Sources: Google building Periscope-like live streaming app YouTube Connect for iOS and Android
Google is building YouTube Connect, a live streaming app to take on Periscope — Google has quietly been building a new live streaming app called YouTube Connect, VentureBeat has learned.
Context & Ripple Effects
Periscope's rise has been fast and Twitter-centric: after acquisition talks in early 2015, Twitter shipped the app on Android that May and was developing an Apple TV viewing app by September, making it the default name in mobile livestreaming.
Google's reported answer is YouTube Connect, a standalone iOS and Android app built in the Periscope mold rather than a feature buried in the existing YouTube app — notable because YouTube would only months later announce live streaming inside its own mobile app for select creators.
First-order effects
- Periscope gains a direct rival backed by the largest video platform and the default mobile OS, competing for the same broadcasters on both iOS and Android.
Second-order effects
- Twitter must decide whether Periscope stays a standalone brand or gets absorbed — a question its later move to add live broadcasting directly into the Twitter apps effectively answered, with Periscope kept on as a separate app.
Third-order effects
- If platform owners keep cloning standalone live apps, the category consolidates around distribution: whoever owns the OS or the default video destination wins, and independent live apps survive only as niches.
The trend: Live streaming is shifting from standalone apps like Periscope toward features embedded in the major platforms' core apps, with Google and Twitter both pulling it in-house.