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What’s better than watching an awesome YouTube video with your friends? A brand new app has been created in order to make watching videos with friends a better and easier experience. A team from Google’s internal incubator Area 120 has launched an app that feels very different from YouTube’s other experiences. It is called Uptime
This app includes the reaction features which give it a very youthful and lively appearance. This feature is no doubt an inspiration from Twitter’s Periscope and Facebook Live. The profile icon floats across the screen while a video is being viewed. The users of the application can add stickers or even comment on the video and are displayed to anyone who watches the video. The reaction’s feature is not just for users watching the video at specific times, the users who view the video even later will be able to see the reactions. But for those who watch the video together, they can tap on the screen and leave “sparkles” on the video itself.
Say hello to #Uptime! Share and watch videos together. Download now from the App Store https://t.co/Bwo7e4xCgy.
Use invite code: PIZZA pic.twitter.com/w9MzqwCibi— Uptime (@uptimeApp) March 11, 2017
Previously launched apps such as WeMesh, YouTubeSocial, AirTime, and LiveLead were also aimed for a co-watching experience but UpTime is a refined form of all the ideas. It enables users who are not currently available to watch the videos together, to see it, and feel the same later on. With UpTime, users can search as well as share video clips from YouTube to the app. A user’s friends are notified with the help of a checkbox on the service once some content has been posted.
Short video of what #Uptime is all about. ?
? Watch it on Uptime https://t.co/6MwZvdaF2v or find it on YouTube here https://t.co/yVEW0Uiiiw pic.twitter.com/H0NqHYZf3G— Uptime (@uptimeApp) March 14, 2017
This app is available for iOS devices for now and lets users to just invite to friends. But it is an app for public sharing, not private communication. For mobile application, an in-app messaging feature has been recently added by YouTube itself. Video sharing has been approached differently with UpTime that emphasizes its services for public socializing. The creators of UpTime have seeded majority of the content which fills the app’s feed with its StaffPicks including clips of cats to TV shows. These are mostly the kind of videos that users enjoy more while co-watching.
UpTime is a good addition to the YouTube platform but it does lack a filter for community shares which would help to search videos by genre. A search box also seems to be missing for knowing whatever has already been shared on the network. Live Streaming isn’t possible with UpTime but we can expect that in future many different and interesting features will be added to this application.
