YouTube: LeanBack to Move Forward

In the latest in a flurry of new developments including its new mobile product, YouTube this week launched Leanback, which you can check out here.

The navigational tool for teeing up and watching YouTube videos on TV helps position the Google-owned video hub as an alternative to regular TV programming. Indeed, it makes the user akin to a network programmer, designing a customized channel on the fly without worrying about searching for the next video to watch.

Intended to enhance first-generation Google TV devices, the new interface is designed to make YouTube's clip-based system "effortless," meaning smarter about aggregating a user's video "likes" and subscriptions (including YouTube video rentals), as YouTube explains on its blog.

Techworld writes that it should "help YouTube overcome the so-called '10 foot' problem, where interfaces which are highly effective at short distances become unusable with a remote over longer distances."

Described as “web video for couch potatoes,” the proprietary technology selects high-definition clips and serves them up in a constant stream personalized to a viewer’s preferences that. The goal is a service that frees the user from moment-to-moment decisions about what to see next or where to click by creating a customized playlist.

The BBC sees the move as significant because the "world's biggest video site wants to dominate every screen where content can be viewed and created. With Leanback, YouTube is now vying for the attention of the user in the living room."

TechCrunch comments, "This is all part of YouTube's goal to boost engagement -- the site obviously sees a huge volume of uploads and traffic, but it gets around 15 minutes of viewing time a day per user. That contrasts with the five hours of television that people watch on average each day."

The macro-strategy is to keep users engaged with YouTube's video content for longer and persuade them that Leanback will be worth watching on their television. In fact, Leanback could be positioning itself as YouTube's default UI for connected devices, including DVRs, Blu-ray players, TVs with YouTube support, and dedicated set-top boxes which will support Google TV.

"You can start to break down the mental picture of 'these are the videos I watch on my computer, on my TV or on my phone,'" observed Hunter Walk, director of product management, BBC News. "Now you just say 'these are the videos I watch and I watch them wherever I happen to be, or whoever I happen to be with'. We are going to have a world where people increasingly expect their content to be available to them on anything with a screen, whether that be a computer, a phone or a tv. That is the vision."

Benn Parr, an editor at Mashable.com, told the BBC, "Whenever you think of video, YouTube wants you to think of them. By making video available from the smallest screen to the biggest no matter where you are, they can succeed in that goal. Whether they can win in the living room is the billion dollar question. It is just unclear if people want to watch YouTube video after YouTube video versus professionally made shows on the networks."

YouTube is also looking to make its service more social, and already actively encourages connecting YouTube and Facebook accounts to see which videos your network of friends is sharing. Potentially a powerful component of Google Me, Google's rumored social network, LeanBack aids its bid to embed the YouTube brand and functionality into Facebook users’ social graphs.

Google's ambitions are to fundamentally alter the way we watch and think of TV. In May they announced plans for an internet-focused TV partnership with Sony, Intel, Dish Network and Logitech.

Leanback, still in beta, is aiming to launch in the third quarter. It signals no less than the onset of the ultimate single channel experience.