YouNow

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About

YouNow is an American live broadcasting service website and application where users stream their own live video content or interact with the video streams of other users in real time. Although the site was launched in 2011, became popular in 2014 due to changes made to the site. Many of the users are underage and the site has become criticized by parents due to child safety reasons.

History

In September 2011, Adi Sideman founded YouNow and in 2014 Sideman made changes to the site that gave the company a second chance at funding. After changing the feedback system of likes and dislikes on videos, the implementation of user created hashtags and the new feature enabling users to instantly stream rather than wait in line, YouNow was able to bring in $30 million of investments.^[6]

In 2017, YouNow lost a significant amount of streamers and fans to Twitch and Live.me but in 2019, the site implemented changes to make the service more similar to their competitors.

Features

In 2015, during the YouNow's surge in popularity, YouTubers began uploading how to and safety guides outline the YouNow's features (shown below, left). The site allows users to instantly stream videos and interact with fans by receiving gifts and guesting them on their stream. YouNow also has a partnership program in which users can make money.^[3] In 2015, the hashtag #sleepingsquad became a popular category in YouNow which typically featured streamers simply sleeping.^[8] noted outlined the On July 18th, 2016, YouTuber Christina Crockett uploaded an advice video on how to gained more viewers and make money on YouNow (shown below, right). The video gained over 135,300 views in three years.

Highlights

In 2014, MTV partnered with YouNow for the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards. The next year, The Shorty Awards introduced the "YouNower of the Year" category.^[7] Many streamers upload best of YouNow streamer moments to YouTuber which garner over 100,000 views (shown below). In 2019, The Sundance Film Festival released the documentary Jawline which follows the life of a YouNow streamer. Throughout the website's years there have been numerous articles published warning parents the potential negative impacts of YouNow on their children.^[2]^[4]

Traffic

As of 2015, "70% of YouNow’s users are under the age of 24, and that the platform has 100 million user sessions a month, and about 150,000 broadcasts daily."^[6] As of August 2019, Alexa^[5] ranks YouNow at #12,788 in global internet engagement and the most popular streamers are NikocadoAvocado with two million likes and ConnerandSky with one million likes.^[1]