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"YouTube Live, a live-streamed YouTube event from San Francisco and Tokyo, kicks off at 5pm PST today.  Our question is: why?  What returns could YouTube see from a real-world event?\nSome ideas...  \n1.  Partnership / Launch Announcement - YouTube Live will be live streamed...but by whom?  Rumormongers break into two camps: YouTube's own technology, which could launch today, or a partnership with UStream.  \nBut announcing a live streaming product or partnership today would be remarkably poor timing: mainstream news is littered this weekend with stories of the Justin.tv suicide, which would overshadow any launch announcement from YouTube.\n2.  Hulu - YouTube challenger Hulu has been making strong progress all year: this week, for instance, there are claims that it will beat YouTube in revenue in 2009.  What better way to emphasize YouTube's traffic lead than to hold a globally-streamed event?\n3. MySpace - YouTube has many more competitors than Hulu, of course: it wants to be seen as a leader in grassroots music.  MySpace has emphasized its role in the indie music space with a series of \"Secret Shows\", so why not YouTube?  \n4.   Money? - Money is a good reason for any commercial entity to do anything.  Where's the money in YouTube Live?  Alas, nowhere to be seen.  Are the sponsors - Lionsgate, Guitar Hero, Flip and Virgin America - paying big bucks for the opportunity?  A recent AdWeek interview with YouTube's CMO suggests not.  How about converting traffic into an instant revenue driver as we sink lower into this economic downturn?  That too seems improbable: YouTube has yet to prove it can convert pageviews to profits. \n5.  General Consolidation of Success - Boring as it sounds, if there's no announcement of a live streaming service today, the only goal of the event may be a very public consolidation of YouTube's success as both a web video host and - more importantly - a powerful grassroots movement.  Like a political rally, YouTube Live may attempt to create a landmark moment for the web's democratic uprising.  \nOr, at least an excuse to leave your mom's basement.\n\n\n\n\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/11/22/youtube-live-why/>