It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here. Youtube.in is now live and this can only send jitters down the competition’s spine. But what’s the big deal about YouTube coming around as an India site?

All major portals are present locally to monetise the traffic they get from these countries. And YouTube is now no exception. Similar to Yahoo! India, MSN India, Google India and a slew of others, the idea is to get local advertising to local users. Which in short equals moolah!

And YouTube has a good user base in India. While it isn’t clear what sort of programming one may expect, it won’t be entirely alien to expect some amount of local stuff created by Google/YouTube at launch. Check the ‘welcom to India’ video for example (shot in Bombay, as is evident with the background of Phoenix Mills, Lower Parel).

And features? Most main features are present. There is also a ‘view in high quality’ option for videos but I doubt how many would opt for that! It is also interesting to note that the featured videos on the home page do have only Indian videos. And by that, I mean videos by Indian users.

Also see here.

Welcome video: