About six months ago we started work on Rukkaz, a video platform designed for the needs of kids and family content creators. We thought it was a good time to start talking about details. Patrick Frater in Variety was kind enough to spend some time with us and has an excellent summary of our progress and plans.
We’re big fans of what the YouTube Kids team have built but there’s a huge requirement for a platform which services the needs of family content creators engaging with 7-12 users (YTK is predominantly a much younger audience). This isn’t idle speculation: we’ve had an overwhelming number of requests (literally hundreds) from creators and content owners on this topic. In the interim, YouTube’s reported plans to migrate away all kids content from their 13+ platform has further added to industry consternation.
As the biggest kidtech platform in the world, we’re uniquely placed to build a kids video offering. But it goes beyond that, at a cultural level it reflects our mission of making the internet safer for kids. At an industry level, it’s driven by the growing sense of responsibility from all stakeholders in the kids digital ecosystem. Ultimately, Rukkaz is defined by a single question: what would happen if we built a kids video platform designed specifically for family creators, responsible advertisers and kids?
Rukkaz is built around four key principles:
1. Designed for kids and family content creators
Rukkaz is designed specifically for the needs of kids and family content creators. That obviously starts with data privacy but extends to appropriate design and healthy engagement.
2. Built with safe community and engagement at its core
All creators want to build a relationship with their audience. They want to create fun content for them, but they also want to be in a conversation with them. YouTube has had no choice but to turn off community engagement for kids creators and their audiences. Rukkaz is built with safe community as a first principle.
3. A clear (and deliberate) editorial philosophy
We believe that content algorithms should have adult supervision. Surfacing new content is important, but not as important as surfacing appropriate content. We have a human editor at work.
4. Safe, transparent monetization
For sustainable children’s content, creators need sustainable monetization. This means kid-safe ads, delivered by appropriate technology (kidtech) which ensures an appropriate balance for the community.
Rukkaz is in open beta (and will be for several months) as we build to the needs of the community. We’re already working with many content creators but we’d love to hear from you if we don’t already have a relationship.
