What the Kids Are Watching: The World of Tween 在线直播

你知道孩子们在看什么吗? 如果你超过30岁，我打赌你不会. YouTube红? go90? 不. 你知道些什么 YouNow or 生活.me?

几年前在流媒体西部, an engineer with Twitch gave the opening day keynote, and the audience was stunned to learn that online video game streaming was huge. Twitch had recently streamed an event to over 8 million concurrent viewers. This was a pluggedin, industry crowd, and they didn’t know how big game streaming had become.

The current big thing—and this is no surprise to younger people—is live streaming apps. I’m not talking about Facebook 生活 or YouTube 生活; I mean apps like YouNow, 生活.我, 街头艺人. 通过这些应用程序, anyone with an attractive smile and a phone can create live video streams and attract fans. 这是一对多的互动电视直播, 观众通过短信交流的地方, 动画图标, 还有可以兑换现金的在线礼物.

If you want to feel old, open up YouNow and try to figure out what you’re seeing. Remember the first time you opened Snapchat and had no idea what to do? Well, the Snapchat interface is a relaxing paradise compared with the YouNow user interface.

当你打开YouNow或生活.me, 你面对的是现场对话, 快速滚动评论, 动画, 以及其他菜单的选项. It’s guaranteed to turn off older adults, and that’s just the way users like it.

让我对这些应用了如指掌, 我采访了Yonatan Sela, vice president of business development and product strategy for YouNow.

“It’s first a lot about interaction and participation,塞拉说. “Beyond what you see in live sports video or people broadcasting from conferences, 我认为这是一个核心的区别. The core of what’s happening is the broadcaster broadcasting themselves. The camera they use is usually the front camera that looks at the person, the selfie camera. Rather than describing an experience happening out there in the world, the experience is what’s happening here in the broadcast—in the interaction between the live viewers.”

For YouNow, about 75 percent of users are between the ages of 13 and 25, 塞拉说,. 生活.me attracts a similar audience, while 街头艺人 skews a bit older.

We’ve heard how YouTube and Vine stars have amassed a following, 然后得到一本书, TV, 或者电影交易. 这能在直播平台上发生吗, where the star simply talks to viewers in real time (and the conversation is mostly thanking viewers for sending likes or hearts or whatever the on-screen currency happens to be)? Young telegenic talent is investing time here for a reason: Top live streamers make six figures per year, 塞拉说,, 都不用离开他们的卧室.

One challenge in creating a platform for younger viewers is making sure it’s a safe space. It might be live and immediate, but it can’t be anything-goes. YouNow拥有强大的安全操作, 塞拉说,, 混合技术, 社区, 24/7人类调节. There’s no nudity or drug use here, and no harassment.

“这是一个重大挑战, and we have spent a lot of time and a lot of money and built technology to be able to do that in a scalable way,塞拉说. 一些社区成员, 谁被指定为大使, 当他们看到不正当的事情时，能采取行动吗. 付费版主会调查潜在的问题. Also, all users have the ability to block any other user from their broadcasts.

The result of all this is numbers that a lot of video sites would kill for. Viewers spend more than 30 minutes per day on YouNow, and more than 70 percent of users engage with the content.

If you’re still confused about why these platforms are popular, you’re not alone. 这与我们的即时满足文化有关, 塞拉说,, as well as young people’s comfort in sharing their lives and expressing themselves.

It’s fun to watch for a little while, but it’s definitely for the young. Now pardon me while I shuffle back to the familiar worlds of Netflix and YouTube.

[This article appears in the January/February 2017 issue of 流媒体杂志 as "Inside the Baffling World of Tween 在线直播."]