YouTube Mobile Site Launches

YouTube launched a mobile interface available at m.youtube.com. This will be great news for those who want to watch videos directly on their phones. To see these videos on mobile phone, the phones should be able to play streaming videos like (RTSP/3GP with H263/AMR). The older phones may not have this technology, like Treo 650 but the newer phones will have this option. I can open this site in my phone but can't play the videos. Since videos consumes a large data, one should have unlimited data plan with their mobile phone carriers.

The new mobile site has a dark background, so it may not be easy on the eyes.

Phones with 3G support in Europe will be able to play 3GP files of YouTube's.

Only a small part of YouTube's videos are available for this mobile site, most of them either popular or recently uploaded. There are also number of categories at the bottom of the page, people, entertainment and "grab bag", favorites and others. You can also search for videos in this site.

If this works with the new iPhone, the users will love it to have another option of watching great videos from YouTube.

YouTube also has added an Adobe remixer so the user can add great songs to their user generated videos.

I think YouTube is the first video site that is making the videos available for mobile phones.

Gizmodo has tested this mobile YouTube site, you can watch it in the video below. and these are their findings.

• No way to upload videos via the page, but you can still upload via SMS, as always.
• Not all videos on the main page are online, and there's no discernible pattern to what you'll find.
• The files come in .3gp streamed format. You can't download them to save.
• The interface is HTML, and fairly rich, with links to other videos and detailed info on each. No way to vote for videos, though.
• Video res is downscaled compared to the main site, but impressive.
• Buffering takes about 10 seconds or so. These files aren't small, and downloading them and playing them is likely to destroy your battery life. Such is the price for chuckles on the go.
• Sorry iPhone, these videos are too beefy for EDGE. You'll have to use WiFi if you want to keep from going insane.

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