YouTube launches ‘Super Chat’, scraps Fan Funding

YouTube has launched ‘Super Chat’, a new function that lets viewers pay to pin a comment to the top of the chat section during a live video stream.

Announcing the launch, YouTube users can pay to have their comment pinned to the top of chat for up to five hours, “giving more airtime for your messages”.

“For creators, this means Super Chat does double duty: keeping their conversations and connections with (super) fans meaningful and lively while also giving creators a new way to make money,” said YouTube product manager, Barbara Macdonald.

The news came as YouTube announced it was scrapping a separate monetisation option for content creators – Fan Funding.

Launched in 2014, Fan Funding allowed viewers to make voluntary payments to support creators directly.

However, YouTube said that it “never achieved widespread usage outside of live streams, where we saw the majority of revenue.”

YouTube users will no longer be able to sign-up to Fan Funding, but will be able to continue to make contributions to enabled channels until the feature is fully discontinued on February 28.

Super Chat is available now in beta and is being trialled by a handful of content creators – including iHasCupquake and Alex Wassabi.

YouTube said it will “broadly launch” Super Chat on January 31 for creators in 20 countries and viewers in more than 40 countries.