First Look: YouTube's Live Streaming Platform

Monday, 13 September 2010 06:49

First Look: YouTube's Live Streaming Platform

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The first program to appear YouTube's new live video streaming platform was RocketBoom, at 11am ET on Monday. The test continues until Tuesday.

Google’s YouTube began

testing live video streams on Monday, starting with four partners: Howcast, Next New Networks, Rocketboom and Young Hollywood. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?

This live streaming alpha test — an extension of YouTube’s previous live streaming efforts that will run throughout Monday and Tuesday — marks, for internet-accustomed viewers, a return to pre-TiVo television guides that required you to tune in at a certain time in order to watch a particular show.

Broadcasters need only a computer, an internet connection and webcam or USB/Firewire-connected digital video camera to participate, technically speaking. However, during this week’s test, only the four launch partners’ shows will be included. “Eventually, depending on how the launch works, we’ll roll out the [live streaming] platform for all partners,” YouTube spokesman Chris Dale told Wired.com. But already, the potential for a live, two-way video platform is clear.

“According to industry research from ComScore, over the past year, viewers watching live-streaming content grew nearly 650 percent to 1.4 billion minutes,” said HowCast CEO and co-founder Jason Liebman in a statement, whose company will broadcast live tutorials using the platform. “Clearly viewers are growing more comfortable with and interested in live content broadcasts.”

This time around, the ‘tube will watch you too.

The biggest difference between the traditional television and Google’s offering (aside from the fact that the video travels over the internet rather than over a dedicated cable or satellite connection) is that viewers can point the camera at themselves, to appear on the video page in a live video comments section, according to YouTube. They can also have their say in a scrolling chat feed on the right side of the screen, which only appears during the live broadcast.

On one side of the equation, this gives broadcasters on a shoestring budget the same ability to broadcast live that the big news networks have.

But the other side — allowing viewers to interact live via webcam and chat in the same browser where they’re watching a show, rather than commenting on the web on one device while watching television on another — is perhaps more important breakthrough. It allows users to suggest story ideas, prod a live host into asking an interviewee a follow-up question, call out inaccurate facts, and otherwise enhance a broadcast with their opinions, all in real time.

When all of this happens through a Google TV set-top box — possibly with a connected webcam — the possibilities could explode. Google revealed last week that Chrome-powered Google TV set-top boxes, televisions and Blu-Ray players will go on sale this fall, with Android apps to be added in 2011, so we shouldn’t have to wait long until we can watch — and comment on — live YouTube streams on our big-screen televisions.

We noticed some video hiccups during the first program to appear on this new platform, RocketBoom. But the accompanying audio was never interrupted, adding continuity even when the video’s framerate dropped. Some viewers commented that they too had minor issues with the stream, possibly related to bandwidth issues. In addition, RocketBoom’s show didn’t have any live video comments, so it’s too early to say how those will perform.

This is a test. This is only a test. Had this been an actual launch of YouTube’s live streaming platform, more programming would presumably be available. For now, here’s the schedule indicating what’s on, and when — just like in the olden days:

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