Los Angeles — After etching its mark with pre-recorded videos, YouTube, the Google owned popular video-sharing site, has announced the launch of YouTube Live, which consists of a new live-streaming platform to complement its catalog of recorded videos.
It is official: Executives late last week introduced YouTube Live, which combines live-streaming capabilities into the YouTube platform. Now no longer will YouTube be the place you pore over pop videos resurrected from your wild-eyed youth, or scan viral videos of hilarious/adorable animals doing things that may or may not be hilarious or adorable. As of today, the site’s going real time, adding a new page focused on live streams:
“Today we are unveiling the initial roll-out of YouTube Live, which consistes of live streaming capabilities and discovery tools directly into the YouTube platform for the first time. This begins with a new YouTube Live browse page (www.youtube.com/live), where you can always find the most compelling live events happening on YouTube and add events to your calendar. Subscribe to your favorite YouTube live-streaming partners to be notified of upcoming live streams on your customized homepage.”
“With over 2 billion views a day, it is easy to think about YouTube as a place to watch videos recorded in the past,” it said in a blog post. “But you have told us you want more — and that includes events taking place right now. In response, we have live streamed a number of popular concerts, sporting events, and interviews, but primarily on a one-off basis.”
The move marks a big shift in the functionality of the video-hosting service, which so far has been designed to let users upload videos they’ve already taken. Under the new system, they can simply hit a button and be streaming video live to other users.
In a post today announcing the feature, the company said the new live feature is only being introduced to a chosen group of users, specifically YouTube partners.
“The aim is to provide thousands of partners with the capability to live stream from their channels in the months ahead. In order to ensure a great live stream viewing experience, we will also start gradually rolling out our live streaming beta platform to stream live content on YouTube,” wrote YouTube’s Joshua Siegel, a product manager, and Christopher Hamilton, a product marketing manager, in a blog post.
YouTube Live will definitely offer television watchers much more content to choose from. This has the potential to make TV incredibly social, based on the simple fact that this is YouTube — the mother of all online video.