YouTube's Backstage Feature Could Move Beyond Video

Currently, YouTube is king of the video streaming world, but other competitors like Facebook Live and Snapchat are beginning to rise up. So what do you do when these ubiquitous social networks begin encroaching on your territory and challenging your position as ruler of the roost? You become more like them, apparently, with YouTube rumored to be rolling out a new feature called Backstage later this year.

According to a new VentureBeat report, YouTube Backstage will function something like Facebook's News Feed, giving creators an opportunity to post more than just videos for their followers. This includes posting text updates, sharing photos, and creating polls for users to participate in.

Perhaps most importantly, creators will able to share Backstage-exclusive videos with their audience, giving YouTube users who closely follow different video makers a reason to get invested in the new feature. Any additional content creators produce through Backstage will appear in the feeds of their subscribers, and those subscribers will be able to react to this extra content through comments, just like a bonafide social networking site.

YouTube is apparently plotting to launch the feature later this year with a select group of creators testing a limited roll out at first, and assuming everything goes well with that test, we should see a wider roll out at some point after. Obviously, when Google was asked for additional details, it merely said that it does not comment on rumors.

Will it take off? That remains to be seen, but YouTube fans can be pretty dedicated to the channels they follow, so it wouldn't surprise us to see Backstage turn into a hit, at least with some of the more popular channels out there. Stay tuned.

SOURCE: VentureBeat