YouTube’s live offering took a big step forward today, with the announcement that access to the feature will soon be available to a huge number of its partners. While YouTube Live was previously only available to a handful of handpicked channels and partners, the feature will now be rolled out to any YouTube channel in good standing with more than 1,000 subscribers.
The ability to stream live video could change the way that YouTube creators communicate with audiences, as they’re finally able to step beyond the current on-demand paradigm of uploading videos to the site. Now, they’ll be able to schedule live events, as well as launching impromptu live streams to be shared with their subscribers.
YouTube creators who qualify will get live transcoding in the cloud and the ability to stream multiple camera angles. YouTube, meanwhile, will take care of all the hard work on the back end to get those live streams to as many devices as possible.
