Video consumption on mobile phones has been growing steadily, but
spotty 3G coverage means that watching videos on the go doesn't really
work out too well. You quickly get used to regular quality drops, and
interruptions for buffering. Along with Android One though, Google made
another announcement on Monday which is very exciting - it announced
that YouTube will be available offline in India in the coming weeks.
This means that people can download videos in the YouTube app when they
are connected to a Wi-Fi network, and then later, the video can be
watched without a data connection. This is useful for both times when
your connection is poor, and also for when you want to re-watch
favourite videos.
It is not clear at the moment whether
this new offline option is restricted to YouTube in India, or if this
will be an Android only feature, but in either case, it is a big step
forward for consumers here. The demand for video on mobile has been
around for a while - some telecom providers have experimented with
YouTube focused data packs, which let you stream videos at a discounted
data rate.
Reports suggest that 3.7 billion online videos are consumed per month
in the country. According to comScore, the total online video audience
in India saw growth of over 70 percent in 2013 with the average viewer
watching 18 percent more videos and spending 28 percent more time
viewing.
The 3G networks in India are stretched thin and
4G services have been "around the corner" for some time now, so watching
videos on mobiles is still a very poor experience in India, despite the
growing popularity. For many of us, the best way to do this is still
when you are connected to a Wi-Fi network, at home or at office.
With
YouTube Offline, it would be easy to save your favourite content while
you're connected to the faster Wi-Fi network at home, and then watch it
on the way to work, for example. The exact details are not clear yet,
but if there are no restrictions on the videos you can download, then
you could even save a legally available film or television episode that
is a favourite, and keep it for re-watching without ever having to pay
for data again.
One interesting consideration here is to
see how YouTube will be able to monetise these videos which are stored
offline. With a typical YouTube video, there are all sorts of ads that
pop up while you watch - there are pre-roll ads that play before the
video even starts (some of which are unskippable now) and there are
banners that show up below your videos. All of these require an Internet
connection to work - so unless the ads are also saved offline alongside
videos, it won't be possible to show the ads properly.
If
YouTube Offline videos can not be monetised, will uploaders be able to
decide whether the video is available offline or not? We already often
have videos that won't play on phones or tablets, with the message, "The
uploader has not made this video available on mobile". Commercially
made videos, which could include TV shows, movies or even music videos
might choose to avoid the offline availability route, if this were the
case.
It will be interesting to see how Google navigates
these challenges and we will no doubt know more in the next couple of
weeks. However, as consumers, we have to say that this is good news even
with the limited information available right now.
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