(Updated: 13:42pm)
GOOGLE IS LAUNCHING its long-awaited kids version of YouTube in the US today, but Irish users expecting it to arrive here will be left disappointed.
A spokesperson for Google Ireland told TheJournal.ie that YouTube Kids is US-only for now, although the plan is to bring it out to other countries as time goes on.
The app, which was released on iOS and Android, will filter out inappropriate content and disables comments as well. Also, there’s no option to log into the service and parents can also limit the amount of time their child can use the app, a setting that is password protected.
The app’s layout is focused on large basic icons and images and contains four main sections: shows, radio (providing video versions of popular songs) education and top videos.
The app also filters out searches that may produce inappropriate content. For example, if a child searched for ‘sex’, they would get a reply telling them to search for something else.
The app is free but will be ad-supported. The head of Youtube Product Manager Shimrit Ben-Yair told The Guardian it was “important for us to make the app free and available to everyone, therefore it’s ad-supported.”
The ads will be family-friendly and won’t be personalised since there’s no login feature. Such ads are guided by privacy policies and marketing laws in both the US and any other country YouTube brings the app to.
The app is YouTube’s answer to the growing audience of children watching videos on the service. One of the highest-earning channels on the site, DCToysCollector, managed to bring in €4 million in 2014.
Mainly featuring videos of an anonymous woman unwrapping toys and talking about them, it has 3.7 million subscribers and has received 5.2 billion views since it was founded in 2011.
It also recently launched a music service, YouTube Music Key, which allows users to download music videos and listen to them without having to access the app.
(Originally published 12:36pm)
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