YouTube is bringing messaging to its mobile app.
The video platform will now enable users to send videos to their contacts and chat within the app. The feature was premiered in a soft launch in Canada and Latin America, but it will roll out to all users this week.
Right now, hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos are shared every day on messaging apps. The idea is to take away the middle man—or the middle platform, as the case may be. These shared videos and chats will live on a separate tab within YouTube’s app.
YouTube announced the feature in its official blog:
Remember the first time you heard the opening beats of “Despacito”? Your ears perked up, your foot unconsciously tapping beneath the table. Like every “Despacito” loving person before you, you can’t help but dance, and when you'd finally caught your breath, you had to share it with all your friends. It would be wrong to keep something this good to yourself. And that means you had to copy and paste a link into an email, social or messaging app to share that moment.
But like chats around the water cooler, shouldn't sharing a video be as easy as saying, “Have you heard this new song?” We’ve been experimenting with a better way to share videos on YouTube since last year. Thanks to all your feedback, we made some improvements and are now ready to roll out this new sharing feature to all users globally.
Starting today, you can share videos with your friends and family directly on YouTube. Not only can you share and receive videos in the app, you can also chat about them right on YouTube, reply with another video, invite others to the conversation, and more. We think it’ll make sharing easier, faster and more fun on your phone. And if you want to continue sharing videos through other apps, you can still do that too.
To use the feature, you’ll have to add friends from your mobile device’s contact list. Currently, anyone can request to add you on their list of contacts, though you obviously don’t have to accept every request.
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The app also supports group messaging with up to 30 people in each chat, where you can discuss videos shared—or anything else.
YouTube also released a video announcing the new feature and hyping it up. It provides a good look at the feature’s layout and functionality:
Though the platform’s blog post said users could “continue sharing videos through other apps,” it’s clear that features such as this are an attempt to encourage users to spend more time on its platform.
It might also be another opportunity for marketers, who can use the feature to share their video content or encourage influencers to share with their communities.
YouTube creators might also use it to push out their videos to increase advertising revenue. Now that YouTube has noted videos that can make money off of advertisements and which aren’t eligible, creators will probably be looking to find a perfect mix of potential virality and advertiser appeal.
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