In just under eight hours, YouTube will begin celebrating its first live streamed event in San Francisco with a concert and party intended to celebrate its user community
Celebrities, Web celebs and major artists, including the mad scientists from the Mythbusters crew, will.i.am, Lisa Nova, Michael Buckley, and Joe Satriani will be joining the celebrations, and YouTube will be offering three live streams direct from its Live channel.
While YouTube hasn’t made any formal announcements about an ongoing live streaming service, we expect today may bring an end to the rumors in the form of an announcement confirming a statement Steve Chen made to Sarah Meyer earlier this year. When asked: “When are you guys gonna do live video on YouTube?” Chen replied:
“Live video is just something that we’ve always wanted to do, we’ve never had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to launch something this year,” answered Chen.
Perhaps today is the day.
While there has been much speculation surrounding today’s event, Google’s ability to stream live today indicates that they’ve stepped up their efforts in regard to the service. YouTube, now the second largest search engine, has been ramping up this year and its recent efforts to monetize the service, with both Adsense and YouTube embeds clearly point to the importance they now place on the service.
You’ll be able to watch online or on your mobile device, but if you want to take part in the action, you’ll need to head down to Fr Mason, Herbst Pavillion, San Francisco. Doors open at 4 p.m. and close at 4.45 p.m. so be early if you don’t want to miss out. The show begins at 5 p.m. PST.
Update: Thanks to Andrew for pointing out in the comments that tickets are no longer available.
