Dive Brief:
- YouTube Executive Susan Wojicki presented a new design for the video platform's mobile website and app at VidCon last week.
- According to Wojciki, YouTube has three priorities in focus: “mobile, mobile and mobile.”
- Separately, content creators still have concerns about YouTube’s ad-free paid subscription service, which is expected to push forward.
Dive Insight:
Video and mobile is a major trend in marketing right now with both YouTube and Facebook making regular announcements about new mobile video features and advertising options. At last week’s VidCon, YouTube's Wojciki announced that the streaming video service's new mobile design provides users with three panes, instead of the previous one in an effort to make it easier to find videos to watch. The new design is already available on Android and the iOS version is expected to roll out soon.
One area where content creators and YouTube still have some differences is over its ad-free paid subscription version. YouTube requires any video uploaded to be made available for both the subscription and free ad-supported versions meaning any videos opting out of the paid version will not be presented on the free version.
About the reasoning behind the move, Wojciki told the Wall Street Journal, “It’s important that there is parity, meaning that all content that was on the ad-supported service is available for our users on subscription. It doesn’t make sense from a user perspective to pay and then get less.”
Time spent watching video on YouTube is up 60% year over year.
