• Rather than focus on discoverability, YouTube has rolled out emotes.
• Emotes can be accessed in live chat and in comments.
• YouTube needs to not only worry about Twitch but a new player in the live stream space.

We know that Twitch didn’t grow to the behemoth it is today overnight, but YouTube’s efforts to adopt livestreaming more broadly into its ecosystem sure is happening at a snail’s pace.

The video-sharing platform has now started rolling out custom emotes similar to those offered on Twitch. Imaginatively dubbed YouTube Emotes, these emojis can be plugged in during a livestream or in comment sections.

YouTube Emotes, like Twitch Emotes can be customised by a channel’s owner and can be locked off behind channel membership if they choose. To be clear, YouTube Emotes are available for all but some emotes may be locked off for a fee.

“We’re starting with emotes created for Gaming but are working on bringing even more themes of emotes in the future, so stay tuned for emotes for even more communities,” YouTube wrote in a support update.

The emotes YouTube has made available to all users were designed by Abelle Hayford, Guy Field and Yujin Won.

While we’re sure creators enjoy being able to use custom emotes we’d argue that YouTube should be focused on another area of livestreaming – discoverability.

These days with YouTube pushing Shorts in a big way, livestreams have become even harder to find. A recent update to the user interface made old livestreams easier to find by moving them to their own sub-menu on channel pages but actually finding a stream while it’s happening is tough unless you’re looking for it.

Speaking of live streaming platforms, this week streamer Tyler Niknam better known as Trainwrecks, announced his involvement in a platform known as Kick.com.

“As most of you know, I’ve been working on a couple projects to make the livestreaming world better. Today I want to announce one of those projects. I’m joining www.kick.com as a non-owner advisor and non-exclusive broadcaster. I will work with their team to help creators succeed where Twitch has failed them – starting with a 95% split of all subscriber income to creators,” Niknam wrote.

The platform promises to share subscriber revenue on a 95/5 split with creators receiving 95 percent of the revenue. That sure is attractive but it sounds almost too good to be true. Twitch recently changed its policy for top earners. Where previously these creators may have split revenue 70/30, the split is now 50/50 after they earn their first $100 000.

The platform said that this change was due to the cost of running the platform. The firm claims that for a streamer with an average of 100 viewers streaming for 200 hours a month it pays Amazon Web Services’ Interactive Video Service $1 000 for that creator.

How Kick will be able to maintain the service on a fraction of the revenue Twitch generates is unclear but there are concerns about ties to a gambling organisation.