YouTube downloads for mobile devices by 2007?

Speaking at the OgilvyOne Verge Digital Summit in New York yesterday, YouTube founder Chad Hurley said that he hopes to "have something on a mobile device" by the end of 2007. "It's a huge market and with our video lengths, it's a natural."

It's one of Hurley's first public outings after the Google acquisition of his YouTube service. YouTube already has a mobile service, but only for uploading videos, not watching them. Hurley wasn't sure he could figure out a way to make money from mobile downloads, since it's tricky to insert advertising on small screens without ruining the user experience. "It would be great to make the ad model work on a mobile device," he said. "I haven't seen that work."