YouTube goes 'live' with new streaming capability

To accommodate its users who want to see events taking place “right now," video-sharing site YouTube went live starting Friday, streaming live events from its partners. YouTube, which said it gets over two billion views a day, said it had live-streamed a number of popular concerts, sporting events, and interviews before, but mainly on a one-off basis. “Today we’re announcing the initial roll out of YouTube Live, which will integrate live streaming capabilities and discovery tools directly into the YouTube platform for the first time. This begins with a new YouTube Live browse page, where you can always find the most compelling live events happening on YouTube and add events to your calendar," it said in a blog post. Also, YouTube started rolling out its live streaming beta platform, which will allow certain YouTube partners with accounts in good standing to stream live content on YouTube. It said the goal is to provide thousands of partners with the capability to live stream from their channels in the months ahead. YouTube started testing its new live-streaming platform in September 2010 with four partners: Howcast, Next New Networks, Rocketboom and Young Hollywood. Included in the test was a “Live Comments" module that lets one engage with the broadcaster and the broader YouTube community. “All broadcasters need is a webcam or external USB/FireWire camera," it said.