The lack of curation on YouTube has been a source of frustration in our house for a long time.
The kids just scroll down the list on the side of the viewer and hit whatever video they think looks interesting.
Then the next thing you hear is swearing, and there's no effective way to stop that from showing up on 100,000 other kid's feeds. (And it would be so easy to implement!)
Our kids love the variety of YouTube. Even Netflix is too slow and inconvenient for them.
Last week we were watching "Annie" music videos on YouTube with my four year old and a commercial for a horror movie comes on.
It was a calamity. To stop the video, (which was being Chromecast onto my TV) I jumped to the couch to get my phone, waited for it to wake up, then spasmed on the screen trying to figure out how to exit or pause or whatever. It of course ignored me entirely. After all, the only reason I'd skip an ad is because I'm trying to bypass their ad-revenue. Le sigh.
My wife is meanwhile trying to get my daughter's attention innocuously so she won't watch a dead, rotting woman attack a little boy.
This is why I'm most excited about this too. It's too easy for kids to transition from cartoons to teenagers throwing stuff into ceiling fans. Interested to see just how far they take the curation.
I have a younger-than-thirteen daughter who would love to be able to post her video creations to YT too, and have her own channel. I had created a gmail account for her before, then she tried to create her channel and was asked for her DOB which she answered truthfully resulting in… not only no channel, her whole email was blocked and, according to their statement, eventually deleted. Yes, mea culpa.
YT for kids is welcome, but alas, does not yet help make my little one happy. Is there a way to let little ones publish their own creations on their own terms? anywhere?
Lying about your age to get around a low-stakes boneheaded policy is about as white as a lie can get.
I still use my fake birthday (Jan 1 1984) for online accounts even though I'm 25. It's not exactly Rosa Parks level civil disobedience but it seems like the least I can do. January 1 birthdays both allow the provider to cover their ass and allow you to register your contempt for the silliness in a measurable fashion.
I realize that full curation probably isn't possible as this thing scales, but as a parent, this thing will live or die based on the content they allow into the stream.
I love watching videos of people building stuff with my kids. Moreover, I love watching the creativeness that some of the videos inspire in my kids. Unfortunately, to date, I have had to preview most of the content my children see on YouTube so that they don't either see a video review of something that's got the f-bomb every other word, or that the sidebar video recommendations don't bring up stuff that I really don't want my kid watching. And, to be clear, these are young kids.
In my mind, this is all about the content, the creators they allow into the system, and the curation of those two. I'd love to see an algorithmic way to accomplish some of this, but I expect on the front end, it'll require a lot of human filtering.
This will absolutely require some human filtering, even if only as a backstop. That parents feel safe and comfortable with the content -- and all "adjacencies," such as comments, ads, and so forth -- is critical.
I'm not sure what their content strategy will be, but by way of inference from public record (job listings, this blog post, etc.), I would guess that they're priming the pump with content from established, kid-friendly publishers. They want to start off strong, with proven commodities, before opening the floodgates. There might also be a qualification process for new creators and publishers that is more rigorous than the process for all-purpose YouTube; that's just my speculation, though.
I don't watch much on YouTube so they may already do some of this but it seems to me like this would be an easy problem to solve if they so desired. Add a rating system where the content creators rate themselves and an easy way for viewers to flag them as incorrectly rated. Add to that a confidence rating of how likely a video is correctly rated (based on number of views without flagging) and you could confidently let your kids view appropriately rated material.
There's probably an app-idea in there. Maybe an app that costs video creators some small amount, say $5, that gets their video in a "for-kids" video app. The $5 pays to have your video reviewed and tagged so that parents can filter what they want their kid to see.
As a parent, I would definitely pay for that app/service.
It might be possible to automate it! Google keeps posting these incredible recognition results. Perhaps they can apply it to the video/audio looking for items it has trained it to be inappropriate?
I can't find mention of whether or not there are ads. Ads are a deal-breaker for me with the kidlet. Currently whenever she asks to "See ostriches" or "People throwing fish!" (we brought her to Pike's Place market in Seattle and the kid was oddly obsesseed) it's a dice roll whether we sit through a Lexus ad. I'd happily pay a modest amount for a product like this one provided she doesn't have to see ads (regardless of whether targeted to kids of their Lexus-purchasing parents)
On PC, AdBlock works great on YouTube. If you're using a mobile app, yeah, I think you're SOL for now. I also would pay a monthly fee for an ad-free YouTube.
