TED’s Ads Worth Spreading 2013 Winners

Today’s guest blog post comes from Ronda Carnegie, Head of Global Partnerships from TED.

For the third year, TED and YouTube teamed up on Ads Worth Spreading, an initiative to recognize ads that inspire, educate and engage. Today at the TED2013 conference in Long Beach, Calif., this year’s ten winners were announced.

Ads were nominated in six categories: Talk, Social Good, Cultural Compass, Creative Wonder, Brand Bravery, and Education. Six nomination teams made up of one TED speaker and one rising thinker in advertising searched for ads in each category, while 25 leading figures in the ad industry searched for ads across categories.

Each of these ten ads go beyond the creative brief to spark imagination and create moments of emotional connection with audiences. The winning work will be showcased at TED2013 as well as on TED.com and you can watch them all here on YouTube. Combined, they have been viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube.

 

TED 2013 Ads Worth Spreading:

1. Expedia - “Find Yours”
2. Coke - “Security Cameras”
3. Melbourne Metro Rail - “Dumb Ways to Die”
4. Dell - “Meet Annie: The Girl Who Could Fly”
5. TNT - “Your Daily Dose of Drama”
6. Rainforest Alliance - “Follow the Frog”
7. Channel 4 (UK) - “Meet the Superhumans”
8. GlaxoSmithKline - “The Crowd”
9. Dodge - “The Farmer”
10. The Guardian - “Three Little Pigs”

Guest to the YouTube Blog Ronda Carnegie, Head of Global Partnerships from TED, recently watched “Young-Ha Kim: Be an artist, right now!”

Context Is King: Share Your Story

From artists to activists, teachers to students, kids to grandparents, YouTube is a place for people all over the globe to share their stories. YouTube’s Community Guidelines represent the rules of the road for all of them. They state that, in general, YouTube is not a place for shocking or violent content. When material of this nature is flagged by our community, our teams work around the clock to remove anything that breaks the rules.

That said, YouTube is an important global platform for news and information, and we realize that sometimes graphic material is vital to our understanding of the world. It can be posted to document wars or revolutions, to expose an injustice, or to ensure local events are seen globally. Because of this, we take great care when reviewing flagged videos, and allow graphic videos that are intended to have news or documentary value. This is where we need your help.

Why adding context to your video is so important

For all types of content you share on YouTube, but particularly with graphic content, adding context is very important. The information you add in the title and description is what helps other people find and understand your video. It will also help the YouTube team review your video if it does get flagged. 

Take a look at the following examples.

Example 1:

Example 2:

 



















While the content of these videos is similar, the experience of viewing them is quite different. In the first example, the user provides very little information. In the second, we understand what we see, and see that the user’s intent is to educate and tell a story.

How to contextualize your videos: some tips to follow

• Provide an informative and relevant title--you can pack in a lot of information here, even if you’re on the move on a mobile device
• Fill your description with information: who, what, when, where and why did it occur?
• Think about narrating what you see as you film, or add detail later using our annotations tool
• Feel free to link to relevant websites, such as a related news story or artist statement
• Organizations such as Witness and Small World News also produce great tip sheets
• Remember YouTube’s tools--if your footage is sensitive and requires visual anonymity, check out YouTube’s blurring tool. If you feel your content was removed in error, you can appeal the decision.

Our goal at YouTube is to allow as much content as possible on the site, and still ensure that our Community Guidelines are followed. It is a delicate balancing act, and we depend on our uploaders to help. So whether you’re a performance artist, a citizen journalist or a human rights activist, remember: context is king. The information you add to your video helps tell your story, find an audience, and make an impact--it could even help your video be an important part of history.

Ali Glenesk, Policy Associate, recently watched “Grandma’s Advice.”

A new look to help you to subscribe and watch channels on YouTube

Update 12/12: The team that designed and built the recent YouTube update will answer your questions in a Hangout on Air Thursday 12/13 at 4pm PT on the YouTube channel. To ask a question, submit it here before Noon PT on Thursday 12/13. If you can’t make that, we’ll also hold a Reddit “Ask me Anything” on Tuesday 12/17 starting at 10am PT to answer your questions.

Those of you who use YouTube most have learned the secret to making it even better—find the channels you love and subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Last year we began to make it easier to subscribe to the channels you care about by introducing a Guide on the home page. When you add subscriptions to your Guide, you organize YouTube around what you like, available whenever you watch YouTube. Today, we’re taking the next step by bringing your subscription-filled Guide with you across both the site and all devices, as your best source of what to watch on YouTube.

