Tag Archives: Youtube Go

Bringing the power of YouTube to more countries with YouTube Go

Last year, we launched YouTube Go in India, a brand new app built from the ground up to unlock the power of YouTube for the next generation of users. Since then, we've also launched YouTube Go in 14 additional countries, including Indonesia, Nigeria and Thailand, and we've seen firsthand the impact that bringing more people into the world of video can have.

For instance, Mapan — a startup in Indonesia that uses technology to train and empower low-income communities and families in rural Indonesia — is using YouTube Go as part of their regular arisans or community meet-ups to equip entrepreneurial women with financial skills and resources. Each arisans' chairwoman downloads a playlist of videos related to starting and running a small business; they then share these videos with each other using YouTube Go’s nearby sharing function. A teacher who runs a primary school for low-income children in Lagos, Nigeria, says that using YouTube Go has “allowed me to download and watch more videos that help with everything from mathematics lesson plans to how to decorate the classroom.”

We're excited to expand YouTube Go to over 130 countries around the globe starting today. YouTube Go gives access to YouTube regardless of connectivity status and more control over data usage, while being locally and socially relevant. Key features of YouTube Go include:

  • Videos that matter to you: The YouTube Go home screen features trending and popular videos in your area, so that you can find and discover videos that you and your community care about. The entire experience is available in your language, with videos that are relevant to you.
  • Control over your experience: On YouTube Go, we’ll show you a video preview when you tap on a thumbnail, giving you a better sense of what the video is about before you decide if you want to watch it. You can then choose to download the video for viewing later or stream it now. And we also allow you to choose the amount of data you’d like to spend on that video.
  • Share videos with friends nearby: With YouTube Go, you can share videos with friends and family nearby without using any data.


From our previous launches, we've learned that you love those new features, so we made a few design changes to make them even more prominent in the app:
  • Watch in high quality: In response to user feedback, we’ve given you even more control of your experience and added the ability to download, stream, and share videos in High Quality in addition to basic and standard quality resolutions.
  • Discover fresh content you love: We heard that you wanted an even easier way to get the freshest videos recommended to you. Now, you can get new personalized content with a simple pull of the home screen. We also notify you when new videos are uploaded from the channels you love.
  • Share more easily: We know you love sharing videos, so we made design changes to make it even easier to access the share nearby feature right from the home page. We also added a highly requested feature: allowing multiple videos to be shared at once.


We've been working hard to build a YouTube app that works for you, with brand new features designed with your preferences, aspirations and needs in mind. We can't wait to see what you can do with the power of YouTube in the palm of your hand.

Jay Akkad, Product Manager, YouTube, recently downloaded and watched "Diving into 1000 Mousetraps in 4K Slow Motion - The Slow Mo Guys."

Source: YouTube Blog


YouTube Go beta launches in India

In last September’s Google for India event we announced YouTube Go, our YouTube app reimagined for the next generation of YouTube users. Today, after months of expanded testing and refinement, we’re happy to announce that we’re making the beta version of YouTube Go available for download on the Google Play Store in India.

You’ll recall that every aspect of YouTube Go was designed from the ground up, with four main principles in mind: It’s relatable, with fresh and relevant video recommendations tailored to your preferences; the app is designed to be offline first and improve the experience of watching videos on a slower network; it gives you more control over data usage, by providing choice and transparency into the amount of data spent on streaming or saving videos. And finally, it’s social, allowing you to share videos quickly and easily with friends nearby.

YT Go Screen Grabs - PR (3).png

Key features of YouTube Go include:
  • A home built for you: YouTube Go home screen features trending and popular videos in your area, so that you can find and discover videos that you and your community care about.
  • Preview videos before you save or watch: On YouTube Go we’ll show you a preview of the video when you tap on a thumbnail, giving you a better sense of what the video is about before you decide if you want to watch it.
  • Choose your resolution when saving or streaming videos: You can choose to save a video for offline viewing later or stream it now. And we also allow you to 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.
To get us to this point, we’ve worked hard on refining the features that you’ve inspired us to build, gaining new insights along the way. Some things we’ve learned in the run-up to this beta release include making the home screen fresher and more relevant for users, so they can find amazing videos easily. We’ve also worked hard behind the scenes to make sharing videos with nearby friends an even more seamless experience, and ensuring that the app works well across a wide range of phones and connectivity. While the app is in its beta release, we’ll continue to listen to your feedback and improve the app before launching more broadly. We’ll also be holding several activities in Udaipur over the upcoming weeks to glean more insights from users on the ground.

If you’re in India, we hope you download the beta from the Google Play Store today, and let us know what you think by leaving your feedback within the app. As before, if you'd like to find out when YouTube Go is fully ready, you can sign up at youtubego.com/signup.

