YouTube Plans To Launch Live-Streaming November 22
"Of course something could go wrong and they might not launch it," say our source, who nevertheless says YouTube employees talk of the new service's launch as a foregone conclusion.
A YouTube spokesperson told us: "We're working with a third party to live-stream our event called Live. We have no product to announce at this time."
Live streaming is very expensive and hard to monetize. A Google source told us in August that YouTube execs figure that if just 10% of YouTube's users adopted live streaming, bandwidth costs would go up 20% to 25%.
That's because live-streaming clips tend to last much longer than the short video clips typical of YouTube. They also require data to pass both ways.
It's also hard to make money off live-streaming. Advertisers don't want to put their brands against live content created by uncontrollable YouTube users.
One possibility that we feel Google shareholders should root for: YouTube will launch live streaming as a service for paying customers only.
See Also:
YouTube Launching Live Streaming Service -- Or Something
Will be interesting to see what Google does differently & whether or not it succeeds.
There is supposed to be some kind of "live" show at Fort Mason in San Francisco.
They'd be better served to buy Ustream than compete. Live is a totally different business it seems to me.