YouTube

YouTube
Summary
Video publishing platform with monetization options and comprehensive social features.

Parent organisation: Google / Alphabet
Type of organisation: Publicly-listed company (or group)
Market share: Market dominance

Pricing: Free
Skills needed to set-up: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Skills needed to use: Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Requires audience sign-in to use: No, sign-in is optional
Pros
Open Source alternatives available
Releases new features regularly
Plain English TOS
Clear data policies
Allows data export
Allows data deletion
Has accessibility statement
Shares diversity data
Cons
Newsworthy business issues/challenges - Widely reported friction with workforce across Google, YouTube’s new kids’ content system has creators scrambling, Gaming app is shutting down this week
Lack pricing transparency
Newsworthy technical issues - YouTube DOWN – Video streaming service NOT WORKING for thousands of users, YouTube is down: Video streaming site crashes for users across the UK, Google recovers from outage that took down YouTube, Gmail, and Snapchat, This article is more than 1 year old YouTube outage: video service down for hours before being restored
Newsworthy security breaches - 2018 Google data breach, Massive wave of account hijacks hits YouTube creators

Full Product Data Collection

Data collected January-February 2020

Product nameYouTube
Product URLhttps://www.youtube.com/
Parent organisationGoogle / Alphabet
Workflow categoryPublishing & distribution
Date product founded2005
Product descriptionVideo publishing platform with monetization options and comprehensive social features.
What type of company or organisation is the product owned by?Publicly-listed company (or group)
Is the company profit-making?Yes, profitable
How is this product funded?Subscriptions, Advertising
What market share does the tool have?Market dominance
Is there an Open Source alternative in this product space?Yes. PeerTube, DTube
When did the company last release new features?November 2019: Redesigned homepage
Have they shared details of the product roadmap?No
Is there talk of the product raising further investment?No
Is there talk of the product being acquired?No
Have there been any newsworthy business issues or challenges in the last 12 months?Yes. Widely reported friction with workforce across Google, YouTube’s new kids’ content system has creators scrambling, Gaming app is shutting down this week
Is there a pricing model listed on the website?No / cannot find
How clear & transparent is this pricing model?Product is free but it’s unclear
What is the range of prices offered?Paid subscriptions are available for consumers, but the platform is free for publishers.
What factors drive higher pricing?N/A
What skills are needed to get this tool set up & usable?Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
What skills are needed to USE this tool day-to-day?Plug & play (any non-technical user can do it)
Does this tool use proprietary file formats for saving documents & outputs?Defaults to common open standard file formats
Is the product reliant on 3rd-party APIs or interoperability to function?No
Have there been any newsworthy technical issues in the last 3 years?Yes. YouTube DOWN – Video streaming service NOT WORKING for thousands of users, YouTube is down: Video streaming site crashes for users across the UK, Google recovers from outage that took down YouTube, Gmail, and Snapchat, This article is more than 1 year old YouTube outage: video service down for hours before being restored
How clear is the Terms of Service for users (i.e. publishing customers)?Simplified, plain English TOS
Does the product have a data collection & usage policy on its website? (Can be a GDPR statement)?Yes, comprehensive.
Is their data policy “GDPR everywhere”?No different rules in different markets
Does the product require your audience to sign-in to use it?No, sign-in is optional
IF SIGN IN REQUIRED: Does audience sign-in use 3rd party platforms?Google authentication
Does the public product website mention how to export or transfer your data to another service?Yes: Export/transfer publisher content, Yes: Export publisher metadata, Yes: Audience can data export
Does the public product website mention how to delete your data?Yes: for both publisher and audience data
Have there been any newsworthy security breaches with this product in the last 3 years?Yes. 2018 Google data breach, Massive wave of account hijacks hits YouTube creators
Does the company have an accessibility statement on its website?Yes
Does the company release information on the diversity of the workforce?Yes (for the whole of Google)

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