YouTube Live coming soon to take on Twitch

As some of you surely remember YouTube has its sights set on Twitch – the popular game streaming platform, and was on the verge of paying $1 billion to own it last year. The online video giant has surely recognized the growing popularity of online streams and has likely not given up on its goals to enter the market.

Seeing how the deal was cancelled, allegedly due to “antitrust concerns” and Twitch was acquired by Amazon, for the sum of $970 million it is only natural that YouTube is looking at other options to deliver the service. A new report has surface, stating that the company is already hard at work on a new YouTube Live platform, which will focus on live streaming games and e-sports.

And if you are thinking to yourself that YouTube already has streaming, you would definitely be right, but the key new concept here is introducing the right marketing strategy to draw in major content creators, partners and, consequently, viewers. This, however, does not mean there are no technical challenges, associated with launching a new large-scale streaming service. And, reportedly, Google has already addressed that by hiring 50 engineers, with experience in the field, to work on the project.

Nothing is official yet about YouTube Live and all we have heard so far are hints and little bits of information. Still, the plan does seem quite plausible and if everything goes well and Google acquires the right partners and exclusive content, the new platform might really give Twitch a run for its money. The key here is, undoubtedly, captivating the young generation. Twitch seems to be getting it right as the platform has become very “hip” among gamers and trends are often tough to combat, even with the best marketing plan.

There is no better testament to this, than the fact that YouTube has been trying its hand at game streaming for a few years now and has been covering the League of Legends Championship series since 2013. This, however, has yielded questionable levels of success, as most viewers still opt for Twitch to watch the tournament. We’ll see if the new approach by YouTube does anything to change that.

Source | Via