It?s Real: YouTube Debuts Live Streaming Platform With Two-Day Test

The rumors were true: after months ?�years, even ?�of speculation, YouTube is preparing to launch a full-fledged live streaming platform, enabling its content parters to stream their video directly to users in real-time. This will put the service in direct competition with the likes of Ustream, Justin.tv, and Livestream. �We recently caught screenshots of a live streaming option in the wild that YouTube only made available to its politics-oriented channel CitizenTube. Obviously it has much bigger plans for the feature.

Beginning Monday morning and running through Tuesday night, four select YouTube partners ?�Next New Networks, Howcast, Young Hollywood, and Rocketboom ? will be streaming live footage on YouTube (you can see a full listing of what they're broadcasting in the widget above Update: The widget is currently broken on Google's end). But don't get too excited just yet: this is only an alpha test, and YouTube will be taking the live streaming functionality down after the two-day trial. However, the company has confirmed that it plans to eventually offer live streaming to all of its content partners (it may just take a while to get there).

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