Seeing YouTube’s potential
Mohan spoke about his beginnings at YouTube headquarters 15 years ago, when the company was just a small office on a second floor above pizza place, and how even then, he could see the platform’s potential to be great. As he transitioned into his new position as YouTube lead, replacing longtime friend and mentor Susan Wojcicki, he thought more and more about that moment.
When YouTube was just starting out, I saw its potential. Now, I’m very excited to be in charge of its future.
What will be YouTube’s focus?
Mohan reiterated that the focus at YouTube going forward will remain what is most important to both creators and viewers, and that includes helping creators do well, building the platform of the future, and to focus on keeping the community safe. He made sure to highlight that creators and artists are what make YouTube what it is, and that is what will be put first when it comes to building the YouTube of the future.
To support this, Mohan included some interesting statistics regarding the current state of the economy and how that hasn’t stopped the company from offering business opportunities on its platform. According to research by Oxford Economics, YouTube’s creative ecosystem supported more than two million jobs in 2021 in Brazil, Canada, the US, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, France, Australia, Germany, the UK, India, and Turkey. Here’s what YouTube has planned to do this year to help creators all over the platform do well:
- Create more ways for creators to make money by giving them more tools, such as growing the subscriptions business, putting money into shopping, and always making paid digital goods better.
- Expanding creator feedback via life help through chat or email to find out what the platform can do to help them. Creator feedback is a big part of how YouTube creates new products.
- Expanding accessibility for people who are deaf or hard or hearing by putting money into machine learning over a long period of time. Because of this investment, YouTube can now offer automatic captions in more languages and machine-translated captions for mobile devices that can be changed to 16 different languages.
- Growing creator communities by going mobile with gifted memberships, letting viewers remix clips into Shorts, and adding features that will make it easy to put together the best gaming content in a new way.
What’s in store for the YouTube of the future?
YouTube will be putting more money into the features and experiences that will make YouTube a better platform, such as doubling down on the streaming and connected TV experience and releasing the creative potential of YouTube in ways that have never been done before.
We’re bringing the best of YouTube to the living room, including the creators people love, the streaming they want, and the useful features they’ve come to expect from YouTube.
YouTube has also recently added Primetime Channels to allow users to watch videos from their favorite streaming services, and announced that NFL Sunday Ticket will be making its way to the platform as well, in an attempt to make YouTube the best place to watch TV and football. There will also be features from YouTube TV that will be making their way to the main YouTube app, such as being able to watch key plays, along with the added ability to connect with creators and other fans by liking, commenting, etc.
AI will also play a major role in the future of YouTube. Through AI’s generative abilities, creators will be able to add to their stories and improve the quality of their work. For example, YouTube is working on a tool that will allow creators to change characters’ clothes virtually or change the setting for a movie. These features are still not ready for prime time, and YouTube says they’re taking the time to make sure they are safe to use, but we should be hearing more about that over the next few months.
Making sure the YouTube community is safe
As new ideas flourish, protecting the YouTube community remains the company’s most important goal. Tools like YouTube Kids have allowed kids to explore their interests in a safe place and give parents the tools needed to make sure the platform works for their family’s needs. However, there is still work to be done.
YouTube is staying on top of new policies, bills, and laws being introduced all over the world that shape the digital environment. Because of this, YouTube will be having a debate about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the U.S., which has helped creators and given the platform the power to take down harmful content. The company is also involved in similar efforts in Europe and Canada.
“All of these efforts are important, but as a parent, I care most about what we’re doing to keep kids safe on our platform.”
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