Have you ever wanted to come face to face with YouTube commenters? Yeah, me neither.
Nevertheless! Today, Google announced that instead of adding text comments in YouTube VR, the company will be making shared rooms where users can chat by voice in VR. The company didn’t detail whether this would be random users, so we’ll have to see how much auditory spam there’s going to be.
The system doesn’t sound all that different from Oculus Rooms, which allows you to hop into a room with friends and watch videos together.
With this system, you’ll be able to dive into a 360-degree space in avatar form and chat about the videos. It seems quite similar to what Facebook showed off at F8 with its Spaces social networking app, though there won’t be quite as much potential for social interaction due to the limitations of mobile VR.
YouTube is huge for Google when it comes to mobile VR, and they haven’t been shy about admitting that. As a social platform it could be a great spot for friends to meet up, though it seems like there are undoubtedly quite a few things that need to be addressed before it becomes a safe place to hear the rants of strangers.