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Though live streaming has been on YouTube since 2011 in different forms, up until now it has been primarily for popular accounts using a computer or during special events that relayed a professional broadcast feed. For example, millions tuned in to watch the Royal wedding back in 2011, according to Google, while more than one-sixth of the Internet watched the Red Bell space jump live on YouTube. In a new statistic released by the company Tuesday, the number of creators live streaming daily on YouTube has increased four times year-over-year.

The difference with Tuesday’s announcement is that creators who meet the minimum subscriber threshold will now be able to hit a button in the iOS or Android app and quickly stream to viewers from their phone — a move that directly takes on Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc in the mobile live streaming space.

“We’ve been working with hundreds of creators to test the product and we’ve done some pretty cool things to make it useful, incorporate their feedback and ultimately make it a very useful tool for our creators to engage with their fans,” said Wilms. These features include improving the quality of the stream even when signal strength is poor, quickly reacting to and filtering viewer comments, plus adding fun filters on the video itself, he said.

Paying for attention

Another live streaming feature YouTube is releasing on Tuesday is Super Chat, which will let viewers pay real money to have their comments in the chatroom literally rise above the rest — an option some may find useful if there are thousands of others watching the stream as well.