Livestream has just unveiled a major update to its streaming video service with features designed to increase social interaction and improve the quality of the streaming video experience. In addition to its streaming video platform, the New Livestream plans to integrate a feed containing any type of media the users wishes to share, such as text, photos, and shorter video clips — thanks to a chronological timeline, this new layout bears a lot of similarity to a Tumblr page that can also stream video. Other Tumblr-inspired social features include a dashboard showing updates across all followed channels and the ability to "like" or "reblog" content; it seems Livestream hopes this extended social will give it a leg up on competitors like Justin.tv and Ustream.

Other New Livestream features that should immediately benefit users include DVR-style functionality during live video streams for an easy way to catch video that might have been missed. It also will support automatic resolution adjustment up to 720p based on bandwidth and computer speed, similar to Netflix and Hulu's automatic bandwidth adjustments. Starting next month, a limited number of channels will be using the New Livestream as a beta test and so users can see the new functionality for themselves.  However, it'll be some time before we see how average users take advantage of these features — full rollout isn't scheduled until April 2012.