Dave Horvath
24 Jan 2008 10:09
Currently only able to stream to select devices including the Apple iPhone and Helio, YouTube is looking to open up the mobile phone market by launching its YouTube for Mobile plan. The company hopes to offer its service to the many different cellular phone companies that offer high speed data services to its clients.
Dwipal Desia, mobile product manager of YouTube says, "It's basically the full YouTube experience you can get on the desktop -- on the phone. We expect it to get fairly popular from our past experiences."
As stated before, only the iPhone and Helio have full featured access to YouTube's content. Other companies such as Verizon and Vodafone feature a scaled down version to its clients. YouTube wants to change this to allow all the features to as many mobile consumers as they can reach. There are also plans in the works for allowing users to upload video straight from their phones to the YouTube website, thereby opening up a whole new experience for videographers.
YouTube has stated that they have no clear plan for how they will be paid for this type of service. "Right now we are focused on building a user base on alternative screens and we'll look at monetization in the future"