YouTube’s priorities for 2023
New YouTube lead Neal Mohan shares milestones and priorities
In a recent blog post, YouTube’s new lead Neal Mohan shared the company’s milestones as well as its priorities for 2023. Mohan aims to focus on ensuring the safety of the YouTube community, ensuring the success of YouTube creators, and building for the YouTube of the future.
Seeing YouTube’s potential
Mohan spoke about his beginnings at YouTube headquarters 15 years ago, when the company was just a small office on a second floor above a pizza place. Even then, he could see the platform’s potential to be great. In his new position, Mohan is excited for the future of the platform and the part he will take in it.
What will be YouTube’s focus?
Mohan reiterated that YouTube’s focus will remain what is most important to both creators and viewers, and that includes helping creators do well, building the platform of the future, and keeping the community safe. Creators and artists are what make YouTube what it is, and that is what will be put first when it comes to building the YouTube of the future.
Supporting Creators
To support this, Mohan included some interesting statistics regarding the current state of the economy and how that hasn’t stopped the company from offering business opportunities on its platform. According to research by Oxford Economics, YouTube’s creative ecosystem supported more than two million jobs in 2021 in Brazil, Canada, the US, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, France, Australia, Germany, the UK, India, and Turkey.
YouTube plans include creating more ways for creators to make money by giving them more tools, expanding creator feedback via life help through chat or email to find out what the platform can do to help them. Expanding accessibility for people who are deaf or hard or hearing by putting money into machine learning over a long period of time. Growing creator communities by going mobile with gifted memberships, letting viewers remix clips into Shorts, and adding features that will make it easy to put together the best gaming content in a new way.
What’s in store for the YouTube of the future?
YouTube will be putting more money into the features and experiences that will make YouTube a better platform, such as doubling down on the streaming and connected TV experience and releasing the creative potential of YouTube in ways that have never been done before.
Mohan mentioned that more and more, viewers are watching YouTube content on their TVs, which is the biggest screen in most homes. In an attempt to make YouTube the best place to watch TV and football, YouTube has added Primetime Channels to allow users to watch videos from their favorite streaming services, and announced that NFL Sunday Ticket will be making its way to the platform.
YouTube will also be releasing a tool this year that will let creators record a Short next to other Shorts and YouTube videos. AI will play a major role in the future of YouTube, enabling creators to improve the quality of their work. For example, YouTube is working on a tool that will allow creators to change characters’ clothes virtually or change the setting for a movie.
Making sure the YouTube community is safe
As new ideas flourish, protecting the YouTube community remains the company’s most important goal. Tools like YouTube Kids have allowed kids to explore their interests in a safe place and give parents the tools needed to make sure the platform works for their family’s needs. However, there is still work to be done.
YouTube is staying on top of new policies, bills, and laws being introduced all over the world that shape the digital environment. YouTube will be having a debate about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the U.S., which has helped creators and given the platform the power to take down harmful content. The company is also involved in similar efforts in Europe and Canada to ensure digital safety.
