YouTube Pours Money Into Educational Videos

Posted October 24, 2018

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It's not secret that web based content companies are under fire.

Facebook has been dragged over the coals of late, including a move by some major investors to replace founder and Chairman Mark Zuckerberg.  That's serious stuff.  Others are talking about taking anti trust action against the web giants.  

And Google just got slapped with a 1.5 billion Euro bill by the EU in an antitrust action against its Android OS. 

In response, (maybe) to this public oprobrium, YouTube announced yestrday that it was committing $20 million to support onine educational videos.

Well, comapred to 1.5 billion Euros, 20 million dollars is not exactly a massive investment, but it is a start.

The company says its new fund will make the platform "better for educators and learners".

As part of the scheme, YouTube will launch a new Learning channel, which will showcase its own original programmes and those made by independent creators.

Organisations such as Goodwill and Year Up will help curate the channel and put together playlists of educational content.

Up until now, YouTube's algorithms have tended to favor both longer videos (as you are judged on how long you stay with the video) and 'sensationaist' ones.

Original content creators felt they were getting squeezed.  

I lifted this directly from the BBC - (credit where credit is due) - as YouTube will talk to them, but not to me.. .as of yet

The BBC's Chris Fox spoke to Malik Ducard, YouTube's global head of learning, ahead of the launch on Monday.

Chris Fox: Why launch this fund? Is it because video-makers are struggling to earn money through advertising?

Malik Ducard: In July we announced the launch of YouTube Learning, which is an initiative to bring together the educational content creators and support them more. We announced that because the 'edutubers' have shown us the power of positivity and the potential of what YouTube can be in education. In 2017, there were over a billion hours [watched] of just videos with 'how-to' in the title... A few days ago, an education channel in Germany called In A Nutshell became the number one channel in all of Germany. I think the number two channel is football-related. It's crazy that the educational channel should become number one, but it's super consistent with the growth in this category.

Well, you can't go wrong with phrases like 'the power of positivity'...

Will it make as difference for us, the conetnt creators?

As they used to say in the TV biz when things broke down - Please Stand By