Is YouTube Google's next big bet?

YouTube, simply for being a universe of free, fun and purposeful content, is one of the most viewed websites in the world. Since being acquired by Google nearly 10 years back, YouTube has come a long way. Over the period of ten years, YouTube has gain incremental popularity in terms of views and uploaded videos. As of now when we are writing this article, YouTube is getting 3.8 Billion views in a second according to internetlivestats.com. As of this year, guess the no. of views YouTube has got so far (August 26th, 2017)? It's a 1.46 freaking Trillion views! With so many audiences, Google hasn't added much functionality to the platform, until recently.

One of the biggest bumps to YouTube was 'YouTube Red'. For those who don't know, YouTube Red is a service that charges $10 to its members to stream their favourite videos ad-free, download any videos to their mobile devices for viewing late, access exclusive YouTube Red content, YouTube Music, and Google Play Music. But most importantly, it allows you to listen to the audio in the background- a feature that YouTube audiences were simply dying for.

Inspired by the success of YouTube Red, they came out with another pricier product: YouTube TV. This streaming service is nothing but a competitor product of Hulu Plus Live TV, Sling, and Play station VUE. One needs to pay $35 per month to avail the cable network streaming and live broadcast television from local affiliates, along with YouTube Red content on YouTube TV. As of now, one can get live TV stream from the four major broadcast networks i.e. ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox, plus popular sports, news, and entertainment networks. Unfortunately, neither YouTube Red nor YouTube TV are available for Bangladesh as of now.

YouTube has stepped up their game even further by introducing native video sharing and chatting. If you have the updated YouTube app, you will see a 'shared' tab on the bottom. This new mobile-only feature allows you to share a video with your friends and high frequency contacts. You can even chat about it in a private thread — all from the YouTube app. If you look closely, you will find the functionality very similar to the Android's default Messages app: when you share a video with a contact, you can chat about it without leaving the app. So it saves the time and pain of starting a new email or text message thread. You can easily respond to a video shared with you and even send other videos by pressing the reel icon.

Another move that YouTube made just this week to appease the advertisers and governments is to curb videos that promote or entice hate speech or contains any sort of message of violence. It has already deployed a mix of artificial intelligence and human monitors, including people from nonprofit organisations to take down hate videos.

Undoubtedly, Google is betting big on YouTube!