I reported last week that YouTube founder Chad Hurley stated his ambitions for making YouTube mobile by the end of 2007. Well it now appears that the internet video giant might be inching closer to that goal quicker than it had anticipated.
Reuters this morning ran a piece speculating that YouTube might soon be penning a deal with Verizon to deliver its videos to Verizon phones. It does not, however, seem like users will be able to browse YouTube and freely view any video they wish. Rather it looks like YouTube will deliver specific content to Verizon phones through V Cast and on-demand.
The article presumes that this would give Verizon some sort of edge on the competition, but I think that claim might be more than a little overzealous. Cingular already has the YouTube Underground, which delivers specific YouTube content to subscribers:
So yea, while the Verizon thing isn’t going to be a contest, Cingular is already delivering basic YouTube video to its customers.