YouTube Launches Multi-Angle Video Experiment

Here is a small but fun experiment that YouTube is rolling out today: videos that let you switch between different camera angles while the video is playing. These multi-angle videos are only an experiment right now and there’s only one video that actually showcases this feature so far.

If you want to give this a try, head over to Madilyn Bailey’s YouTube channel — she’s a popular indie artist on YouTube who is probably best known for her cover songs. The YouTube team took her performance at the most recent YouTube Music Night and turned it into a multi-angle video.

As YouTube tells me, the process of creating these videos is automatic on the user’s side, but the technology the team developed to support this is not ready to scale to everyone yet.

YouTube is not the first video site that is trying this. Over the years, there have been multiple startups that focused on nothing else but developing similar features. And there have been apps like the Marc Cuban- and 500 Startups-backed Switchcam or Streamweaver that focused on crowdsourcing these kind of videos. None of these really took off and Switchcam is now dead. But if there is one video site that can probably make this work, it’s YouTube, simply because of the sheer size of the service’s user base.

2015-02-03_2056

As a YouTube spokesperson told me, this experiment is part of YouTube’s efforts “to keep making more immersive and interactive video experiences.” Because this is an experiment, though, YouTube is only allowing a few select YouTube users to test the feature. If you want to be considered, you can sign up for access here.

As for Madilyn Bailey, she tells us that she didn’t hesitate when YouTube asked her to give this a try. “I love being super interactive with my online community and I think this is such a creative way to put more freedom into the hands of my viewers and gives them the ability to have a more personalized viewing experience,” she told me in an email. “Anytime I can get my audience more involved, I’m a happy YouTuber!”

Comments

Samsung Galaxy S5 Review and Giveaway

Few smartphones are as aggressively marketed as Samsung’s Galaxy S5. The S5 can no longer be considered brand-new — but it is Samsung’s flagship, at least for the next few months. With a gorgeous screen, a capable camera, a waterproof build, and a user-replaceable battery, the Galaxy S5 has a lot to offer… at least on paper. Let’s find out how good it really is. What Makes This Review Different There are about a million Galaxy S5 reviews out there. Why should you read this one? Two keys points make our review different: We bought our own device . Unlike many tech blogs, we don’t use a review unit Samsung gave us. We went out to the store and bought one, just like you would. This means everything you read here is truly impartial – we owe Samsung nothing. We used it for more than a month . Some sites rush to be the first to publish a review on a new device. That’s not how we do things. I used the Galaxy S5 as my main (and only) Android phone for nearly two months,...

Samsung Galaxy Note 3 N9000 Review and Giveaway

When it comes to massive phones, nothing is more iconic than the Samsung Galaxy Note. It has gained popularity not only due to its size, but its additional features such as a stylus and a larger battery make it a more useful phone. Samsung released the third generation of the Galaxy Note in October, updating the phablet with a larger screen and improved hardware. Read through our review, then join the giveaway to win the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 ! Competitors Of course, other Android competitors haven’t let the $640 Galaxy Note 3 be the only player in the phablet market. There are others such as the Sony Xperia Z Ultra , the Samsung Galaxy Mega , and the other more common phones that are reaching 5″ screens such as the Samsung Galaxy S4 , the HTC One , and the Nexus 5 . Unlike the normal-sized top contenders, the Galaxy Note 3 has a bigger screen and larger battery. It also offers specific features (surrounding the S Pen stylus) th...

Ex-Skypers Launch Virtual Whiteboard Deekit

Although seriously long in the tooth and being disrupted by a plethora of startups, for many years Skype has existed as an almost ubiquitous app in any remote team’s toolkit. So it seems apt that a new startup founded by a team of ex-Skype employees is set to tackle another aspect of online collaboration. Deekit, which exits private beta today, is a virtual and collaborative whiteboard to help remote teams work smarter. The Tallinn, Estonia-based startup is headed up by founder and CEO, Kaili Kleemeier, who was previously a Head of Operations at Skype. She and three colleagues quit the Internet calling giant in 2012 and spent a year researching ideas in the remote team space. They ended up focusing on creating a new virtual whiteboard, born out of Kleemeier’s experience collaborating with technical teams remotely, specifically helping Skype deal with incident management. “Working with remote teams has been a challenge in many ways – cultural differences, language differences, a...

Kiran Upadhyay

Search This Blog