With the rapid transformation sweeping India’s mobile internet landscape, we know there will be an even greater demand for a fast and accessible video app. Thank you for continually inspiring us to build better products for the next generation, and to helping us make YouTube Go the best video app for you.

Jay Akkad, Product Manager, YouTube, recently watched “Vidya Vox @ YouTube FanFest India 2017.”

Source: YouTube Blog


YouTube Go beta launches in India

In last September’s Google for India event we announced YouTube Go, our YouTube app reimagined for the next generation of YouTube users. Today, after months of expanded testing and refinement, we’re happy to announce that we’re making the beta version of YouTube Go available for download on the Google Play Store in India.


You’ll recall that every aspect of YouTube Go was designed from the ground up, with four main principles in mind: It’s relatable, with fresh and relevant video recommendations tailored to your preferences; the app is designed to be offline first and improve the experience of watching videos on a slower network; it gives you more control over data usage, by providing choice and transparency into the amount of data spent on streaming or saving videos. And finally, it’s social, allowing you to share videos quickly and easily with friends nearby.


YT Go Screen Grabs - PR (3).png


Key features of YouTube Go include:
  • A home built for you: YouTube Go home screen features trending and popular videos in your area, so that you can find and discover videos that you and your community care about.
  • Preview videos before you save or watch: On YouTube Go we’ll show you a preview of the video when you tap on a thumbnail, giving you a better sense of what the video is about before you decide if you want to watch it.
  • Choose your resolution when saving or streaming videos: You can choose to save a video for offline viewing later or stream it now. And we also allow you to 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.


To get us to this point, we’ve worked hard on refining the features that you’ve inspired us to build, gaining new insights along the way. Some things we’ve learned in the run-up to this beta release include making the home screen fresher and more relevant for users, so they can find amazing videos easily. We’ve also worked hard behind the scenes to make sharing videos with nearby friends an even more seamless experience, and ensuring that the app works well across a wide range of phones and connectivity. While the app is in its beta release, we’ll continue to listen to your feedback and improve the app before launching more broadly. We’ll also be holding several activities in Udaipur over the upcoming weeks to glean more insights from users on the ground.


If you’re in India, we hope you download the beta from the Google Play store today, and let us know what you think by leaving your feedback within the app. As before, if you'd like to find out when YouTube Go is fully ready, you can sign up at youtubego.com/signup.


With the rapid transformation sweeping India’s mobile internet landscape, we know there will be an even greater demand for a fast and accessible video app. Thank you for continually inspiring us to build better products for the next generation, and to helping us make YouTube Go the best video app for you.


Posted by Jay Akkad, Product Manager, YouTube, recently watched “Vidya Vox @ YouTube FanFest India 2017.”



Google for India: Making our products work better for everyone

The growth of the Internet has been explosive in India. Every second, three more Indians come online for the first time — that’s over 10,000 people every hour. But this latest wave of Internet users still has significant barriers to getting the most out of the Internet: low-powered phones, 2G connections, and very little data.

So today at our second Google for India event, we announced several new Google products, platforms and access programs to deepen India’s participation in the Internet.

YouTube Go: A YouTube app built from the ground up for India

Today we are starting extensive user tests of YouTube Go, a brand new mobile app completely reimagined for the next generation of YouTube users. Our product team spent the last year learning from users in India about their access and affordability challenges. So we designed the app to load and play YouTube videos smoothly across various connectivity situations, and to provide users transparency and control over their data consumption. The app also has a cool new feature that lets users share videos easily with friends and family nearby, without using any data.


YouTube Go will be India-only at first. If you want to an early chance to try it out, sign up at youtubego.com/signup to find out when the app is available.

Google Station: More Wi-Fi in more places

Last September, we announced our partnership with Indian Railways and RailTel to provide Wi-Fi at 400 railway stations in India. Right now, more than 50 stations provide high-quality Internet to 3.5 million people each month. In our research together with IPSOS, we estimate that 15,000 Indians come online each day through these stations.

With these kinds of results, why not expand beyond railway stations, and even beyond India? By getting great Wi-Fi into the world’s malls, bus stops, city centers, and cafes all around the world, millions more people will be able to learn, play, chat, work, and find the information they need.

So today we’re announcing Google Station, which gives partners an easy set of tools to roll-out Wi-Fi hotspots in public places. Google Station will provide software and guidance on hardware to turn fiber connections into fast, reliable and safe Wi-Fi zones. Users will get a fast Wi-Fi experience with a simple and unified login, while making it much easier for venues to manage their networks.

We’re just getting started and are looking for a few strategic, forward-thinking partners to work with on this effort. So if you are interested in learning more about how to work with us to bring high quality WiFi to your venues, please reach out on station.google.com.

