When it comes to live streaming services, YouTube has had one since 2011. Even then, we can’t say it’s been the greatest though. If you wanted to live stream through YouTube, you had to have a lot of technical know-how to do it. And to add to that, you couldn’t even do any live streaming on mobile devices Because of that, Facebook Live and Periscope have passed YouTube as the dominant live streaming platforms. But YouTube has had enough.
It was announced on Thursday during a keynote presentation at digital video event VidCon, YouTube has begun to enable live streaming within its mobile apps.
Basically, this love streaming feature of YouTube won’t be very different Facebook Live or Periscope. After clicking the record button in the YouTube app, users will be given the option to either record a video, or do a live broadcast. If the user decides to go live, then they’ll be given the chance to enter a video title, take a photo that will end up becoming the thumbnail, and then the live broadcast can begin.
With YouTube’s broadcasts, they seem to be more similar to Periscope, as shown in an on-screen demo, the video will take up the entirety of the screen with comments floating up vertically from the bottom-left corner of the screen.
Once the live recording finishes up, YouTube will make the video broadcast available for viewing at any time. Anybody who subscribes to a channel will receive a notification when the channel goes live.
According to Kurt Wilms, their product will lead for immersive experiences over Facebook Live and Periscope, as YouTube’s technical infrastructure is “faster and more reliable than anything else out there.”