How YouTube built a better way to connect your TV and phone

Image: YouTube

The head of design for YouTube on TV says that TV remotes are hard to type on. Every app and service has tried to find ways around this, from those screens on the web that save you from typing your password to a heavy emphasis on voice search. The Apple TV will make you type on your phone rather than on the remote. Even that isn't enough for the video sharing site.

There is a new feature that connects your phone to your TV. It works on both devices, so tablets should work as well. If you open the app on your phone and then the app on your streaming device at the same time, you should get a pop-up asking if you are watching YouTube on your TV. Your phone becomes a companion for your TV once you hit connect. You can leave comments on the video, queue up the next up, like and subscribe, all the things that are too annoying to do from your remote. In a February post, YouTube promised a feature like this, and now it is launching.

It's easy to think of the Connect feature like a Cast. Instead of using your phone as a TV remote, you can start the viewing process on your big screen and use your phone as a companion. Kurt Wilms says that it means not having to worry about whether your TV supports Cast or your wi-fi is configured correctly. Your phone doesn't have to be on the wi-fi network, it's just your account across devices.

Image: YouTube

Figuring out what to do with TV viewers is important for YouTube. For years, YouTube has said that TV screens are the platform's fastest-growing surface, with users now watching 700 million hours of videos every day on their TVs. There are no that on TV today.

All that TV viewing presents a threat to the site. As the company has moved to shore up its position as the best place for creators to actually build a business and make money, it has rolled out a number of ways for creators to interact with and make money from their audience. Super chat and shopping are part of the future of YouTube. Do you know how to join a channel? Have you ever watched a live stream on your TV? I don't think so. It's a video player on TVs. It needs to be more.

There is a world in which you can build a TV or a dedicated streaming device. The team zeroed in on the fact that 86 percent of people watch TV with their phone in their hands. According to internal research, a huge number of users watch YouTube on their TV while also watching it on their phone. Some users load the same video in both places, so they can read and add comments, while others are constantly flicking through recommendations looking for the next thing to watch. Everyone is on their phone. The trick to fixing the big screen was to make more of the small screen.

The first step was connecting TVs and phones. Evans says to figure out how to show the comments you leave on the screen, so you don't have to look down again to confirm it actually posted. You can quickly respond to popular comments if you show them on the screen. The risk of accidentally deprecating the TV experience and teaching users that the only way to use YouTube is on your phone is mitigated by the fact that you prioritize your phone as the interaction system. The company is trying to find ways to make things feel connected and natural, rather than treating everything as an extension of your phone.

The real potential here comes from the fact that your account is becoming self-awareness. You just have an account on the site and it watches one thing at a time. Going forward, Wilms says, you could have a video playing on your TV, another on your laptop, and a third on your Nest Hub, and interact with them all in your YouTube app. You could play the same video on every screen you own. Not just in the living room, but across the entire house.

The multi- user problem is inherent to the living room. If two people are sitting on a couch, can they use the internet? Whose account wins? You have to get the people in your household signed in to prevent your recommendations from being ruined by your roommate. Evans says that making multi-account homes work better is a much longer-term project.

It was once a video player on the site. It's a social network, a shopping platform, a short-form entertainment system, a music service, and many other things. Teams across the company are trying to figure out how to be all those things at the same time. Some of those devices have screens that are really large. They have to have the video sharing website. It's just not YouTube if you can comment, shop, and chat.