YouTube Turns Searches For 'LOL' Into Cable-Like Multivideo Channels

The tech wizards in this month's Fast Talk say they know what you want before you do. Here, YouTube's Shiva Rajaraman on creating multivideo "channels."

BY Christina Chaey | January 9, 2012

Photo by Toby Burditt

Shiva Rajaraman
Group Product Manager / YouTube

Goal: Build multivideo "channels" that hold users' attention.

"On YouTube, our top queries are 'funny videos,' 'LOL,' and 'make me laugh.' They fall into this vague land of 'Entertain me!' So based on that, how do we help people discover fresh, fun content--without just sifting through the 48 hours of video that are uploaded every minute? We're still trying to figure that out fully, but we're starting by building out our channels. When users search for something broad, we want a more curated experience to appear, so 'funny videos' would bring up a landing page with humor clips from BuzzFeed, Fail Blog, Funny Or Die, and more. That way, they can fill a steady 15, 20, 30 minutes with us, instead of making new decisions every two minutes."

A version of this article appears in the February 2012 issue of Fast Company.

More Fast Talk: Predicting Desire
Back to Tom Conrad

Read the extended interview

From Issue 162 | January 2012