14 DAY TRIAL // YouTube, world's largest video sharing website that holds together more than 60 million videos, announced its intention to extend its coverage to a larger range of mobile device, in order to allow more than 100 million users to browse the website via their mobile phones. The new Mobile YouTube will be accessible from select handsets made by Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG, besides the phones that already have YouTube capabilities. All phones must be 3G enabled ones and, in order to avoid high charges, it's better for users to have unlimited data plans (as stated on the site's homepage: "YouTube Mobile is a data intensive application", so high amounts of data are transferred when browsing from a mobile phone).
In addition to expanding the range of mobile phones that can access the site, YouTube is also preparing a software that will be embedded into phones (Nokia and Sony Ericsson for the beginning) to enable an easier and direct video upload, in order to rapidly increase the site's content. The improved Mobile YouTube also brings new stuff, mostly related to personalization features and new community options. In the words of Dwipal Desai, YouTube's mobile-product manager, we will have the full YouTube desktop experience on our mobile phones. Of course, limited by the handsets' screens, which are quite small when compared to a desktop PC display.
However, having access to the most popular video library while on the go is definitely a great thing for most mobile users, and YouTube expects its mobile traffic to increase substantially. Most probably, after the traffic increases, we will see Google ads on the Mobile YouTube site.
The YouTube Mobile site with extended phones compatibility will be available in 17 countries and 11 languages, bringing its huge base of videos to more and more mobile users.