Recent reports indicate that YouTube is developing a mobile live streaming app that will rival Twitter's Periscope and Facebook Live. According to VentureBeat, this new app is called YouTube Connect and it comes with the essential features of mobile live-streaming apps such as tagging and chat.
There are rumors that the video streaming company will unveil YouTube Connect on iOS and Android with the capacity to stream and record video, and also view videos made by others.
The app will also enable users to view live video streams on YouTube.com the same way it will allow viewing its current live broadcasts. With similar features, this new app has poised itself as a rival to the apps of Twitter and Facebook.
However, it has no groundbreaking features as it has only the same capabilities that allow users to chat, tag each other and archive content apart from showing live video streams.
YouTube already offers live streaming capabilities coursed through its Creator Studio. However, CS is limited and does not provide the intuitiveness offered by Periscope which most celebrities prefer to use.
There is still no word from the San Bruno, CA-based company as to when it will roll out this new app on iOS and Android. VenturaBeat, an online source for news on tech innovations makes a guess that this will happen before Google I/O in the middle of May, this year.
YouTube Connect is reportedly able to store video broadcast on smartphones, but it is not clear if users can also retain these broadcasts online for future playback. However, considering YouTube's nature, this is more than likely.
There is one thing that is lacking in YouTube Connect though - integration that will allow the outside world to know if the user is broadcasting. This is a feature of both Facebook Live and Twitter's Periscope. It will be difficult to communicate with someone who is broadcasting live if he is not able to publicize his broadcast.
