Today, Helio announced a new mobilecasting service that they are calling “the most comprehensive YouTube experience currently offered on mobile!”

They could have thrown a “massive” or “global” into that, but the service is exactly the type of thing we’ve been pushing for for years: mobile devices that are sophisticated two-way Web publishing platforms.

Available for Helio Ocean users at no additional charge and running over a nationwide high-speed 3G network, Helio’s custom YouTube application features integrated video capture and upload for near real-time sharing of experiences, GPS tagging of videos, personalization and access to community features like rating and commenting on videos.

“Helio has taken the mobile YouTube experience to the next level,” said Chad Hurley, CEO and co-founder, YouTube. “This innovative application offers people even more customization and provides them with instant access to interact with the YouTube community whenever and wherever they go.”

Shoot, Share and Geo-Tag Videos

Helio members can browse and upload previously saved videos or record videos in the application and upload them directly to YouTube, sharing experiences in near real-time with friends, family and the YouTube community. Uploaded videos can be given a title, description, tags, category and be set to public or private.

Helio allows members to also geo-tag video uploads from their mobile device. Using Ocean’s built-in GPS capabilities, members can send GPS coordinates with their video to track where they were when everything went down.

“This is the closest thing to the YouTube Web experience available on mobile today,” said Rob Gelick, VP of Media and Community Services at Helio. “With the ability to do things like GPS tagging and posting video responses right from a device wherever you happen to be, it brings new possibilities to the YouTube world.”

Key Features

YouTube mobile on Helio includes:

• Browse: view tens of millions of videos
• Rate: let everyone know which videos you like best
• Comment: add your own two cents by posting text comments for everyone to read
• Share: send favorite videos to friends using address book integration
• Save: save favorite videos to My Favorites and My Playlists
• Subscribe: subscribe to a channel to check out more from that user
• Record and Upload: capture a video on Ocean and instantly upload it to a personal channel

One of the most powerful features on the Web version of YouTube is the ability to watch a video and then post a video response. In another first for mobile, Helio members can record and upload video responses to clips directly from their handset, making the YouTube experience more accessible than ever with watching and responding in real-time possible without ever having to log in from a computer.

Designed to easily browse, search and view millions of YouTube videos, Helio’s YouTube application also offers a simply organized interface where members can access their own video feeds including My Subscriptions, My Favorites, My Playlists, My Videos and Received Videos. Members can also check out YouTube videos in traditional categories like Most Viewed, Most Recent, Top Rated and Recently Featured.