New YouTube for Kids Android App Gives Children a Safer Place to Watch Videos
YouTube has a ton of useful content online. There are educational and how-to videos, product reviews and more. There are also many harmful and explicit videos that kids can see easily.
Now, there is a YouTube Kids app that will create a safe environment for kids looking for age-appropriate videos, USAToday reports. And, the comments section will be removed to keep kids even safer.
YouTube Kids will be available Feb. 23 as an Android-only app.
"Parents were constantly asking us, can you make YouTube a better place for our kids," said Shimrit Ben-Yair, the project's group product manage.
"We've seen 50 percent growth in viewing time on YouTube, but for our family entertainment channels, it's more like 200 percent," Ben-Yair said.
YouTube Kids has been in the works for months. Engineers who are also parents and third-party testers collaborated to create the app.
The app's demo shows a TV set for kids to click on to view shows like "Thomas the Tank Engine," a radio icon that kids can click on to watch videos of popular kids songs, a light bulb for educational videos and a binoculars that will explore all the videos the app has to offer.
"The images are big as are the tap targets for small fingers, and since most younger children can't type they can search with voice," Ben-Yair said.
If kids try to search for something inappropriate, the app will ask them to try again. Parents will be able to set a timer to limit the amount of time their child has on the app. After the timer expires, the app will shutdown and can only be accessed with the parent's password.
This move to create a kid-friendly app follows what Vine recently did by creating a Vine for Kids.
Advertisers looking to market to kids under 13 are excited for this app to start allowing mobile ad-space.
Darcy Bowe, vice president and media director at Starcom, an advertising agency, said she would be absolutely interested in using the YouTube Kids app to advertise for her clients, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Do you think this kid-friendly app can be successful? Leave us a comment below.
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