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YouTube Go: YouTube reimagined for the next generation of YouTube viewers

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11–20 of 217 posts

Re: YouTube Go: YouTube reimagined for the next generation of YouTube viewers

#11
post #3

From a user perspective, the purpose of YouTube is to play out videos. Time spent in YouTube's user interface is a means for getting to the videos. But from Google's perspective, the revenue comes from time in the user interface, where the ads are. "Reimagined" probably means "more ad slots".

It's kind of obvious that for pretty much any ad supported service good user experience is in direct conflict with revenue. But I think this is not about that. It looks more like a PR piece combined with an attempt to reach more people.

Re: YouTube Go: YouTube reimagined for the next generation of YouTube viewers

#12
post #3

From a user perspective, the purpose of YouTube is to play out videos. Time spent in YouTube's user interface is a means for getting to the videos. But from Google's perspective, the revenue comes from time in the user interface, where the ads are. "Reimagined" probably means "more ad slots".

Stop projecting how you treat your users with how other people do.

Being able to download at different quality, being able to preview, and being able to share over Bluetooth are just straight up usability improvements for people in the targeted region (and probably elsewhere too).

Re: YouTube Go: YouTube reimagined for the next generation of YouTube viewers

#13
post #7

I don't understand why a new app if this could just be an additional feature in the current app. Doesn't this lead to fragmentation and confusion?

Yes, but Google is exceptionally good at fragmentation and confusion in regards to products. How many gmail apps do they have? Inbox, gmail, android mail (though this got deprecated), web interface, etc. Youtube now has 2 apps, a web interface.

They seem to like to make new stuff, rather then upgrade their existing stuff. Then every second year they just go through their stack and deprecate 30% of it.

Re: YouTube Go: YouTube reimagined for the next generation of YouTube viewers

#14
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? The valuable ads are IN the videos. Did you even read about any of the features here?

The parent article never mentions ads. Is there a version of this article for advertisers?

No, that is just my knowledge from using YouTube and my experience with ad trafficking. YouTube's ad revenue comes from the videos you see when you watch YouTube videos, not from the ads around the website or in the UI of the mobile app. Do the current mobile apps even have ads in the UI? I don't think they do.

The point I'm trying to make is that YouTube Go offers a significantly different UX that seems to be about making YouTube more accessible on slower connections. Your speculation about ads in the UI is baseless, IMO.

Re: YouTube Go: YouTube reimagined for the next generation of YouTube viewers

#15
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent article never mentions ads. Is there a version of this article for advertisers?

No, that is just my knowledge from using YouTube and my experience with ad trafficking. YouTube's ad revenue comes from the videos you see when you watch YouTube videos, not from the ads around the website or in the UI of the mobile app. Do the current mobile apps even have ads in the UI? I don't think they do. The point I'm trying to make is that YouTube Go offers a significantly different UX that seems to be about…

> Did you even read about any of the features here?

> No, that is just my knowledge from using YouTube and my experience with ad trafficking.

Never change, HackerNews comments.

Re: YouTube Go: YouTube reimagined for the next generation of YouTube viewers

#17
post #7

I don't understand why a new app if this could just be an additional feature in the current app. Doesn't this lead to fragmentation and confusion?

Yes, but Google is exceptionally good at fragmentation and confusion in regards to products. How many gmail apps do they have? Inbox, gmail, android mail (though this got deprecated), web interface, etc. Youtube now has 2 apps, a web interface. They seem to like to make new stuff, rather then upgrade their existing stuff. Then every second year they just go through their stack and deprecate 30% of it.

You're forgetting that they also have YouTube Gaming [1] as another separate app.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.and...

Re: YouTube Go: YouTube reimagined for the next generation of YouTube viewers

#19
Hopefully this will actually work in all countries; I'd love to save videos for offline viewing while I have a wifi connection and watch them later when I don't. But that would compete with "YouTube Red".

For that matter, since an offline video eliminates the buffering problem, I'd love to have the "playback speed" feature in the mobile app. The web version of YouTube supports changing the playback speed to 1.25x, 1.5x, or 2x, but the mobile version doesn't.

Re: YouTube Go: YouTube reimagined for the next generation of YouTube viewers

#20
As much as this sounds like something I would personally be very interested in, I can't help but think it doesn't fit into Google's ideal of how customers use their products. Rather I get the impression they're pursuing this begrudgingly just as a way to get into the Indian market; the announcement is notably non-committal about it ever being rolled out in the US.
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