YouTube will soon allow users to view videos sans Internet connection. Google briefly announced the feature in a recent blog post but a more recent memo issued to YouTube strategic partners sheds a bit more light on the subject.
According to the memo intercepted by All Things D, the feature - which will require the YouTube mobile app - is scheduled to go live this November. It'll launch with all partners enabled unless they wish to opt out early. As for the service itself, users will be able to set aside content they wish to watch at a later date (presumably when an Internet connection might not be handy).
Users will be able to watch said clips for a limited period of up to 48 hours. In the event a device is offline for more than two days, the content will become unavailable until the device reconnects to the web. Upon reconnection, the offline window refreshes and the 48 hour cycle resets.
Content partners will still earn ad revenue from offline videos via Google in-stream ads and views will be added to the total view count. Other ad formats will not be supported offline and videos for rental or purchase will not be part of the offline functionality.
There are still a lot of unknowns at this hour like how many ads will be shown per video or how YouTube plans to handle platforms that don't already have native YouTube apps. Those finer details will eventually come down the pipeline but the big takeaway for now is simply the idea that YouTube videos will soon be viewable offline.