Why YouTube believes VR is next big thing

PLAYA VISTA, Calif. Google’s YouTube video site attracts over 1 billion visitors monthly to watch mostly linear videos.

But just as Google has expanded its core mission of organizing the world’s information to such side projects as driverless cars and bringing high-speed Internet to under-served areas, the company also sees Virtual Reality video storytelling as another frontier to tackle.

VR--those “360 degree” videos you see on YouTube and Facebook now with the ability to shift the point of view from side to side, is “the next big computing platform,” said Tom Small, the manager of Google Technology Programs Friday.

In the not too distant future, “ we won’t be looking at our phones,” he added “We’ll remove the screen and interact with data with our fingers, eyes and bodies.”

Small spoke Friday at a Virtual Reality storytelling seminar held here at the Los Angeles YouTube Production Space, in a session co-presented with the Sundance Institute.

YouTube filmmakers were invited to work with experts on how to weave narrative beginning, middle and ends into a 360 degree medium, the best camera angles to use and starting a new industry with a diverse group of folks behind and in front of the cameras.

Moira Griffin, senior manager of diversity initiatives for Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute, said getting people of color involved on the ground floor is vital, if for no other reason than to avoid the sort of diversity nightmare the Hollywood industry faced with this year’s Academy Awards, when only whites were nominated for key awards.

If not now, “we’re going to be left behind,” when VR eventually becomes mass market, she says. “So instead of having to play catch up, we want to make sure people are in at the early stages, and understand how the technology works.”

Oculus Rift VR is big hit in my house

A handful of 360 VR cameras are available for consumer use, from Ricoh, Kodak, Samsung and the startup 360Fly, while new VR headsets from Oculus ($599) and HTC ($799) were just released. Google’s lower-resolution and way cheaper $15 Cardboard viewer is more widely available. https://www.google.com/get/cardboard/get-cardboard/

HTC Vive: amazing VR, real world challenges

In looking at the categories that will be popular in VR, Small pointed to several:

Gaming, adult entertainment, virtual tourism, real estate and journalism topped his list. Many (with the exception of porn) are currently available for viewing on YouTube’s http://youtube.com/360 channel.

How to make 360 videos and photos

Follow USA TODAY tech columnist and #TalkingTech host Jefferson Graham on Twitter, @jeffersongraham.