Today, at the second edition of its signature Google for India event, YouTube announced a brand new app, YouTube Go — designed and built from insights gathered from India. The new YouTube Go app is completely reimagined from the ground up for the next generation of YouTube users to fully discover all that YouTube has to offer. YouTube Go is result of extensive research done across 15 cities in India by teams of engineers, designers, and researchers collecting ideas and testing prototypes with hundreds of people. Over the next few months, YouTube will be rolling the app out gradually to more testers, getting their feedback and improving the product before launching it to the general public.
Speaking at the launch of YouTube Go, Johanna Wright, YouTube Vice President for Product Management, said, “We’ve always believed that connectivity should not be a barrier to watching YouTube. In 2014 we launched YouTube Offline so you could watch videos without suffering from buffering. A few months ago we rolled out Smart Offline, a feature that allows you to schedule videos to be saved offline later at off-peak times, when there’s more bandwidth so data is faster and cheaper. But we realized that for the next generation of YouTube users to fully discover all that YouTube has to offer, we had to reimagine the YouTube mobile app from the ground up.”
“With YouTube Go, we’re bringing the power of video to mobile users in a way that is more conscious of their data and connectivity, while being relatable and social,” she added.
YouTube Go will allow users to save and watch videos smoothly even in poor connectivity. It will also give them transparency and control over how much data they consume on videos, allowing them to preview videos first and choose the video’s file size before they save it offline to watch later. Users will also be able to share videos easily with friends and family nearby, without using any data at all.
YouTube Go is designed with four concepts in mind. It’s relatable, with videos and a user interface that is made for you. The app is designed to be offline first and work even when there’s low or no connectivity. It’s also cost-effective, tackling the cost of data usage and giving users more transparency about how big downloads and file sizes will be. And finally, it’s a social experience, connecting you with the people and content you care about.
Here are some of YouTube Go’s most notable features:
- Find and discover relatable videos right on the home screen: YouTube Go homescreen features trending and popular videos in your area, so that you’ll find and fall in love with new videos that you and your community care about.
- Preview videos before you save or watch: Not sure if you want to watch the video? On YouTube Go when you tap on a thumbnail, it’ll trigger a quick preview of the video, giving you a better sense of what the video is about before you decide to save or play it.
- Choose your resolution when saving or streaming videos: Whether you’d like to save a video for offline viewing later, or stream it now, you can see and choose the amount of data you’d like to spend on that video.
- Share videos with friends nearby: Share videos with friends and family nearby without using any data. You can send and receive videos instantly and offline with others using the YouTube Go app.
YouTube Go will gradually roll out to more people over the next few months, getting their feedback and improving the product before launching it widely. If you’d like to be among the first to find out when the app is ready for launch, you can sign up at youtubego.com/signup.
YouTube™ is the world’s most popular online video community allowing millions of people to discover, watch and share original videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. YouTube, LLC is based in San Bruno, Calif., and is a subsidiary of Google Inc.
