YouTube CEO says the site seeks to capitalize on Web3

YouTube is looking to expand ways to help creators capitalize on new technologies like non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Susan Wojcicki, the site’s CEO, revealed this news on January 26 in her annual letter, which laid out the company’s priorities.

In her letter, Wojcicki claimed the popular video site intends to start dabbling in sectors that have been hyped of late. In the annual letter, Wojcicki wrote,

The past year in the world of crypto, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and even decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) has highlighted a previously unimaginable opportunity to grow the connection between creators and their fans.

She added that YouTube strives to expand the YouTube ecosystem to help creators capitalize on emerging technologies, including NFTs. According to her, these improvements help strengthen and improve the experiences of creators and fans have on YouTube. She added that YouTube has been gaining inspiration from everything happening on web3.

Embracing the future

With these ambitions, YouTube becomes the latest social media to announce its web3 ambitions as it tries to embrace the digital economy. While the company has only mentioned NFTs, it seems to be telling its users there are new ways to earn money as new models emerge.

This news comes after YouTube ads generated $7.21 billion (£5.34 billion), a 43% increase from $5.40 billion (£4.00 billion) a year ago. This growth matched Google’s overall revenue growth. The company is set to release its fourth-quarter earnings call in the coming week.

Apart from embracing web3, YouTube also aims to dive deeper into podcasting. In so doing, the company intends to provide another avenue for distribution and promotion. Wojcicki asserted that YouTube seeks to become an integral part of the creator economy as podcast usage grows.

With Google focusing on its efforts to compete with TikTok in hosting short viral videos, YouTube launched a rival product dubbed Shorts, which has hit five trillion views since its launch in 2020. Google provided the last update on Shorts in July 2021, when CEO Sundar Pichai said Shorts was getting 15 billion daily views.

On top of this, YouTube is also in the early stages of testing how to integrate shopping into Shorts. To this end, the company seeks to hire more staff to offer creators more specific information regarding privacy violations.

Wojcicki concluded by saying,

We currently comply with regulation in countries across the globe. But we also have concerns about new regulation that could have unintended consequences that would impact the creator community, particularly around the regulation of legal speech.

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