YouTube has simultaneously become a mobile platform and one of the leading services watched on TV. However, the two experiences have remained distinct: while watching a video is convenient on the big screen, typing a comment, searching for information, or interacting with a channel is much less so.
The new companion experience uses the smartphone as a second screen and social remote control. The video can keep playing on the TV while users open comments and descriptions, leave likes, or subscribe to the channel from their phone.
Television becomes interactive again
For decades, the industry envisioned "interactive TV" by adding menus and applications directly to the television set. The smartphone offers a more natural solution: everyone already has a keyboard, an account, and a personal device.
This allows YouTube to keep what the TV does best on the television—displaying large images—and shift to the phone what the phone does best: input, identity, and conversation.
The second screen is no longer a distraction
During traditional television viewing, the phone was considered a competitor for attention. YouTube, instead, incorporates it into the experience. The act of picking up a smartphone while watching something can become an interaction with that very content.
This is a major strategic difference in the competition against Netflix and broadcasters. YouTube does not have to choose between being a social network or television: it can be both by using two screens simultaneously.
