The folks from Google were in town again barely three weeks after the Google g Kenya 2.0 developers conference was held here. This time, the dressed down chaps were here to announce the launch of youtube kenya, Google's online video service which can now be accessed at www.youtube.co.ke
It may not seem like a big deal but for Google it apparently was. The youtube logo or doodle as it is known for the whole of Wednesday had Kenya's flag globally. That means anyone who logged onto youtube anywhere in the world saw a youtube logo bearing Kenya's flag. One thing people many not know, is that after Google Search, YouTube search is the second largest search engine in the world.
The site has staggering statistics :- it receives 3billion views a day, up 50 per cent over the past year. At the same time, 48 hours of video are uploaded every minute or 7 years of video each day. It pervades the social media scene with 300 years of video being viewed on Facebook every day and 600 tweets per minute contain a youtube video.
So what is the impact of YouTube launching in Kenya?
Videos certainly seem to be loading faster and according to the company, YouTube Kenya makes it easier for local users to find and view the videos most relevant to them, by tuning search and discovery algorithms such as featured videos and homepage, as well as category spotlights. “Content uploaded by users in Kenya will show up as “browse pages” on the YouTube Kenya site, creating a new virtual space for the national community and giving Kenyan users the opportunity to increase their exposure,” the company said in a statement.
“We are very excited about this very special launch in Kenya today,” Tal Sela, Partner Manager at YouTube told Star Tech. “Having Youtube's local domain in Kenya, youtube.co.ke, will enable users, when searching for videos, to find content relevant to them, made or uploaded by local users from Kenya, or made for them by local content creators like our partners whether its KBC or NTV. “Also on the partner side, Kenya produces a lot of great content and in the past those content creators who have showcased their products globally, can now target the local community and engage and communicate,” Sela added.
Among, the benefits local partners of YouTube will get include being able to brand their own YouTube pages such as HomeBoyz have done on their YouTube channel. “They also get a content management system in the back end,” Denis Gikunda, Google sub-Saharan manager for localization said. They will also be able to stamp their ID on videos allowing them to track it and flag it whenever a piece of the video or the entire video is used so that YouTube can bring it down.
Michael Stevens of YouTube in New York, took content creators through some of the ways one can popularize their videos. Some of the tips he gave include: The first 15 seconds are very important to catch someone's attention, tentpole your video topic around an event that is about to happen and people are likely to search for, give your video pace as it is hard to lose someone when you move really fast and upload strategically e.g. at the same time always so that your subscribers know when to look for new content.
