VentureBeat has the scoop on another YouTube service: YouTube Connect. Connect would be a livestreaming service which would take on "spur-of-the-moment" live video services like Facebook Live and Twitter's Periscope.

The report says the service would include apps on Android and iOS with "much of the same functionality" as Periscope and Facebook Live. Streaming would be immediate and paired with chat and "tagging" features. There is supposedly even a "news feed" that would list videos from friends and your YouTube subscriptions. Live broadcasts would be saved for later on-demand viewing and would show up on the content creator's YouTube channel.

The new service would be yet another expansion of the YouTube brand and app lineup. Including Connect, YouTube's video empire would be spread across a whopping seven apps: the regular YouTube app, YouTube Gaming, YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, YouTube Creator Studio, and YouTube Capture. There is also the umbrella subscription service YouTube Red.

We'd imagine YouTube already has most of the live streaming technology nailed down with YouTube Gaming, its livestreaming service for video games. With Connect added to the stable of YouTube live services, YouTube would offer solutions for spur-of-the-moment single-camera streaming, more coordinated event-focused live streaming on YouTube.com, and Twitch-style gaming with YouTube Gaming.

It's unclear if Connect will also cover the rising market for "creative" streaming—live streams that feature people making art, music, cooking, and other non-gaming activities. "Creative" and "Gaming" streams follow pretty much the same format: there is a larger camera feed for the current task, a second smaller camera feed of the streamer, and a chat room for communication. In fact, Twitch slapped a "creative" category onto the service last year with basically no changes and everything went rather well. Twitch's branding—while it originates from the phrase "twitch gameplay"—doesn't necessarily scream "games only," so adding a "creative" section wasn't much of a stretch. YouTube Gaming doing the same would seem out-of-place, since the branding is much more exclusionary when it comes to non-gaming content. Perhaps YouTube Connect will also add a desktop-focused dual-camera mode to pick up the slack.

As for timing, the site doesn't have anything specific, but it speculates that "a launch before Google’s I/O developer conference in May seems likely."