Twitch to launch mobile live streaming support in 2017

Twitch has been slowly making moves to compete more directly with YouTube. Today, it announced a new channel devoted to streamers talking about nearly anything they want, and it plans to offer support for live streaming via its mobile apps sometime in 2017.

Until today, the vast amount of video content on Twitch was devoted to gaming. Now, the service is giving its content creators a way to expand what they talk about, besides streaming Minecraft videos, via the new “IRL” channel. Twitch says that users can post either live or recorded videos where they can talk about nearly everything they want. There will be certain restrictions, though. Videos with unattended content won’t be allowed, neither will adult-only content.

The mobile live streaming support will likely still be home to a lot of gaming-related content from its users, but any clips from the mobile app will automatically default to the “IRL” channel when the update is released. Twitch is currently signing up users who want to participate in a closed beta test can do so by signing up at its website.

Twitch currently has over two million broadcasters and 100 million monthly viewers, and these latest moves represent perhaps the biggest threat to YouTube yet.