it would eventually roll the feature out to everyone.

YouTube has really worked to establish itself as a platform for streamers over the last couple of years. With big-name Twitch streamers like Courage and Valkyrae moving to the platform, it looks like it is certainly doing something right. Look for YouTube to continue to make ripples in the streaming world for the foreseeable future.

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