youtube to roll out live streaming to select partners

YouTube has been dabbling with live streaming across a variety of sectors in recent years — from concerts to Q&As with U.S. President Barack Obama — and now the video-sharing site is ramping up those efforts by expanding its live streaming efforts and opening them up to select partners.

Live video will be curated on a page dedicated to the medium, titled www.youtube.com/live, where users can find out what’s currently streaming, add events to their calendars and subscribe to channels so as to be notified of events.

The beta program will be gradually rolled out to partners in good standing with the site, allowing them to interact in real time with their audiences. Live streams will also feature a chat module so viewers can ask questions and give feedback, according to Josh Siegel, YouTube product manager.

“YouTube’s vision is to become the premiere destination for all video on the web,” says Chris Hamilton, product marketing manager. “This enables partners to have a deeper level of interactivity with the audience that they work so hard to build.”

Partners who could soon be live streaming content include select musicians, The Gregory Brothers, The Mystery Guitar Man, Rutgers University, Stanford University and select gaming channels. The first live stream will be The DigiTour: Live from Google HQ at 7 p.m. PDT, which is a touring show featuring popular YouTube musicians.

“We’re curious to see how our partners leverage and use this platform,” Hamilton says.

The team also told us that the site is working to bring live sports to YouTube but didn’t elaborate on specific deals. YouTube has already live streamed Indian Premier League cricket matches, and we’ve heard rumblingsthat other leagues soon might be featured on the site as well.

The team also declined to comment on recent rumors that YouTube will be upping its curation efforts by organizing its content into channels packed with professionally produced videos.

However, we can easily see live content fitting very well within the framework of such a curation effort, especially since YouTube is maintaining quality control by limiting who has access to live streaming capabilities.

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