Google is reportedly working on a live-streaming app that will directly compete with Twitter's Periscope and Facebook's Live.
Live-streaming is a trend in social media that has only been around for a year but is catching on with younger audiences, whose media consumption habits demand instant information.
Google does not want to be left behind.
The new app will be called YouTube Connect, according to VentureBeat, which spoke to a source within Google. The tech giant has not yet confirmed the move.
Periscope, owned by Twitter, was launched a year ago and has become one of the more popular live-broadcasting apps. Within four months, it had over 10 million accounts on the platform. At the beginning of August 2015, 40 years' worth of video was being watched each day.
"Although live-streaming remains a relatively niche activity at the moment, Periscope's strength lies in its young demographics - 41% of users are aged 16-24 and three in four of them are under 35. That the app has a young and content-hungry audience is thus plain to see," says research firm GlobalWebIndex.
Earlier this month, Facebook opened its live-broadcasting feature to all users and rearranged its algorithm to make sure live videos appear at the top of users' news feeds.
Facebook has 1.59 billion people now using the social network each month and 90% of users do so via mobile devices. This is in contrast to Twitter's 320 million user base.
YouTube also has over one billion users and has the advantage of already being a video platform.
Both Periscope and Live work by providing the viewer with a first-person view of the person or event. During the broadcast, users will see the number of live viewers, the names of friends who are tuning in, and a real-time stream of comments.
YouTube Connect is set to work similarly.
It is predicted YouTube Connect will be unveiled at the Google developers' conference in May.
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