Mountain View (CA) - Thanks to its financial backing from Google, Youtube now plans to offer live video streaming by the end of 2008.

Steve Chen, co-founder of the popular video sharing site, told Pop17.com at a recent PR event, "Live video is just something that we've always wanted to do. We've never had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to actually launch something this year."

Google acquired the site last year for over $1.5 billion.

The feature would allow users to submit video through an Internet-connected video camera, like a webcam, to stream live content to viewers across the Web with more features than traditional webcam features.

A few other websites, like Justin.tv, already allow live streaming, with real-time text chatting and a unique URL. Other services include Ustream and Mogulus.