Webcam capture, a feature which came to Youtube almost immediately after it got acquired by Google in 2006, is soon going off-air. The feature runs on flash and lets you record videos with webcams right on YouTube with no uploading required.
However, even though there’s a lot of ease which came with that feature, it failed to take off much among users. And as a result, is getting axed.
While minimal user-base is obviously one of the primary reasons, it once again does involve mention of an outdated technology — Flash. We are pretty much aware on how vocally the biggest tech giants have come up against flash, urging Adobe to ultimately kill off the once golden-boy on web for animations and video players.
Facebook’s Head of Security, Alex Stamos openly urged Adobe “to announce the end-of-life date for Flash” and other browsers “to set killbits on the same day”. That is where Flash stands right now, and has thus found mention in Google’s note about killing the webcam capture feature. Google states on a support page,
Previously, if you had a webcam built in or connected to your computer, you could record a webcam video on YouTube and upload it directly to the site.This feature will be turned off because it is rarely used and is built on technology that is no longer supported.
For a service which has over a billion users and which has a staggering 40 minutes average viewing time on mobile devices, a feature such as webcam feature did not really make sense.
However, users can still record webcam videos through apps like Photo Booth on Mac and Camera on Windows and then upload them through the YouTube site. Cameras on mobile devices can record videos that can then be uploaded through the YouTube app.
