IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: Hi, everyone.
I'm Ibrahim Ulukaya from YouTube API Developer
Relations Team, and today we will talk about the Live
Streaming API, and we will showcase the great
integration.
It's called RadioLine.
Actually, they were one of the first integrators of the
YouTube Live Streaming API.
And today, we will showcase API with the guys--
the folks from RadioLine themselves.
The CEO of RadioLine, Thomas Serval, will
be joining me today.
And Samuel Landau is the CTO of RadioLine.
And we'll talk about RadioLine.
Hey, Thomas, how are you?
THOMAS SERVAL: I'm fine, thank you.
Hello, Ibrahim.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: Thanks so much for
joining me here today.
Maybe let's talk about what is RadioLine?
What's the product itself?
THOMAS SERVAL: So RadioLine has one goal.
It's to make your radio universally
available across the world.
And the first thing we wanted to do is to make sure we are
the number one video site and one of the best
websites in the world.
So we wanted to be present on YouTube as a first move and as
a first product for the company.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: And how did you come up with the idea?
Right now, we know that RadioLine line is creating
this [INAUDIBLE] experience on YouTube.
How does the idea came from?
THOMAS SERVAL: Well, actually, I used to be a YouTuber
before, and one of the things that I had to do
is to travel a lot.
And I'm also a big radio fan.
So when I wanted to listen to my favorite radio, I was
watching a lot of YouTube channels, but I had to switch
to another website.
And also, I was doing other things while working, and I
wanted to listen to my favorite radio.
So I said this is stupid.
Why don't we use YouTube, which has a great search
engine, to find out what is going on live on radio and
make them available by live streaming?
So I started discussing with you guys, and you
came up with the API.
And we said, OK, now it's becoming possible.
So that's how we end up having this idea of making radios
available on YouTube.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: That's great.
Can you just show us a bit of the demo itself, the website
and the actual YouTube channel?
THOMAS SERVAL: Yeah, so with great pleasure.
It's a big task, so I just want to make
sure that we are not--
we are just available right now in France.
And let me share my screen and walk you through the
experience we envision.
So you have to speak a little bit of French, but I'm going
to do the real-time translation.
This is our website right now for French radio.
It's called youtube.com/radiolinefr, and
there's a little video that explains how it works.
I don't know if you can hear the sound.
But this is what you can do, is you can listen to any of
your favorite radio by searching it inside the
YouTube search engine.
So, for instance, one of my favorite radio could be
RTL or Europe 1.
And we have categorized all the radios.
So, for instance, I'm looking for [INAUDIBLE] containing
food, or I'm looking for talk radio, or
I'm looking for live.
So I will choose Europe 1, which is a news radio, and
live you can listen to what's going on on Europe 1.
And you have next to the title of the radio the metadata, so
what's actually on air.
And that's actually not so easy, so in real time, we are
changing the description of the video so people know
what's being aired at every moment.
And if you like this radio, then on the right side, you
have suggestion of other radio or other programs that are
live at the same time that you might be
interested in listening.
So I like news.
Maybe I want to listen to business news, so I will click
on the right side, and I will switch to the
news in real time.
And you see we have the programs that is on the bottom
left side with the name and the schedule.
So It gives a lot of information to the user so
they can navigate between their favorite radio programs.
So right now, this is available for 50 French
radios, but we are going to extend it to all news, talk,
and sports radio across the world in the coming months.
I think that's about it at the moment, but we are thinking
about adding new features.
And as soon as the new features are implemented also
in the Live API, we can enhance the
experience on the radio.
So we have a lot of feedback from earlier beta testers
about having more information being shown on the screen, and
it will automatically show more information about the
radio and the programming live.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: That's great, actually.
Maybe actually we can see a little bit from my own
computer and hear the audio and see one of the channels?
So let's go to Europe 1.
THOMAS SERVAL: I'll let you hear one of the channels.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: Thomas, explain it to the users--
THOMAS SERVAL: That's a French weather forecast.
They tell you that there is a little heat wave around
France, so I hope you want visit
this part of the country.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: So yeah, that like one of the
streams over there.
Yeah, maybe it's a good time to actually go in depth a
little bit about the API integrations.
Since you're already doing the live streaming using the Live
Stream platform for this, also you are one of the first
integrators of the API, maybe at this time somehow the CTO
of RadioLine can join me and can help explain about how the
integration went so far and what are the other
expectations on the API itself.
SAMUEL LANDAU: Hi.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: So how was your app implemented?
Can you talk a little bit?
