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Today, we’ll also start gradually rolling out our live streaming beta platform, which will allow certain YouTube partners with accounts in good standing to stream live content on YouTube. The goal is to provide thousands of partners with the capability to live stream from their channels in the months ahead. In order to ensure a great live stream viewing experience, we’ll roll this offering out incrementally over time.
This is a very interesting strategic change to YouTube that Google is trying. By going to live streams and a new homepage, they are setting up the ability to force watching commercials and to focus some attention on professionally produced content instead of just homemade content. This has the potential to be huge and will likely introduce new competition to other streaming sites like hulu and even the network station sites themselves. 