Engagements are the metrics of online content. These are the goals of most if not all people when they upload content to the internet.
And on YouTube, two of a video's main metrics are: Likes and views. To content creators, these two judge whether a video is a success, or a flop. The more Likes and views a video makes, the higher the chances YouTube algorithm will recommend that video to more users.
Better metrics also help other viewers to determine, at least to some extent, whether they should view that video, or move to something else.
YouTube is known for its alleged rabbit hole, meaning that users will not run out of 'interesting' videos to see.
In order to ensure that both content creators and viewers know how many times a video has been Liked and viewed, at least when they're actively watching the video, YouTube is giving the two metrics a huge update.
The video-streaming giant managed to make the two counters refresh in real-time on both the web version of YouTube, and its app.
When it comes to how YouTube counts Likes and views, the streaming platform deploys sophisticated algorithms that continuously monitor user engagements.
For its Likes counter, YouTube has a specialized algorithm that register viewers engagements with the thumbs up and thumbs down button, and that it's updated instantly as users interact with the video. While the counter is dynamic, others couldn't see this in real-time.
This is because YouTube needs to run the algorithms to prevent manipulation and spam.
The same goes with the views counter, which has a specialized algorithm that filters out invalid or artificially generated views.
This ensures that the count reflects genuine user engagement.
It's a complex system designed to ensure the accuracy and integrity of engagement metrics.
YouTube uses various algorithms to filter out invalid actions, providing creators and viewers with a reliable representation of a video's popularity.
This time, YouTube managed to find a way to update the counters in real-time, by still retaining the functionalities of the algorithms, but without depleting its resources.
What happens here is that, every time any YouTube user out there views a video, and/or hit that Like button, YouTube will play a small animation, updating the numbers.
YouTube can do this in real-time, and even when the video is paused.
The counters are also updated in the background, meaning that users will see the latest count every time they switch to a different browser tab or another app, and then go back to the YouTube tab or app.
Initially, the feature is widely released on YouTube for the web, and still limited on the YouTube app.
And also initially, YouTube offers no way to stop the counter from automatically updating.
While some users may find the auto-refresh for the counters interesting, a lot of other users find the feature distracting.
It's worth noting though, that the feature is not visible on popular videos, like those with thousands or more Likes and views. This is because YouTube uses "K" for thousand, "M" for million and "B" for billion.
It's also worth noting that "real-time" here isn't actually instant. This is because YouTube can only update the counters once every minute due to API limitation.