One of biggest fears that parents of young children have while they on mobile and tablet devices is they may be exposed to material that may be mature in nature. In fact, due to this fear, many parents avoid giving their kids these mobile devices altogether. Youtube is one of the main mobile apps that children want to access to see educational or entertainment videos.
Google has understood this problem, and are now coming up with a completely separate app called Youtube Kids, that will showcase only kid-friendly content and will be simpler to use. This new app, expected to be launched on Monday, Jan 23rd, will offer original episodes of TV shows that are aimed at younger audience along with videos from various children related Youtube channels.
The app currently available only on Android OS (mobile and tablets) will have much simpler interface, so that kids can browse and search videos easily. It will also have features where parents can set timers, so that the kids do not watch videos for too long.
The look and feel of Youtube Kids app will be completely different and will feature big icons and minimal scrolling which kids will find very easy to operate.
Folks at The Verge, who seem to have got a glimpse of this app, said it will have four simple icons – shows, music, learning and explore which will let kids browse through the videos. It also has a search icons from where kids can search for their favourite videos.
YouTube product manager Shimrit Ben-Yair told USA Today that family entertainment has seen four-fold rise in viewing compared to other segments. She said, “(Year over year) we’ve seen 50% growth in viewing time on YouTube, but for our family entertainment channels, it’s more like 200%”
Youtube Kids has been in the making for few months now and according to the report, it was the byproduct of input from in-house engineers with parenting credentials as well as third-party testers from organizations such as Common Sense Media.
Overall, we think this is a great move by Google, and definitely something that parents of young kids will love. We will bring you more on this app when it releases on Feb 23rd!
