YouTube is the most used social media site among teenagers, even more than Twitter and Facebook. Seeing that there is over 6 billion hours worth of videos watched each month, it's pretty believable.
Google has now announced its intention to develop a kid-friendly website that is designed to reach a younger demographic - children under 10. But if this is such a popular platform, why change it?
YouTube wants to make a site that is available for kids and one that has age-appropriate and safe material for young ones. They already have safety features and filters but there are always ways to get around those, such as setting your birth date to state that you are over 21 to watch any content you want.
I'm surprised that Google or YouTube want to do something like this, if you ask me, why fix something that isn't broken? YouTube is already insanely popular, something like this may only hurt it, but time will tell.
One must also think - how many children 10 and under actually surf the internet or go on YouTube on a regular enough basis? Probably not many, but with the way the younger generation is growing up I could be completely wrong. I personally don't think YouTube or Google will gain much from this besides the approval of parents.
Check out the article at ---> http://mashable.com/2014/03/24/youtube-for-kids/
When I first heard about this, I thought you meant that Google was going to make YouTube a kids-only website and get rid of anything that could be construed as inappropriate. While that would have been a horrible, horrible thing, the fact that they're making a separate website for kid-friendly material doesn't seem like a huge deal. If anything, hopefully it will lead to less videos being flagged as inappropriate. I can't tell you how many times I've tried to watch something on YouTube only to find out a bunch of self-righteous people flagged it, and then had to log in and verify my age.
ReplyDeleteAlthough YouTube is already very popular, adding this can't hurt. It will only expand their reach even more and hit even more demographics. The more reach a company has usually has some correlation with their success. Even if this flops, it should not have an effect on the original YouTube.
ReplyDeleteAlso, many parents find children's movies and videos on YouTube instead of purchasing them. The original YouTube has a number of different content that can be filtered into children's categories that may be inappropriate. Creating a kid-friendly YouTube would prevent this from happening, make parent's lives a little easier, and help organize the massive amount of content held by YouTube.
I think it would be great to have a YouTube for kids, and other media sites should follow suit. Kids (my generation included) are exposed to far too much at very young ages these days. Innocence and imagination are lost the second young children find their way onto the Internet, where a wealth of exciting and new information is available in an instant. Some things, however, are not for them to see. Netflix has already done a great job with Netflix Kids, and it would be great for YouTube to do the same.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a good idea for there to be a YouTube for kids where they can view videos age appropriate. I think kids these days are exposed to so much so young and they're growing up well beyond their years. A YouTube geared towards kids protects them and is going to do nothing but help both kids and parents.
ReplyDeleteI understand what they are trying to do, but I don't think kids are going to use this. It is just likes Netflix for kids, they can watch kids movies, but they can still get access to thee original Netflix. Plus even if the kids are not allowed to access the original YouTube, they will figure out a way to gain access. Saying you can not use or do something usually leads to people wanting to do exactly what they are told not to eventually. It's like kids and swear words, you can teach them not to swear, but once they ride the school bus for a while, they pick things up.
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