YouTube launches new mobile site

New YouTube mobile site offers faster browsing, better quality videos and is built on HTML5

Google has launched a new mobile version of its video-sharing site, YouTube. The refreshed site is designed to offer a better video experience across mobile devices, and deliver better quality videos to viewers, faster.

The new site, which is built on the HTML5 standard and accessed through the phone’s web browser, will offer an even better user experience than native mobile applications, claims Google. There are also enhanced social networking features to make it easier to share video links on Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz.

“YouTube consumption on mobile devices has grown considerably,” said Google. “Playbacks were up 160 per cent in 2009 over the previous year, and YouTube mobile now receives more than 100 million video playbacks a day.”

An hour of footage is uploaded to YouTube from mobile devices every minute, said Google.

Google said that when the original mobile version of YouTube launched in 2007, the use of internet-enabled mobile devices was still in its relative infancy. Mobile browsers and mobile devices had limitations that prevented the mobile YouTube experience matching up to the desktop experience.

“Today, more than ever, YouTube knows that you want to be able to find and access your favourite videos wherever you are,” said Google in a statement. “That’s why we’re rolling out an updated version of the mobile site. As the world continues to go mobile, YouTube thinks this new site will offer a great improvement for anyone who wants a more consistent YouTube experience across devices.”