According to recent reports, video-sharing platform YouTube is preparing to bring back a live-streaming feature.
First reported on The Daily Dot, the Google-owned site has been looking in particular at the rise of eSports, where people watch others playing video games. However, a tool for enabling live streaming would also come in handy for internet marketing professionals that want to broadcast the launch of a new product and traditional online news providers.
The streaming of live events first came to YouTube in 2010, when it broadcast a number of Indian Premier League cricket matches. Since then, however, the feature has fallen to the wayside, with any mention of live events having reportedly been removed from YouTube’s home page by early 2014.
Since then, the huge rise in eSports, which has seen some YouTubers such as Felix Kjellberg, better known as PewDiePie, reach near celebrity status, has made the platform look again at the medium. In fact, the gamer, who has more than 23 million subscribers to his channel, is believed to make around $1.4m (£944,800) a month from advertising revenue.
However, the social site may have an uphill struggle to compete with live-streaming platform Twitch, which Amazon beat parent company Google to in 2014.
It is believed that an announcement about the updated YouTube service will be made at the E3 gaming expo in June. However, after The Daily Dot reached out to Google’s press wing for any confirmation, the official response was an animated GIF of a toddler performing a non-committal shrug.
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