Allo: The Assistant and Smart Replies in Hindi

One of the main features of our new messaging app Allo is a preview edition of the Google Assistant, a new way to have a conversation with Google. In the app, you can ask the Assistant questions and let it help you get things done directly right in your chats. This is currently available in English, but later in the year, we will also be rolling out the Assistant in Hindi. And as part of that, the “Smart Replies” feature — where Allo suggests responses to messages so you can respond quickly in English and Hinglish — will also be available in Hindi.

Chrome for mobile and Google Play: Better connectivity for our platforms

Our open, global platforms — like Android, Google Play, and Chrome — let people easily find the content and services they want and give creators and developers a way to share with the entire world. But how useful are these platforms if they stumble every time they meet a low-bandwidth connection? We are hoping to fix this with two updates to Chrome for mobile and Google Play.

For certain countries like India where connectivity is a challenge, Chrome now offers an expanded Data Saver mode, which millions are already using to reduce the amount of data the browser uses on Android mobile devices, computers, and Chromebooks. This new update will support MP4 videos, saving up to 67% of video data. Also, Chrome on Android will automatically optimize pages to their essentials when 2G-like networks are detected. These simplified pages load up to 2X faster, saving more than 90% of user data. On top of that, Chrome for Android adds a new Download feature that lets users save web pages, videos, music, and pictures on their phone. All downloaded contents can be easily accessed in Chrome's new Downloads tab, even when the users are offline. And if they go offline before downloading is complete, the process will automatically resume the next time they’re connected.


Downloads on Chrome for Android

On the Google Play side, Indian users on 2G connections will experience two new experimental features to improve the experience. The Google Play app will now pre-load the most popular parts of the store on Wi-Fi so that browsing is much faster even on a weak signal. And when choosing to install an app, Play will offer the option to “Wait for Wi-Fi” and install the app when the phone connects to Wi-Fi and save data.

Google News: Lite Mode

Starting this week, the Android app Google News and Weather adds a new feature called “Lite mode” for people on low-bandwidth connections that keeps the headlines and trims the rest of the components down to their essentials so that the app loads more quickly. This mode uses less than one-third the data. Slower networks with trigger Lite mode automatically.

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Added up, that’s a lot of data saved, speeds accelerated and new connections made. But I want to share a lesson underlying those announcements that extends beyond India.

While most of today’s launches focus on Google users in India, we have learned that building for mobile-first countries ends up helping the world’s first-billion users as well. One example: India inspired us to make Maps Offline — a way to download a map to your phone so you can navigate around town even without a data connection. But now people around the world, especially in the U.S. and Europe, are using offline maps to get seamless navigation in mountainous areas or patches in urban centers where connectivity cuts out. Building for India and other countries where the next billion Internet users are coming online not only improves their experiences, it gives us better ideas that work for everyone.

Posted by Caesar Sengupta, Vice-President, Next Billion Users Team

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

Earlier this year, I had the chance to travel to India to see how people there were enjoying YouTube up close. While in Nagpur, I met a young man who loved using YouTube to watch WWE wrestling and wanted to show us his favorite video. But after he found it and tapped to play, the video just wouldn’t load. Maybe it was his phone or his 2G connection, but it just wouldn’t work.

Unfortunately, this story isn’t an exception for our Indian viewers. They love YouTube and its amazing selection of Bollywood hits, comedy vlogs, cricket matches and—yes—even wrestling. But even as they discover the joys of YouTube, their experience is not great on slower connections and less powerful mobile phones.

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.

That’s why I and a team of engineers, designers, and researchers have been travelling to India, collecting ideas and testing prototypes with hundreds of people across 15 cities. They’ve helped us build a brand new YouTube app that’s faster, more relevant, and more affordable, with innovative new features.

Meet YouTube Go: a new YouTube app built from scratch to bring YouTube to the next generation of viewers. YouTube Go is designed with four concepts in mind. It’s relatable, with video recommendations 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, providing transparency and reducing data usage. And finally, it’s a social experience, connecting you with the people and content you care about.


The new preview function shows you what to expect before choosing to save or play the video, and in which resolution. You can also share videos to friends nearby, without using up any data.

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.
We’ll gradually roll out YouTube Go to more and more people over the next few months, getting their feedback and improving the product before launching it widely early next year. If you'd like to be among the first to find out when the app is ready, you can sign up at youtubego.com/signup.

We’re thrilled to bring YouTube Go to India … ab Mazze udao, data nahin!

Johanna Wright, Vice President of Product Management, YouTube, recently watched ”How To Be a Ninja - EPIC HOW TO.”

Source: YouTube Blog