The local version of popular video content sharing site YouTube is gaining traction as the surge of incoming broadband drives South African Internet users to the site.
“The South African YouTube community has grown since our local launch. While we don't break down our user numbers by country, we can say that a majority of our traffic comes from outside of the US,” explains Julie Taylor, Google South Africa manager for Communications and Public Affairs.
While Google would not release specific statistics related to overall usage, the Internet giant did highlight high viewership on popular local videos and the progress of the YouTube Partner Programme (YPP).
“Some particularly popular videos recently include moricestreet909's fitness videos (with more than 10 000 views) and the 'Tutu Skypes Tata' on ZANEWSTV (over 8 000 views). The Trevor Noah clip about mobile networks in South Africa has also received thousands of new views in the past few days,” says Taylor.
She adds that since the launch of YPP in July, Google has been establishing ties with local partners that are eager to make their content available locally and globally.
SA is the 16th country globally to join the YPP, allowing local partners to reap financial rewards from adverts placed with their uploaded original videos. Partners receive a portion of the revenue generated from advertisements that run next to their videos. Each click on the video earns revenue for the partner.
“The number of partners for ZA is growing, and a number of companies and users have already signed up. Well-known local partners include www.sixpackfactory.com (moricestreet909), ZANEWSTV, and FHM South Africa.”
World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck explains that there are two key factors behind this growth. “The first is the fact that YouTube now has local hosting, meaning that they store content in a data centre in South Africa, which allows video to load faster and reduce buffering.
“The second is the dramatic growth of broadband, which is quickly wiping out dial-up and allowing people to spend more time online, with better speeds,” he continues.
Goldstuck adds that a supporting factor, but one that has not yet filtered through to the whole broadband market, is the advent of uncapped ADSL. That will continue to have a big and growing impact on video downloads.
However, despite early success, challenges remain in the local Internet landscape that could deter further uptake of YouTube.co.za.
Challenges remain
Being the first localised version of the site in Africa brought with it its own challenges, acknowledges Google. Taylor and Goldstuck agree that while increased broadband has fuelled growth in the local site, issues of access, penetration and capacity remain an issue.
“Access to broadband remains a constraining factor here in South Africa, as everyone is well aware. For this reason, when we launched here in South Africa, we also launched YouTube Feather, which will help videos load and play faster for those with a low-speed connection,” explains Taylor.
Goldstuck concurs: “The primary form of broadband in this country is 3G, which remains the most expensive in terms of bulk usage and is unlikely to see uncapped services for a while due to network constraints.”
Where people don't have such constraints, the experience of broadband is still not up to scratch. He argues that promised speeds are really only technically possible speeds.
“The hope is that the next generation of connectivity, such as HSPA+, LTE and ADSL2 will deal with this, but it is largely the backhaul on the current networks and the contention ratios - number of people allocated to the same connection - that holds back promised speeds,” offers Goldstuck.
A further challenge is the low penetration of broadband in the general population. As fast as it is growing, it is still the domain of the privileged. Internet access must become more universal for online video to become more universal, he advises.
Share