Leanback, revealed in May at the Google I/O conference, is a core component of Google's strategy to bring online video to the living room screen. It provides for a simplified YouTube experience and interface, offering simple keyboard commands, an advanced search interface, and a visual UI for browsing through YouTube clips and shows.
YouTube's television experience has been in beta as part of TestTube, the video site's version of Google Labs, but tonight the site will be available to the entire YouTube community. YouTube Product Manager Lead Kuan Yong told me earlier today that users will have access to the full catalog of YouTube videos. Kuan also told me that the team has been working on improving the user experience, search capabilities and adding other changes users requested during the beta.
YouTube Leanback is all about Google TV; it is the way the company wants users to experience YouTube while they are surfing the web on their TVs. When you select the YouTube bookmark in Google TV for the first time, you will be presented the option to make Leanback your default YouTube experience. This doesn't surprise us; Leanback was made for TV. It's less cluttered and easy to personalize. And now that Sony's Google TV-powered devices and the Logitech Revue go on sale this weekend, it's time for Leanback to roll out.
We're about to find out if consumers want the Internet on their TVs. Google hopes that people will do things such as favorite TED videos at work so they can watch them later at home. The company says that users of Leanback watch twice as much video as users of the regular YouTube interface. The company is hoping that statistic stays true as Google TV becomes available nationwide.
