Google Inc's YouTube, the most popular video Web site, has opened up its complete library of homemade clips and television shows to mobile phone users.
The mobile site now allows owners of any wireless device that can handle video to view or post clips, just as they would from personal computers, YouTube product manager Hunter Walk said. Until yesterday, mobile phone users only had access to a limited amount of YouTube content.
"What we heard from our users is they really wanted access to the tens of millions of videos on YouTube no matter where they are," Walk said in an interview from YouTube's offices in San Bruno, California. "The mobile experience is increasingly going to be like an extension of the Web experience."
Google, which dominates the market for Internet queries, bought YouTube in 2006 for US$1.65 billion to expand beyond searches and reach more people on the Web. The Mountain View, California-based company is bringing its services to mobile phones as wireless carriers bolster their networks to handle more data and bigger files.
Google, along with rivals Yahoo Inc and Microsoft Corp, sees mobile sites as a source of ad revenue. The market for mobile advertising will surge 10-fold to US$16.2 billion globally by 2011, New York-based research firm eMarketer Inc estimates. While Google started selling ads on Web sites designed for mobile phones last year, YouTube hasn't yet followed suit.
"As it continues to mature, we'll look at it and evaluate ad opportunities," Walk said.
Last year, YouTube started showing ads in Web videos. Google also introduced software that lets sites run videos and related ads alongside news articles.
Google fell US$35.73, or 6.1 percent, to US$548.62 on Wednesday on the NASDAQ. The shares have tumbled 21 percent year to date amid a slump in US equities.
Since 2006, YouTube clips were available on a limited basis to some customers of Basking Ridge, New Jersey-based Verizon Wireless. Google also signed a deal to display YouTube videos on the iPhone, from Cupertino, California-based Apple Inc.
The new YouTube site opens the complete library to more users through a mobile Web page. Customers also can create videos and upload them to YouTube from phones for the first time. Motorola Inc, based in Schaumburg, Illinois, introduced the Moto Z10 for shooting and editing video this month.
"The manufacturers and operators are looking for ways to make the benefits of these new devices tangible to their users," Walk said.
Of the 9.5 billion online videos that Americans viewed in November, 3 billion were on Google sites, including 2.9 billion at YouTube, Reston, Virginia-based research firm ComScore Inc said.
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