I would also want to know how much stuff is tracked. Disney knows the secret, that the shortest path to a parents wallet is through the kid, I am not against Google-Youtube making money out of this, but just want to know what is and what is not tracked. Of course, ad policy will also help.
My kids, 5 and 2, have really been into these weird toy unboxing videos recently. They're fine with me from a "ok for kids" point of view, though I don't see the attraction. Anyway, I just wonder if these type of videos will be available.
These things are seriously blowing up! I've talked to so many parents who mention that their kids are hooked on these things. These kids just watch some random toy be unwrapped then hit the next suggested video for hours. I also hear stories about how then they beg their parents for the toy. They're just really long commercials.
My kids don't seem as interested but it might be they're a bit old for them now. I have noticed that they watch less and less Netflix and more and more weird cartoons on YouTube instead. I have to watch them closely.
My 3 year old son loves these videos as well (especially the toy car unboxing videos on Youtube). I'm glad someone linked to an article about it. It seems really odd to me that he loves them, but he finally seems to be over them after a 4 month stint of always seeking them out, trying to spell out the words to find them, etc
Cant believe some of these toy unboxing videos have +70 million views, insane
My son (3) became obsessed with watching these Kinder adverts, to the point where I had to delete the YouTube app and put him in cold turkey until he regained interest in the (brilliant) BBC CBeebies content.
If this app/service can strip out all of that crap I'd pay significantly more than I do for most apps. Easily.
This is a great start! Ultimately, I'd rather my kid just have a 'kids account' (similar to Apple's model) and my wife and I would be the curators. In that setup Google could just expose a bunch of themed, kid friendly aggregate feeds parents could choose to include or not. For now I would settle for the ability to allow specific channels regardless of rating. For instance, I see Stampy is already in there but he swears occasionally, not enough for me to care but likely enough to get hit by an automated filter.
While I do think this is a good move for YouTube, it isn't enough to win my family's viewership, because the age-appropriate issues of YouTube are not their only problem (quality of content is still an issue), and there are other video sources if I want to educate my children via online videos. Khan Academy is the most obvious one that comes to mind, but we also will watch documentaries on Netflix, and watch the Smithsonian channel on our Roku.
Have waited too long for you guys to grow up, have family, kids...so you can make web usable for kids. This is better be good and without crapAdwares. Will give it a try.
I want to know if it will have caching for offline use. Don't care if it is like Spotify and needs to check in occasionally but would really like to be able to have something for the kid on long haul flights.
Curious to know how many of you with children are going to use the time limit feature? I have a kid on the way and I have concerns about my child spending his formative years glued to youtube...
As a parent of three young children, we've established weekends (Friday evening, Saturday, Sunday) as video and screen time. This is pretty easy criteria for the kids to understand which makes it easier to enforce no video Mon-Thu. The weekends are nice because the kids get the equivalent experience of Saturday morning cartoons and it lets us parents sleep in a bit.
Even so, we notice that too much video (more than 40m-1h in one session) makes at least one of our kids pretty cranky. So, we might consider the time limit feature.
To keep them off the screen, we just have lots of clay, crayons, scissors, construction paper, tape, legos, books, puzzles, etc. And playground visits.
We often find that by the end of the day on the weekend, if it was one of those days where they watched a little more video than less, they complain that there was still [some craft project thing] that they wanted to do. So, providing a bit of structure to limit screen time ultimately is letting them get to do other things that they really want to do.
Nope. Both of my kids have used YouTube since around 18 months' old and I don't plan on ever enacting any limits on "screen time."
I guess it varies by the kid, but neither of my kids seem able to stay stuck on the same mind-numbing task for long and they naturally progress to wanting to do more interactive stuff anyway. I think placing artificial limits instead provides a temptation to use their "quota" and makes the activity seem like a treat they have to use instead of just a normal part of life.
Wow, it looks really good, especially the old school Sesame Street giving me some memories. Lego channel is cool too but damn App Store search is not even showing it yet I had to download to the desktop and find it in Purchased.
[+] [-] swamp40|11 years ago|reply
The lack of curation on YouTube has been a source of frustration in our house for a long time.
The kids just scroll down the list on the side of the viewer and hit whatever video they think looks interesting.
Then the next thing you hear is swearing, and there's no effective way to stop that from showing up on 100,000 other kid's feeds. (And it would be so easy to implement!)
Our kids love the variety of YouTube. Even Netflix is too slow and inconvenient for them.
[+] [-] inanutshellus|11 years ago|reply
It was a calamity. To stop the video, (which was being Chromecast onto my TV) I jumped to the couch to get my phone, waited for it to wake up, then spasmed on the screen trying to figure out how to exit or pause or whatever. It of course ignored me entirely. After all, the only reason I'd skip an ad is because I'm trying to bypass their ad-revenue. Le sigh.
