YouTube Hints At Plans To Distribute Content Direct To Users’ Mobile Phones Next Year
You Tube’s co-founder Steve Chen revealed his plans – albeit sketchy - for the future, which include enabling access to the video-sharing site on mobile phones by next year, the AP reports. It’s not clear how this might compete with or complement the YouTube service already offered by mobile operators Vodafone and Verizon, for example. The company’s stated intention to allow greater mobile access to its content signals a shift in its strategy. Indeed, until now YouTube has barred redistrubtion of its content (even going to far as to lock out an encoding company that enabled access) and let mobile operators partners play the role of gatekeeper.
The idea is for sites such as YouTube to provide “richer content and greater mobility,” Chen said in his address at the Web 2.0 summit in Taipei. He mentioned that commuters on subways or buses are likely to access videos of between 30 to 60 seconds each, while users on longer train journeys might want to view files of up to 10 minutes in length.
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Comments (4)
Jun 12, 2007 6:38 AM
The slow march of ‘off deck’ mobile conent’ continues.
Jun 13, 2007 2:58 PM
Youtube’s goal to provide richer content and greater mobility fits well with what off-deck mobile content sharing services are already providing to users in the US and international.
Jun 15, 2007 11:49 AM
Nothing new
There is already a mobile video application called blueapple.mobi that lets mobile users search and watch ALL types of internet videos on their mobile phones. It is similar in concept to video applications such as Bebo®, YouTube®, Yahoo® video, MSN® video, etc. where a user can search for and watch internet videos on their PC, even user generated videos.
The application is very simple to use. A user just goes to http://www.blueapple.mobi on their mobile phone, they can search for any video content they would like to watch. Blueapple will return to the user, a list of all relevant videos. Blueapple will either stream or download the video depending on the user’s phone and operator parameters.
Jun 24, 2007 11:17 AM
Thanks Jay - I’ll check it out