MUMBAI: Beware, Facebook and Periscope. YouTube is ready to ramp up a challenge with its live mobile closeup. Google-owned video network has began to let popular online video personalities broadcast on the go using mobile devices.

The new mobile live streaming feature allows YouTube content creators whose channels have more than 10,000 subscribers to broadcast through apps tailored for mobile devices such as smartphones.

According to product managers Barbara Macdonald and Kurt Wilms, this launch will put the power of live streaming in the hands of hundreds of thousands of talented creators, giving them a more intimate and spontaneous way to share their thoughts, lives and creativity.

The feature would be available more broadly at YouTube soon.

However, the functionality remains unchanged. As before, you can set a custom title, enable or disable live chat, and choose to send a notification to all of your subscribers. You can broadcast in portrait or landscape and messages will appear on your screen as fast-moving bubbles.

Facebook and Twitter have already added such capabilities to their mobile applications, getting an advantage on YouTube.

YouTube is banking on its reliability and rock-solid infrastructure to tempt people across, as well as a new Super Chat feature. Like Twitch and other live streaming services, this gives viewers the option to pay for a distinct, brightly colored message. It'll stay pinned to the top of the chat window for up to five hours, and earn creators another slice of cash as they converse with their fans in real-time.

Macdonald and Wilms said that Super Chat is like paying for that front-row seat in the digital age.

In December, Facebook began testing a live audio streaming service that will let people essentially broadcast radio-style on the leading online social network.

The new feature came as an alternative to a Facebook Live tool that lets people stream live video at the social network.

An audio-streaming option promised to be useful in areas where telecommunication networks have trouble handling the larger data demands of video streaming.