YouTube Gains In-App Messenger For Mobile Chatting And Video Sharing

One evening you are chatting with that cutie you swiped right on, and suddenly you remember the perfect YouTube video to share with them. How should you share the video? Should you copy and paste the link? Should you post it on their Facebook or Twitter? Should you email it to them?

Now you don't have to make these tough decisions. Google recently released native sharing for a small percentage of YouTube users. These users can invite friends into conversation threads. Friends can chat about the shared video right inside YouTube’s mobile app and reply with another video. The message threads are on a new tab in the YouTube mobile app so that users can easily follow conversation threads. YouTube director of product management, Shimrit Ben-Yair, said they created the feature because her team believes it would result to even more sharing.

The app would ideally cut out the middleman (other chat apps) and make videos trend more quickly. YouTube currently uses machine probing techniques that analyze user histories and suggests videos. Recommendations from friends and family within the site might up the app’s ante.

YouTube already dominates the video-viewing scene with over a billion users, almost one-third of all the people on the internet. The website is available in 88 countries in 76 different languages. The average viewing session on a mobile device is 40 minutes, which is a 40 percent increase from March 2014, and YouTube reaches more 18-49 year-olds than any cable network in the United States.

Facebook, Snapchat, and even Amazon, however, are chasing after YouTube’s audience. Amazon announced on Tuesday that it will allow people post videos to its website and earn money from advertising, royalties and other sources. If YouTube can keep users on their app, they might be able to downplay its competition.