360-degree videography has been picking up steam lately, especially with Google fully supporting and promoting virtual business tours on map listings and place pages. As of this week Google has added yet another tool to the 360-degree video arsenal – full support from Youtube. PC/Mac users utilizing the Google Chrome browser are able to use their mouse to drag the point of view around in a 360-degree video. Furthermore modern Android devices using the Youtube app can simply move their phone or tablet around to see all the different angles of a specific video. iPhone and iPad users should get to experience this shortly.
As far as how to get your 360-degree video onto Youtube? Unfortunately that’s not fully automatic yet. Youtube is currently partnered up with Bublcam, Giroptic’s 360cam, IC Real Tech’s Allie, Kodak’s SP360 and RICOH THETA cameras. Once you’ve recorded your video utilizing one of these cameras you’ll also need to run this script on your video file to add the correct metadata.