My wife is meanwhile trying to get my daughter's attention innocuously so she won't watch a dead, rotting woman attack a little boy.
...
Needless to say, this change is welcome.
[+] [-] marpstar|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tremendo|11 years ago|reply
YT for kids is welcome, but alas, does not yet help make my little one happy. Is there a way to let little ones publish their own creations on their own terms? anywhere?
[+] [-] jjoonathan|11 years ago|reply
I still use my fake birthday (Jan 1 1984) for online accounts even though I'm 25. It's not exactly Rosa Parks level civil disobedience but it seems like the least I can do. January 1 birthdays both allow the provider to cover their ass and allow you to register your contempt for the silliness in a measurable fashion.
[+] [-] thorntonbf|11 years ago|reply
I love watching videos of people building stuff with my kids. Moreover, I love watching the creativeness that some of the videos inspire in my kids. Unfortunately, to date, I have had to preview most of the content my children see on YouTube so that they don't either see a video review of something that's got the f-bomb every other word, or that the sidebar video recommendations don't bring up stuff that I really don't want my kid watching. And, to be clear, these are young kids.
In my mind, this is all about the content, the creators they allow into the system, and the curation of those two. I'd love to see an algorithmic way to accomplish some of this, but I expect on the front end, it'll require a lot of human filtering.
[+] [-] jonnathanson|11 years ago|reply
I'm not sure what their content strategy will be, but by way of inference from public record (job listings, this blog post, etc.), I would guess that they're priming the pump with content from established, kid-friendly publishers. They want to start off strong, with proven commodities, before opening the floodgates. There might also be a qualification process for new creators and publishers that is more rigorous than the process for all-purpose YouTube; that's just my speculation, though.
[+] [-] avalaunch|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] impostervt|11 years ago|reply
As a parent, I would definitely pay for that app/service.
[+] [-] swalsh|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emidln|11 years ago|reply
Disclaimer: I work there.
[+] [-] famousactress|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] munaf|11 years ago|reply
http://mashable.com/2015/02/23/youtube-kids/
[+] [-] coldpie|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sremani|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] impostervt|11 years ago|reply
example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_e8CPuVepA
[+] [-] vyrotek|11 years ago|reply
My kids don't seem as interested but it might be they're a bit old for them now. I have noticed that they watch less and less Netflix and more and more weird cartoons on YouTube instead. I have to watch them closely.
[+] [-] raldi|11 years ago|reply
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/17/magazine/a-mothers-journey...
[+] [-] zanek|11 years ago|reply
Cant believe some of these toy unboxing videos have +70 million views, insane
[+] [-] keeran|11 years ago|reply
If this app/service can strip out all of that crap I'd pay significantly more than I do for most apps. Easily.
[+] [-] ThomPete|11 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LazzJtxNz4c
[+] [-] captn3m0|11 years ago|reply
[1]: http://youtube-global.blogspot.in/2015/02/youtube-kids.html
[+] [-] 0942v8653|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jasonkostempski|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 4ndr3vv|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codingdave|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] webwanderings|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeleeorg|11 years ago|reply
Cakey (from the creator of HotOrNot):
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cakey/id906087656
Wimp:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wimp.com-family-friendly-vid...
[+] [-] adaml_623|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blakeja|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] VanillaCafe|11 years ago|reply
Even so, we notice that too much video (more than 40m-1h in one session) makes at least one of our kids pretty cranky. So, we might consider the time limit feature.
To keep them off the screen, we just have lots of clay, crayons, scissors, construction paper, tape, legos, books, puzzles, etc. And playground visits.
We often find that by the end of the day on the weekend, if it was one of those days where they watched a little more video than less, they complain that there was still [some craft project thing] that they wanted to do. So, providing a bit of structure to limit screen time ultimately is letting them get to do other things that they really want to do.
[+] [-] petercooper|11 years ago|reply
I guess it varies by the kid, but neither of my kids seem able to stay stuck on the same mind-numbing task for long and they naturally progress to wanting to do more interactive stuff anyway. I think placing artificial limits instead provides a temptation to use their "quota" and makes the activity seem like a treat they have to use instead of just a normal part of life.
[+] [-] brogrammer90|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blakeja|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mohanrajn84|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] memorion|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nakedrobot2|11 years ago|reply
thanks Google.
[+] [-] happyscrappy|11 years ago|reply