Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google-owned video streaming service YouTube has a new initiative for children. Its new app YouTube Kids is youth-oriented and it is intended to encourage children to read more books. However, the initiative dubbed #ReadAlong will be run in conjunction with a group of major book publishers. Some of these publishers will play a significant role in the creation of content for kids including Penguin Random House, National Geographic Kids, and HarperCollins.
Developing a passion for reading in children
The YouTube Kids is in its second year since inception and as part of the #ReadAlong campaign. The initiative stems from the fact that younger users are more often than not engaging with reading-focused videos. Publishers will be allowed to promote their own works. Unlike previous years, this year’s campaign has a wider focus, which has an inclusion of additional content in Spanish, Portuguese, and other languages.
The strategic programming manager on YouTube’s family, Hema Bajaj says, “We saw that our community was not only already producing content of this sort, but that viewers were also loving it and engaging with it.”
Kids are a powerful demographic in the digital video space
“Kid Critic” a series of videos from HarperCollins is part of the new content, which will be featured in this year’s campaign. It will also feature special reading-focused playlists as well as other several reading-focused videos.
It is worth noting that kids form the bigger part of the digital video space. YouTube Kids app attracts more than 8 million active viewers each week and it is now available in over 28 countries. Given the rapid growth of the digital era, it makes sense to have big publishers reach out to children.
It has been a struggle for a majority of publishers to balance between physical and digital book sales hence the platform comes in handy. Besides, it is important to create multi- format content for digitally-savvy young readers. In the meantime, Alphabet’s stock closed at $988.29 witnessing an increase of $1.20 or 0.12%.
