Livestream Reinvents Itself, Becomes the â€œNew Livestreamâ€�

**Waqas** · October 27, 2011

Livestream, the popular live streaming site which essentially coined the term, just announced a serious relaunch under the title “New Livestream.”

New Livestream will retain all the same video features of Livestream but with a suite of social and multimedia tools. Users and event hosts will now be able to combine streaming coverage with real-time photos, messages, social posts and video clips. This will make New Livestream much more interactive and immersive than its predecessor.

The new player will have adaptive video quality, meaning it will naturally scale video quality (up to 720p HD) depending on a user’s Internet connection or computer speed. Livestream has been known to overload with heavy traffic, causing videos to skip, pause or crash entirely. The adaptive tech should help create a more seamless viewing experience even if it might be a little blurry for some users.

Livestream has been duking it out with YouTube to be the top video site. It recently created channels and subscriptions, much the same way that YouTube does, while YouTube has been running more live-streamed concerts and events.

New Livestream is available as an open beta providing that users follow the content of Livestream’s launch partners, such as the Volvo Ocean Race. It’s not an ideal bargain, but it beats having to pay to get on the new platform. Web and mobile developer tools will be released in December along with a renewed focus on brand and event-based channels. The New Livestream will be fully open by April 2012 for free and premium users.

It’s clear that Livestream is trying to keep up with other video sites that have jumped ahead in terms of features and social integration. Can New Livestream help keep it relevant? Does Livestream have a chance of taking down YouTube? Is that even the point? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

More About: livestream, Social Media, Video

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