How YouTube plans to stay ahead of the game

SINGAPORE — As YouTube looks to roll out a paid subscription model some time this year to offer subscribers an ad-free experience, it’s going up against established players like Netflix and Hulu.

But Director of Content and Operations for YouTube Asia-Pacific Gautam Anand feels that the video-sharing website, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, is in a good position.

“We have lots of scale — a billion unique users a month, and more viewership than all those platforms,” he said, speaking to TODAY ahead of the YouTube FanFest in Singapore from tomorrow (May 22) to Sunday.

He noted that in Singapore alone there has been a 110 per cent year-on-year growth in the number of hours of videos uploaded from the Republic.

The paid subscription model is an “experimentation” that will add to the overall monetisation of YouTube, said Mr Anand, but the Google-subsidiary is still primarily ad-supported.

“We look at ourselves as a technology platform, and we’re always trying to figure how to innovate, how do we create a better user experience. The (paid) subscription model is one piece of that,” he added.

A bigger feature of creating a better user experience, however, is YouTube’s focus on video quality and making sure that people can discover content that’s relevant to them, according to Mr Anand.

To improve video quality, YouTube in March began testing 4K videos in 60fps (frames per second) that provide ultra high-definition videos. In the same month YouTube also rolled out support for 360-degree videos.

With such support, and better bandwidth availbility, phone quality and resolution, “it makes you feel like you’re part of the experience”, Mr Anand said. “The type of experience you can get on your phone now is truly awesome.”

Musician Kurt Hugo Schneider, who has almost 5.5 million YouTube subscribers, said he is excited about the direction YouTube is heading in with technology.

“If anything I think it’s a fun challenge to always be playing with new technology. I’m thinking about, man, what can I do with 360 technology that people haven’t seen before,” he said.