YouTube adds live streaming to mobile app

ANAHEIM, CALIF.— Add online video pioneer YouTube to the list of apps offering live mobile video streaming.

Facebook Live and Twitter’s Periscope have emerged as the go-to places for broadcasting live on a mobile phone, leaving Google-owned YouTube out of the picture. Not any more. YouTube said this week it too will begin offering mobile streaming from its app.

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said streaming was something the company had been doing since 2011 for desktop, and that live video streaming has increased greatly in the last six months. “We’ve seen a tripling of live streaming,” she said.

Asmall group of creators have been invited to begin testing the feature, which will roll out to all YouTube app users later this year.

YouTube is the world’s biggest video network, with one billion viewers monthly, but has seen rivals Facebook and communications app Snapchat steal its video thunder. Facebook says some eight billion videos are viewed daily, while Snapchat claims 10 billion.

However, both count views in short bursts—in as little as three seconds for Facebook. Wojcicki said YouTube doesn’t care about views, but instead watch time, which is up 50 per cent year-over-year, she said.

“It could be you encourage a viewer to click on something but not really watch it, so we don’t focus on that as a metric,” she said. “We think that focusing on user engagement and watch time is the right metric.”

Of the increased competition from Facebook, Snapchat and other video players, she said it validates YouTube’s pioneering work in the industry. “We’ve been at it a long time,” she said. “Competition leads to innovation. We love it.”