LG YouTube-enabled mobiles will enable users to view and share YouTube video clips and upload their own video content…
LG Electronics, the world’s fifth-largest mobile phone manufacturer, has signed a deal with Google to develop a YouTube-focused 3G phone. Initially, it was just search tools, but that was meant to expand to include Google Maps, Gmail, and Blogger.
Expected to hit the European market in the later half of 2007, the joint venture will realize a handset that allows YouTube users to directly upload, view and share video clips.
LG already has ties with Google — it started selling 3G handsets called “Google phones” in Europe last month, which are bundled with software that offers one-click access to Google services like its search engine, Google Maps, and Gmail.
LG’s announcement comes hot on the heels of their latest Google Phone – the LG KU580 Chocolate phone. The handset manufacturing company seems bent on aligning itself with the web’s big-hitters.
It is expected that an LG phone carrying the YouTube service will also be a 3G model, almost certainly with HSDPA/HSUPA high-speed mobile broadband capability.
YouTube is the world’s largest user-created content website with about 70,000 new video clips posted every day. The site was selected by Time magazine as one of the best inventions of 2006.
Thus far, there are not too many phones out there that can actually play YouTube’s embedded videos (iPhone fans are all too aware of this problem) – so a purpose-built phone from LG is an exciting proposition for YouTube fans.
Apple already lets iPhone users watch YouTube videos, but unlike the LG deal, users do not have the capability to record videos. As TechCrunch points out, competitors now have a chance to improve their own mobile video offerings before the iPhone is released internationally or as a 3G version.
With abundance of user-created videos already uploaded to YouTube, there is sure to be a healthy supply of user-created content to keep YouTube phone-users entertained for a good long time.
This also helps Google, since YouTube will become the default video site for everyone who buys the LG phone and therefore will at the very least increase visit figures or even add some extra video to the site.
Ahn Seung-kwon, the head of LG Electronics mobile communications division, said the YouTube-enabled phones will meet the demands of customers looking for innovative mobile Internet services.
For video to really take off on mobile platforms, the pricing for data access needs to come down and unlimited packages offered by all the carriers. That, coupled with faster connections, could see Internet usage in general really grow in the mobile sector. At the moment, things are just too expensive still.
With Google and YouTube on its side, LG seems poised to bring a new world of features and functionality to the mobile industry.