With making videos look better, making YouTube living room friendly for your TV, and making it a more profitable place for creators the future looks bright for YouTube.

YouTube’s Chief Product Officer, Neal Mohan has outlined how they’re going to be expanding on the world’s favourite video platform for the “next generation of video”. In a new blog post they touch on a number of areas that they’ll be looking at this year with promises to regularly update users on how they’re working to improve what they do and provide.

For their updates to YouTube Music, check out our recent article.

YouTube for Viewers

In their statement Mohan revealed a number of areas where they’ll be improving their user experience for general YouTube viewers across the board.

  • Easier Navigation: YouTube promises more updates across devices to connect viewers and new content. They’ll be expanding the recently launched and much-loved chapters feature to provide automatic video chapters to relevant videos. Additionally they’ll be making watching more intuitive, including a new design for tablets.
  • Support for New Tablets: YouTube will be redesigning their YouTube Virtual Reality app homepage to make it easier to navigate and search videos.
  • Expanding TV offerings: Soon viewers of YouTube on TVs will be able to watch shows in 4K and download them to watch later offline. Additionally, they’ll be making it possible for multiple screens to watch at once in the same house.
YouTube for Creators
  • More Ways to Create: YouTube have been testing a new feature called Shorts, essentially a TikTok style short-form video format powered by music. Following popularity in India, they’ll be expanding to the US in the coming weeks.
  • More Ways to Make Money: They promise to expand on their existing monetisation options like Super Chat and Channel Memberships. They’re testing a new applause feature that allows fans to show support to the creators they love.
  • Shopping: YouTube have been talking for a while about building on the merchandising possibilities on YouTube and they’re currently testing a new shopping experience with trusted creators. They expect to expand on this later this year.