YouTube is working on several new angles to hold onto its grip in a market for short-form video that is slowly being crowded with Vines and such. YouTube's latest angle is multi-perspective videos, a feature that's on display now.
YouTube's multi-angle feature, branded as "Choose Your View," has been rolled out on indie artist Madilyn Bailey's page on the streaming video site.
"We're testing a new feature that allows YouTube creators to upload videos from different camera angles from the same performance, letting fans choose their view and how they want to experience your video," says YouTube in its invitation to YouTube Creators.
There's only one video leveraging the Choose Your View feature, which can be tested our here, but it isn't hard to get a feel for what the new option will bring to the site. A collection of four angles of Bailey's performance at YouTube Music Night has been packaged into the streaming service's first ever Choose Your view.
Bailey's multi-angle video loads like any other media on the site, but users have the ability to switch between viewing angles on the fly. Viewers can click on the any of the video's four camera overlays to move between views or use the arrow keys on their keyboards to navigate.
For Bailey, any opportunity to enhance her connection with her audience makes her a "happy YouTuber," she told the good people at TechCrunch.
"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," says Bailey.
Choose Your View, for now, lives under its own heading on Bailey's profile page, though it's likely the viewing option will move to the Settings cog on YouTube players if multiple-perspective videos take off.
YouTube Creators interested in testing out the Choose Your View on their channel can click here to sign up for an opportunity to try out the new feature.
YouTube's new multi-angle feature may not be exactly ground rattling, but it has the potential to elevate the engagement of users with the site. The sheer amount of bandwidth required to Choose Your View may make the feature a bit scary for mobile data plans, for now, but the interactivity adds to the replay value of videos.
While Choose Your Own view offers a handful of new viewing angles for videos, particularly attractive for performance, YouTube is preparing to give its video 360 degrees' worth in views. Looking down the road, way past the action sports, the 360 degree views could have a huge impact on virtual reality and could help push VR headsets like Facebook's Oculus Rift beyond video gaming.
