YouTube has officially launched the offline feature in Pakistan that would enable mobile users to watch the video without having the facility of internet, once they have buffered it.
Google is launching a ‘YouTube Partner Program‘ in the country which will allow video creators, users and artists, to make money for their original work, according to Mashable.
“We are delighted to launch this new offline experience on YouTube with some of the top Pakistani players in entertainment. By making these popular videos available for temporary offline viewing, our partners will help fans connect more easily with their favorite content, while also helping bring more viewers to their videos. We hope to keep finding better ways to make video content more affordable and accessible in Pakistan,” stated Tania Aidrus, Head of Business Development, Nex Billion Users team at Google Asia Pacific.
The Program means any Pakistani creator — even if they have only one original video — can become a “Partner” and start making money. These partners will be able to run ads against their videos. YouTube splits the revenue generated by those ads, and pays its partners.
The news is particularly exciting for the local artists of Pakistan.
Popular Pakistani rapper and comedian Ali Gul Pir explaining the matter to Mashable said: “YouTube for Pakistan before the ban was a glimmer of hope as we did not even have a single record label in the country. So musicians and artists only had YouTube and that’s where I released my first song as well, It got over 3 million views.
“It made my career but then YouTube was banned and we were back to zero. I still made content but we would use Twitter and Facebook to show the work, and frankly that didn’t work well because those platforms are not made for content creators.”
The new offline feature for the YouTube app lets people make videos available for offline viewing using wifi. This feature has been particularly popular in emerging countries where many face connectivity issues. Through this, a user can go to YouTube app (on Android as well as iOS), and save a video for later viewing. The video will be with them for 48 hours after downloading it.
Elaborating further, industry head at Google Asia Pacific, Khurram Jamali, said that the feature has been introduced to make the video sharing platform easier to enjoy on mobile devices while lessening the burden of data for its growing base of mobile users.
Jamali explained that the new offline feature for the YouTube app lets people make video available for offline viewing using Wifi or their data plans, adding that once taken offline, the videos can be viewed without an internet connection for 48 hours.