SAMUEL LANDAU: So I sent you a diagram.
Maybe you can show it?
So basically, we have implemented connectors from
our RadioLine service that use the radio audio streams to
encode the video stream that we send to
YouTube Live Stream.
And on the other hand, we have made an automaton that
regularly updates the metadata for the
YouTube live broadcast.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: So actually, as well as your Live
Streaming, too, you are also updating the your metadata all
the time with your app, right?
SAMUEL LANDAU: Yes.
So the RadioLine service platform is providing this
metadata, and so we just had to make a program which is
both a client from RadioLine and a client to YouTube Live
APIs, and also encode this video with information and
creating metadata and the audio radio stream.
Actually, we had to do a quick [INAUDIBLE]
implementation, so we first made a PHP implementation.
So actually, that's a web service.
And our next implementation will be a [INAUDIBLE]
server with some back office functionalities I did.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: Was there anything surprising while you
were using the API itself?
Because actually you started really early testing the API,
even before the other uses.
SAMUEL LANDAU: Yes.
We had a lot of surprises.
But I was surprised by the swiftness of API updates on
YouTube behalf when they were requesting some new parameters
or functionality.
And like the day after or two days after, it was available,
so I was impressed.
Also, what surprised us a lot was the fast indexing of the
live broadcast.
Actually, the live broadcasts have this 24-hour limitation,
so we have to recreate them every day since
our radios are 24/7.
So every day, we recreate the live broadcasts, and we did
not expect for these live broadcasts to be indexed so
quickly in the YouTube engine.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: I see.
And for like a counterintuitive thing, you
actually mentioned about the 24-hour limitation, right?
You actually had to create your own, I think,
refresher for that?
SAMUEL LANDAU: Yes.
We had to make a kind of back office that permits this live
broadcast recreation to overcome the limitation.
While we understand that most live events are short-lived,
but for our needs, our specific needs as a RadioLine
service, we need it 24/7.
Radios do not stop streaming.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: I think you also ask it as a feature, and
hopefully, we may get to that.
Have you actually tried the other APIs, like data API?
And have you ever used the other APIs on
top of the Live Streaming?
SAMUEL LANDAU: Yes, actually.
Thomas mentioned the channel and the playlist.
We automated their management, so we are using that API
literally, actually.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: And can you give us a little bit more on
the feedback side or the other features you want to implement
and you want to see in the Live Streaming API, or could
be the data API or other APIs as well?
SAMUEL LANDAU: We plan on adding some back office
functionality so that we can offer a service to radios in
the streams.
So we will need richer live queue codes.
Today it's a bit limited.
Also, for live radios, the description includes the
program of the radio, so we will very much like to have a
description that updates in the user's screen.
Today they are static.
Also, we think it would be nice to have annotations like
in the YouTube service.
We understand that for live event, it has many new
constraints.
But we think it will be very nice.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: OK, great.
Maybe this time I can go back to my own screen and a little
bit summarize actually what they were doing at RadioLine.
As you know, YouTube has a Live Streaming platform, and
we also made available the API itself.
So by using the Live Streaming platform, they're actually
streaming all these videos they are sending to YouTube,
and actually those videos are available as live streaming.
And at the same time, what they did is they actually used
the API to create those events.
Other than creating them again and again, they actually use
an automation tool which they actually create all
this using the API.
They set the streams.
They were able to update all the metadata on top of them,
and they use it as creating the new events, or rather,
refreshing the events, and they use the
API from that side.
And I guess it was like the most of the talk, and maybe I
can just show a few other radios that are available from
the RadioLine.
As you guys see, they actually have not only one stream, they
actually have a few streams going on at the same time.
All the radios are available through the channel, which
they created multiple events in there on
their own YouTube channel.
And saying that, I guess that was most of the RadioLine and
how they use the Live Streaming API.
Thanks so much for joining me, guys, today.
It was really nice to hear you guys, and I know it was quite
also challenging a lot of you guys trying to be a tester,
development, and went so far to create an amazing platform
on top of the YouTube Live Streaming.
THOMAS SERVAL: Thank you very much--
SAMUEL LANDAU: Thank you.
THOMAS SERVAL: --for your app.
Thank you.
IBRAHIM ULUKAYA: Thanks a lot.
And before finishing, as you guys know, we are always
hiring almost everywhere around the world for the
Developer Relations Team.
Just go to developer.google.com/jobs, and
you will see all of the open positions.
Thanks a lot for joining me, guys.
Ibrahim Ulukaya from New York, thanks.