Numbers have been an obsession in this generation and YouTube is hugely taking advantage of its new features to bring in more viewers in the platform. At the eighth annual VidCon conference in Anaheim, California on last Thursday, YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki announced new mobile and virtual reality features.
Auto-video adjust
YouTube now has two additional mobile features. As announced, the most popular video sharing platform can now automatically adjust videos taken in vertical landscape or square format to render normally on mobile devices. On top of that, users with at least 100 subscribers are now allowed to do live streaming.
Wojcicki has underscored this move is driven by the massive traffic YouTube rakes in as users spend an average an hour a day watching videos through their mobile devices. "We think there's lots of room to get people to watch even more YouTube," she said.
VR 180
The company has also launched a virtual reality format allowing users to shoot anything right before their eyes. Called the VR 180, this format makes it more accessible and more convenient for content creators to film VR clips. The executive has stressed out that her company works to make virtual reality available to all.
More improvements
In the meantime, the desktop version of YouTube is rocking a cleaner and a more streamlined interface. In addition, a native sharing feature also comes in allowing users to share contents through their accounts.
Milestones
Currently, the site has around 1.5 billion logged-in users each month which is about 20 percent of the human population. In 2016, there is also a significant increase of views in its live stream feature.
A quarter of these views is attributed to YouTube Red which currently has 37 running original movies and series. Wojcicki has announced that more are coming up.
YouTube TV, the new streaming project in partnership with major TV networks in the US, also sees a rapid growth. It now expands to 10 more markets inside the North American borders.
