According to a report from VentureBeat, Google is working to compete more directly with live streaming app Periscope. The report claims that Google will launch an app called YouTube Connect that will allow anyone to immediately begin broadcasting live onto YouTube from their smartphone.

From the way it sounds, YouTube Connect will be a direct competitor to Periscope and Facebook Live. Live video streams will support chatting/comments, tagging, as well as a central “news feed” that shows highlights from recent live streams done by your friends or people to whom you subscribe on YouTube.

Live streams will be supported in the YouTube Connect app (which will be available on iOS and Android) and the normal YouTube app, as well as on the desktop. Replays will be available if the streamer so chooses and can be watched either in the YouTube Connect app or on the desktop. As of right now, however, the app apparently lacks integration with Twitter and Facebook, so users will have to manually share the links to their streams on their respective social network accounts.

YouTube Connect will allow for Google to seriously compete with Periscope and Facebook Live, something it has been attempting to do for quite some time. Speaking to Wired last August, YouTube executive Manuel Bronstein teased that YouTube was seriously interested in live streaming, but the company has been quiet on those plans ever since then:

“Broadly speaking, we think about YouTube being synonymous with video…live has always been a part of video, and it’s actually always a very exciting part.”

While exact details of a launch for YouTube Connect are unclear at this point, it’s likely not too far off in the distance given the number of details that have already been revealed. The app will be available on both iOS and Android and will presumably free. Would you be interested in a live streaming app from YouTube? Let us know in the comments.

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