With more of its viewing taking place on connected TV, Google's YouTube is launching new interactive features consumers can use while watching on bigger screens.
CTV viewers will be able to link what they’re watching on TV to their mobile devices, enabling them to share videos, read comments or start a chat session.
YouTube has been available on TV screens for 12 years. In the last two years, CTV viewing has boomed, with YouTube being one of the most-watched CTV services, with viewers watching 700 million hours of YouTube content on TV daily.
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“As more people watch YouTube on their TVs, one challenge we face as a design team is how to keep the experience simple, streamlined and intuitive, but also bring the best of YouTube to the TV. Today, we’re excited to share a new feature that gives TV viewers a direct way to access the full power of YouTube at your fingertips while watching on your TV,” said Brynn Evans, head of design for the YouTube app on TV, in a blog post.
The effort is the result of hundreds of hours of research into how viewers consume YouTube on TV. Two early insights were that remote controls are hard to use and that 70% of people said they use another digital device while watching TV.
“When we dug into this further, we noticed that people were not only simultaneously opening the YouTube mobile app, but were also engaging with the video (e.g. liking, subscribing) via their phones — all while playing the same video on the TV,” Evans said. “With these insights in mind, we stopped thinking about how to fit all these features into the big screen, and instead pivoted to think about how the phone can be more deeply connected to the TV experience overall.”
In order to use the new features, users must be signed into the same YouTube account on their TV and their mobile device. The YouTube app has to be opened on the mobile device and a “Connect” button needs to be clicked.
Once that’s done, the interactive features are activated.
More features on are the way, Evans said.
“We’re already starting to test new designs for our video watch page to help fold in more uniquely YouTube features — such as browsing and shopping for products featured in videos – directly to the big screen to help you decide when to pick up your phone and engage,” he said. ■
