YouTube Connect Tipped To Be Google's Answer To Periscope

Live streaming is now a thing. Although Meerkat, which helped catapult that activity, has called it quits, others have been more than happy to take its place. And by others, we mainly mean Twitter's Periscope or Facebook's newer Live Video feature. YouTube, which is easily considered to be the top dog in video streaming, isn't going to be left behind. According to sources, Google has been hard at work on an app aptly named YouTube Connect, which could help spread the service beyond its conventional video, and even music, streaming activities.

Truth be told, the seeds of this app have already been planted since last year or even earlier. When Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 5 and Galaxy S6 edge+, it included the YouTube Live Broadcast feature that indeed let owners do a livestream broadcast from their smartphones. Sony would later add a similar feature to some of its Xperia handsets. And even before that, the HTC Re camera provided a similar feature.

While YouTube remains a household name when it comes to Internet video, its reign is slowly but surely being threatened by new trends in video content creation and consumption. The rise of livestreaming, both of events and even games has seen YouTube's share of the market nibbled by the likes of Twitter, Facebook, and long time rival Twitch. For the latter, YouTube has stepped up its presence in the gaming scene with YouTube Gaming. Now it is trying to do the same for livestreaming in general.

YouTube does already support livestreaming technically, but its support has been very limited. Those interested would have to use the Creator Studio software and even then the feature isn't available to all users. In theory, the YouTube Connect app would be available for all.

Features of the app would include live chat, tagging, and a features list to see what others are also broadcasting. One feature that would set YouTube Connect apart from the competition is that broadcasts can be viewed on any browser, not just within the app. Broadcasters will also be able to optionally save the broadcasts for archiving and availability after the stream has ended, though there is no information on how long those archived broadcasts will last. Twitch came under a lot of criticism after it put rather severe caps on past broadcasts.

Naturally, Google refused to comment on the rumor.

VIA: VentureBeat