YouTube owner Google has developed a way for children to find and enjoy video content in the form of a free Android and iOS application. Dubbed YouTube Kids, it lets children browse for videos from a whitelisted selection of YouTube’s immense catalog, without the need of parental supervision.
The content is divided into four categories; Shows, Music, Learning, and Explore. Shows offers a selection of traditional children’s TV programs such as Sesame Street, with DreamWorks programs in the mix; Music links to music channels such as Kidzbop and Mother Goose Club; Learning is for educational videos; and Explore offers a selection of other videos that kids enjoy on YouTube such as Minecraft “lets plays.”
The app features a search function, which allows children to search the filtered library, either via text or voice input. This function can be enabled or disabled at the preference of the parents. The app also lets parents set a timer, which restricts usage of the app to a specified time period. The hope is that this will save parents from being “the bad guy” when it’s time for their kids to stop watching videos.
However, there are some creases to iron out in the app. For instance the parental lock has the gaping insecurity that if the child can read it’s next to useless. All it asks is for the user to punch in a four digit code which is printed on the screen.
There is also no account login of any kind, and hence no personalized account control. This means that, as it stands, the library whitelist cannot be edited in any way. This absence of customization really misses a trick, as the ability to add videos or channels, which the parents themselves trust to the library, or conversely removing those which they disagree are suitable would improve the usability of the app greatly. Currently the message inferred is that YouTube knows best, like it or lump it.
The release of the app makes a lot of sense. With the size of YouTube’s standard library, and the exclusivity of its user-generated content (UGC), parents are hard-pressed to find better online platforms to entertain their young-ones.
The potential minefield of suggested videos, user comments, and adverts directed at adults, turns browsing YouTube with a child from a relaxing bonding experience into an exercise of concentration, panic, and quick-reflexes. As such parents have been asking for some age-appropriate options on YouTube for quite some time now.
On the surface it appears YouTube is appeasing the concerns of parents with the release of YouTube Kids. However, with competing platforms providing increasingly better services, this app is a necessity for YouTube to ensure continued viewership from the family demographic.
YouTube has observed a 200% year-on-year viewing increase of family entertainment videos. So a shift away from children watching their shows on TVs and instead using internet based platforms is apparent – and YouTube isn’t the only company to have noticed.
Amazon already offers an impressive library of on-demand streams of family entertainment videos on its Amazon Prime service. Deutsche Telekom have also recently announced its child entertainment app, for use in cars, called MYKIDIO.
MYKIDIO comes with a $10 monthly subscription and provides a host of welcome distractions for kids on long car journeys such as TV shows, audiobooks, and films.
Elsewhere on the YouTube platform, emerging competitor Vessel is starting to acquire some of YouTube’s multi-channel networks (MCNs) such as Machinima. Vessel works under a subscription based model, and is tempting current YouTube content creators to jump ship with higher monetization returns on their content
Subscribers to Vessel’s platform will gain access to the latest videos 72-hours earlier than those using YouTube’s free service. It remains to be seen if this exclusive window model will work in practice. It’s not obvious that the downside of waiting three days for user-generated content really matters enough to convince consumers to pay a monthly fee.
In related news, YouTube recently took its first step into subscription-based services with Music Key. Music Key is a music service which ties in with Google Play.
For $10 a month Music Key subscribers should enjoy an ad-free, all-access, experience of YouTube and Google’s library of music and music videos, with Music Key handling the video side of things.
Music Key will have the benefit of background playback, whereas with the standard YouTube app, playback stops when you navigate away or turn off the screen. Caching files for viewing offline is also available with Music Key. These features come off a little lackluster, and could have easily been included in an update to the standard YouTube app – presumably as an ad-supported service.
However, the success of YouTube as a music platform cannot be denied. Of the top 5 most-viewed videos of all time, all are music videos. The top two have accrued over a billion views each. It makes sense for Google to try to heavily monetize this popularity, especially given the success of other online music platforms such as Spotify, Pandora and Rdio. Google can take two slices of revenue in this game, with advertising and subscriptions.
Depending on the success of Music Key consumers could see YouTube’s future policies concerning the monetization of its content move towards subscription based services.
For instance, a subscription-based model for YouTube Kids app (which is currently ad-based) would make a lot of sense. User experience should improve automatically as it would require a link to an account controlled by the parents.
Tying the YouTube Kids app to an account would allow for personalization of the content available from the app. Another benefit would be that the child’s habits such as search and watch history could also be monitored remotely by the parents – which is a feature that appears to be lacking from the current model.