YouTube spoke about plans for 2021 – the service will receive paid applause, a marketplace and will compete with TikTok
Now it’s hard to imagine what the Internet once did without such a popular video service as YouTube. It’s worth noting that Google-owned video hosting is constantly evolving to follow rapidly changing market trends. The company shared its efforts in recent years to bring YouTube the way we know it and share its plans to develop its service this year.
And first of all, navigation was rethought. Over the past few years, the YouTube team has introduced a new design for the desktop version of the site, bringing many useful and convenient features for mobile devices. More updates are planned this year and available across platforms to make it easier for users to enjoy their favorite content. One of these innovations should be the function of the automatic division of popular videos into fragments (chapters) for ease of navigation. Now the author must share the video. Besides, YouTube plans to make the design of the tablet app more user-friendly.
The service is constantly working on adding support for new formats. In 2020, when many people were forced to stay at home, the popularity of channels such as AirPano VR, which allows you to travel from the couch, has grown in popularity. This year, the company plans to launch a new, more user-friendly, and well-thought-out design for the YouTube VR homepage, significantly improving the navigation experience.
Although YouTube is most commonly used on mobile devices, the fastest growing area of the service is YouTube TV. Several years after its launch, YouTube TV has over three million paying subscribers. It allows users to watch their favorite shows and download them to their devices to watch later offline. This year, YouTube TV will have additional options such as watching content in 4K resolution and streaming it to an unlimited number of devices at home. Besides, the YouTube Music service is developing steadily. The company said it would introduce more features this year for users who enjoy creating their own playlists.
YouTube does not forget about children. In 2015, a special YouTube Kids service was launched, allowing parents to protect their children from inappropriate content. This year, the service will give them more options and will allow parents to add individual videos and channels from “big” YouTube to the list of content their children can view.
The innovations will also affect content creators. Users who want to join the creator community but doubt that they can produce an interesting lengthy video can try their hand at making short videos thanks to the Shorts tool, which is already in beta testing in India. The feature is reported to be highly popular. The number of Indian users using Shorts has more than tripled in the past three months. Besides, Shorts has seen daily views of 3.5 billion videos.
According to the latest data, YouTube plans to launch the US service next month to compete with TikTok, which is the undisputed leader among services based on the publication of short videos. Recall that for the same purpose last year, Instagram launched a similar service called Reels. The main difference between YouTube Shorts and TikTok is that the maximum clip length is only 15 seconds.
More than a decade ago, YouTube launched an affiliate program that allows creators to make money from published content. This year, the video service plans to provide content creators with even more ways to get rewarded for their work. YouTube is already testing the Applause feature, which will allow viewers to applaud their favorite author for a fee virtually.
Besides, YouTube plans to turn the platform into a marketplace so that users of the service will purchase goods from videos that they like without leaving the video hosting service. YouTube says its main mission is to “give everyone a chance to speak up and show them the world,” and this year, the company will put a lot of effort into meeting that motto even more.
