YouTube Tests Emoji Reaction Feature That Users Can Use To Respond To Videos

JAKARTA - YouTube has started testing the new Emoji Reaction feature, which users can use to comment on a video. This follows the timed comment feature that YouTube started testing in April last year.

Trials of this new feature have just been rolled out to a small group of users. They can pop emojis when certain moments in the video suit them (or don't).

"If you watch a video that's part of this experiment, you can react and see how the crowd reacted by going to the video's comments section and tapping the reaction panel," said YouTube Team representative Meaghan.

Other users' reactions will also be visible when they use them, but those reactions will be anonymized, similar to features already offered by Facebook Live and Twitch.

Cited from Engadget, Wednesday, March 30, the Emoji Reaction range includes Heart, 100, Question mark, Light bulb, Sun, and more. The Google-owned platform plans to add or remove reactions based on how the test goes.

So the feature might launch with a different set of reactions when it's finally ready to go official.

"We're testing a series of reactions and will add or remove reactions based on how the experiment goes!" says Meaghan.

Google often experiments with new features on YouTube, but the features are not always permanent. YouTube recently tested allowing users to time their comments to a specific point in the video and hide the dislike button.

Emoji Reaction pretty much caught the interest of other social media, including Twitter which also experimented with emoji reactions for tweets last year. But unlike tweets, videos are longer media and are more likely to elicit a lot of reactions, which is why YouTube is interested in this Emoji Reaction feature.