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YouTube redesigns mobile experience

Lauren Kate Rawlins
By Lauren Kate Rawlins, ITWeb digital and innovation contributor.
Johannesburg, 27 Jul 2015
YouTube's updated mobile app makes it easier for users to find videos and create them.
YouTube's updated mobile app makes it easier for users to find videos and create them.

YouTube will redesign its mobile experience, as more than half of all views on the video platform now take place on mobile devices.

This was announced by YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki at the VidCon conference in California last week.

According to YouTube statistics, there are more than a billion people worldwide who make use of the video platform, more than half of all YouTube views are on mobile devices, and mobile revenue on YouTube is up over 100% year-on-year.

Three new tabs will be introduced to the YouTube mobile apps to make it easier to find videos and create them: home, subscriptions and account. The home tab will feature an intelligent list of videos, chosen for the user based on their watch history. The subscriptions tab will show the latest videos from channels subscribed to, with the option of getting a notification when a new video is released. In the account tab, users can see their watch history and every video they have uploaded.

The app also allows users to record and upload their own videos with the option to trim the video, add filters and music, and upload the video - all from within the app.

The update is available on the Android app and mobile Web, while an iOS version is said to be coming soon. More features are to be released before the end of this year, say product managers Matt Darby and Omri Amarilio in a blog post.

YouTube is the second most popular social network in South Africa after Facebook, according to the SA Social Media Landscape 2015 report, by World Wide Worx and Fuseware. By August 2014, YouTube had reached an active user base of 7.2 million South Africans.

"We're seeing the beginning of the visual revolution in online usage in South Africa," World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck previously said. "Once the cost of mobile data comes down for the emerging smartphone market, video will become a dominant medium, strongly supported by other visual media."

Diamond users

Wojcicki also announced the video sharing platform will award YouTube creators who have more than 10 million subscribers with a diamond playback button.

Creators with more than one million subscribers are currently given a gold button and those with more than 100 000 receive a silver button.

Under 40 accounts have enough subscribers to qualify for the diamond button.

Wojcicki went on to say the hours of content now uploaded to YouTube every minute has gone up from 300 to over 400 hours this year.

The number of advertisers running video ads is up more than 40% since 2014, and the advertisers spending the highest amount of money on YouTube ads have increased ad spend by 60% in the same time.

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