RedOrbit reports about YouTube’s plans for live video, but most of the discussion since this Sarah Meyers Pop17 scoop (see below) has centered on the implications to networks.

Says RedOrbit: Back in February, US video blogger and self-styled chronicler of online celebrity Sarah Meyers sidled up to the YouTube founder, Steve Chen, at a New York party and secured something of a scoop. When asked by Meyers when YouTube was going to launch live video streaming, Chen said this had been a long-held ambition and one that was about to be fulfilled with the backing of his company’s deep- pocketed new owner. “Live video is just something that we’ve always wanted to do, but we’ve never had the resources to do it correctly,” he said. “Now with Google, we hope to actually do it this year.”

Sarah was focused more on the possibilities of iJustine and other “famous” first adopters of posting their lives live. Then the media turned its curiosity to live television shows appearing on YouTube, which seems to miss the point entirely (especially since we’re all moving to time-shifted television, and the “live” notion seems to be important only when the content is live, or so important we’ll need it to survive the morning’s water-cooler conversation. There’s an irony here, not unlike this image from the Jetsons. While we could envision flying cars, we couldn’t quite conceive that a TV set might get bigger and actually not need antennas.

If done correctly, live YouTube video can have some fairly significant impact on personal communication, and radically change the way we interact remotely (kinda like the telephone did).

Chronic YouTubers routinely meet on Stickam, a site that allows people to meet in “rooms” or conduct live video shows — where select viewers can appear via video while the rest can interact via chat and messaging.

Ad-supported live video streams could bring videoconferencing to the mainstream. It seems like just yesterday that I used a device and 56K modem so I could show my grandmother in New Orleans our newborn child (who is now almost 10). Now imagine a quick video call to with your teenager, where you can see their surroundings and ensure they’re sober. Could text messaging be a relic? Will a phone call some day seem as archaic as calling an operator to be patched to a neighbor?

Do you know I was invited to that NYC YouTube event in February, and bailed because I got swamped at the day job? Man do I have my priorities wrong. I would have so stalked Chen.