YouTube today announced it’s streamlining the process of ‘going live’ with the platform’s live streaming feature. As part of the announcement, YouTube expressed how it’s well aware of the time and cost associated with starting a live stream, and to combat this the process has been reduced down to heading to the webcast page on YouTube and hitting “Go live.” At which point the software will take over and start a stream without the need for any additional software.
It is worth noting that this feature only applies to live streams created via a desktop and specifically through the Chrome browser. Though YouTube states it does plan to offer support for other browsers in time. Likewise, the expansion of this feature beyond desktop is another aspect that is currently in development with the company stating that it plans to bring a similar ease of use to Android. In fact, YouTube has now announced that it’s working with a number of smartphone makers to make the ability to “Go live” as easy as possible. For example, owners of “select devices from ASUS, LG, Motorola, Nokia and Samsung” will soon be able to launch a live stream from directly within the smartphone’s stock camera app. Although specifics on when this feature will go live – or any indication on which “select devices” – were not provided. YouTube, however, did state it plans to widen the availability to more Android devices as the year goes on. Essentially, once this feature becomes common place YouTube will be able to offer the ability to live stream quicker and easier than through any other similar service. As the user will not be required to even launch the YouTube app to do so.
This development represents the latest improvement to the company’s live streaming service that has been slowly expanding over the last year. For example, last month YouTube announced a number of other improvements such as automatic captions for live streams, as well as the ability for those watching a live stream after it has finished to still maintain a ‘live’ experience through the use of its new chat replay feature.