Earlier today, Chief Business Officer of YouTube Robert Kyncl took the stage at CES 2016 to deliver a keynote session on the growth and future of digital video. He kicked off the session with a bold yet reasonable prediction that by the end of the decade, digital video will be the thing that people spend most time on besides sleeping and working. Throughout his keynote address, he laid out four key reasons why digital video, and YouTube by implication, will dominate our future media landscape.
Mobile
Digital videos may have started out on the desktops, but it is inherently fitted to transit onto the mobile screens. Where TV has struggled to go mobile, YouTube took the plunge long ago, and now more than half of YouTube’s traffic comes from mobile devices as consumers become increasingly used to consume media on mobile devices.
Music
“Half of teens today use YouTube as their primary music streaming source,” Kyncl pointed out. To capitalize on YouTube’s vast library of music and music videos, YouTube Music Key is now included in YouTube’s subscription service Red. Scooter Braun, the man who discovered Justin Bieber on YouTube and made him into a star, took the stage and shared some insights into YouTube’s impact on the music industry.
Diverse Content
Kyncl also counts YouTube’s diverse content as one of its strength. “YouTube is a democratic platform, which allows everyone to create a video for anyone,” he said, and that’s why YouTube has something for everyone. Therefore, digital videos are choice-based viewing, and YouTube holds the biggest content library for viewers to choose from.
Immersive Content
Looking ahead, YouTube is betting on spherical videos and VR-mode viewing to be the next big thing in digital video. Kyncl invited Nick Woodman, CEO of GoPro on stage to talk about the allures of 360-dgree videos, and announced a partnership between YouTube and GoPro, which aims to help create more immersive content on YouTube using GoPro’s 360-degree cameras.
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