YouTube hopes to have a mobile offering within a year, according to its cofounder; the announcement comes a month or so after an analyst said News Corp.'s MySpace would soon be going mobile.
YouTube will "have something on a mobile device," Chad Hurley told advertising executives at the OgivlyOne Digital Media Summit, writes AdAge. He apparently didn't say how YouTube would monetize the service, but did say the current ad model likely couldn't be ported over: "It would be great to make the ad model work on a mobile device," he said. "I haven't seen that work."
Many of the clips on YouTube were recorded by users with their cell phones, Reuters points out, and a new mobile service could allow video-sharing in the YouTube community directly via phones.
YouTube, recently acquired by Google, was the talk of the conference, writes AdAge. Mike Kelly, chief of AOL Media Network, is quoted as predicting a succession of deals between major media companies and YouTube to create commercial relationships.
"If you're a company whose business model depends on copyrighted content you can't afford to put all of it up [online]. But if you're concerned about getting the biggest audience and building audience, then you can't ignore that," Kelly is quoted as saying.