Google launches YouTube app for Australia’s tech-savvy two-year-olds

Get ready to hand your phone to a two-year-old: Google launches a YouTube Kids app for Australian children today, with content from local YouTube stars.

Gold Coast sisters Charli and Ashlee Kelly from the hit YouTube series Charlie's Crafty Kitchen will appear on YouTube's Kids app when it launches in Australia.

GOOGLE will launch a YouTube app for Australian children as young as two years old today that is designed to help raise “digitally literate kids” and show off content from rising local YouTube stars and even ABC favourites.

The arrival of the YouTube Kids app in Google’s Australian Play Store and Apple’s App Store today will follow the app’s launch in the United States earlier this year, offering child-friendly videos from cooking shows and nursery rhymes to drawing tutorials and Barbie doll stop-motion animation.

YouTube family and learning global head Malik Ducard said the app was designed to provide children with a safer way to view online videos, and one that was easy for them to use from a smartphone or tablet.

Child’s play ... Google will launch its YouTube Kids app in Australia on November 18, highlighting videos designed for viewing by children aged 2 to 8.

“As we designed it, we looked at the data and reality is ... about 75 per cent of kids under the age of eight have access to some kind of mobile device, some form of tablet,” Mr Ducard said.

“The other day I read that over 50 per cent of kids prefer to watch content on a device that’s mobile over other devices. That’s one of the reasons we designed this for kids in this form factor.”

The design of YouTube Kids is more colourful than the regular YouTube app, he said, with “big icons for pudgy fingers,” and categories for shows, music, learning, and exploring.

Parents will be encouraged to control their children’s use of the app, with the ability to turn off video search, set a passcode, and dictate time limits for the app.

“From a parent’s standpoint, it’s good to let the app be the bad guy for once,” Mr Ducard said.

“When you set that timer, it ramps the child off the app with notifications. We do it in a fun way.”

Kid-friendly videos would be automatically added to YouTube Kids rather than screened by a human gatekeeper, Mr Ducard said, but parents could “flag” any inappropriate content.

Local content ... Gold Coast sisters Charli and Ashlee Kelly from the hit YouTube series Charlie's Crafty Kitchen will appear on YouTube's Kids app when it launches in Australia.

From launch, the app will include content from the ABC, including Giggle and Hoot and Play School, in addition to existing popular kids YouTube channels, many of which are made in Australia.

Melbourne YouTube star Shannon Jones, who makes up one fifth of Bounce Patrol Kids, said YouTube’s new app could provide an easy way for kids to find the group’s videos themselves.

“Before they can read and write, they can open up this app and search for Old MacDonald Had a Farm,” she said. “It’s really amazing to see kids interacting with technology in that way.”

Ms Jones said YouTube hosted a lot of child-friendly videos, but kids using their parents’ accounts would often be served “home-improvement videos” more appropriate to their 35-year-old father than a colourful, or educational video like her group produced.

Simonne Kelly, whose bubbly children Charli, 9, and Ashlee, 6, produce biweekly videos for the YouTube channel Charli’s Crafty Kitchen, said the family’s online cooking show had become more popular in the United States, where YouTube Kids was available.

“Up until now, there hasn’t been that really safe kid space,” she said.

“You might find videos on YouTube where it looks a bit like a kids’ channel but it’s not appropriate.”

The family, which hails from Queensland’s Gold Coast, has produced YouTube videos watched more than 480 million times, boasts more than half a million subscribers, and now delivers new cooking videos twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays.

“We’ve just gone to two (videos) a week but it’s at the stage where they still want to do more filming,” Ms Kelly said.

“We knew the girls were very outgoing, funny and creative but it became so much bigger than what we ever comprehended. It’s surpassed my expectations by quite a lot.”

Originally published as Google launches YouTube app for Australia’s tech-savvy two-year-olds