Your Guide to YouTube

Just subscribe to your favorite channels and the Guide lets you know when there are new videos waiting for you to enjoy, suggests the latest and greatest channels you might like, and shows you what your friends are sharing across the web. You’ll also find the Guide and your subscriptions on apps across hundreds of millions of devices including Android, iPhone, Playstation 3, Google TV and more.

A cleaner, simpler look

You come to YouTube to watch the videos you care about, so it’s important that the videos stand out. In this new layout, you’ll find the most crucial elements are front and center when you watch a video: the video is right at the top of the page and the subscribe button, social actions and video information are all combined directly below the player. Playlists are now available to the right of the video so you can browse through while you watch. You’ll also see this cleaner and simpler design across the entire site.

Your feedback matters

We’d love to get your feedback on these updates, so we’ll be hosting a Google+ Hangout on Air and a Reddit IAmA in the coming weeks--stay tuned here for details. If you’re a YouTube creator, you can learn more about these updates on our YouTube Creator Blog.

Josh Sassoon, Senior Unicorn eXperience Designer, recently watched “Hipster Thanksgiving” and
Alex Nicksay, Staff Engineer, recently watched “Crystalfilm.”

YouTube on iPad, and sweet updates for iPhone 5 and iPod touch

You love watching YouTube on the go—in fact—more than 25 percent of all YouTube watching happens on mobile. This past September you got the YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch to make it easier to find and share the videos and channels you love on YouTube, and you made us the #1 free app in the App Store for two months. Since then, we’ve been hard at work to improve the app based on your feedback.

Just in time for the holidays, now you can download or update the YouTube app with a look designed for the iPad and iPhone 5, enhanced AirPlay support, videos that start faster and play more smoothly, and improved accessibility with VoiceOver. Enjoy Tastemade on iPad in full screen glory, or hours of flipping through Ryan Higa videos on your iPhone 5 or iPod touch.

Please keep giving us feedback on features you’d like to see so we can keep making it better. In the meantime, we’ll be kicking back with some egg nog and a holiday favorite on our iPad.

Horia Ciurdar, Software Engineer, recently watched “GoPro: Matthias Giraud - Double Back Flip Drop.”

Improving Content ID

*Updated on 10/4: In the third paragraph we've clarified that potentially invalid claims are manually reviewed by the content owner.*

In the nearly five years since we launched Content ID, it has helped everyone from large media companies to up-and-coming creators manage their content when it appears on YouTube. More than 3,000 content owners have supplied more than 500,000 hours of reference files to the system. Content ID hasn’t stood still over the last five years. We’ve been rolling out regular updates and we want to highlight three particular efforts that we think improve Content ID for everyone.

A New Appeals Process
Users have always had the ability to dispute Content ID claims on their videos if they believe those claims are invalid. Prior to today, if a content owner rejected that dispute, the user was left with no recourse for certain types of Content ID claims (e.g., monetize claims). Based upon feedback from our community, today we’re introducing an appeals process that gives eligible users a new choice when dealing with a rejected dispute. When the user files an appeal, a content owner has two options: release the claim or file a formal DMCA notification.

Smarter Detection of Unintentional Claims
Content owners have uploaded more than ten million reference files to the Content ID system. At that scale, mistakes can and do happen. To address this, we’ve improved the algorithms that identify potentially invalid claims. We stop these claims from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed by the content owner. This process prevents disputes that arise when content not owned by a partner inadvertently turns up in a reference file.

Smarter claim detection minimizes unintentional mistakes. Of course, we take action in rare cases of intentional misuse, up to and including terminating Content ID access.

Improved Matching Quality
At the heart of Content ID is the matching technology that identifies partners’ content among all the videos on YouTube. Earlier this year we introduced a significant improvement to how the matching happens. We continue to work on ways to make the matching more precise through better algorithms and a more comprehensive reference library.

There is still a lot of work ahead of us, but we believe that these are significant steps forward in our efforts to keep YouTube a vibrant place where the rights of both content owners and users are protected and everyone can control their original content and make money from it - money which can be put towards the production of more great content.

For now, keep on watching, upload a video or two and please, please keep the feedback coming.

Thabet Alfishawi, Rights Management Product Manager, recently watched/danced to "Psy - Gangnam Style"

Introducing a new YouTube app for your iPhone and iPod touch

For all you diehard YouTube fans out there who can’t get enough YouTube on your mobile, we’ve got some great news: starting today, you can download the official YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch from the App Store, bringing you more of the videos you love and more ways to share them with the people you care about.

The new app is built by YouTube engineers, to give our iPhone and iPod touch users the best mobile experience. Here’s what you’ll find:

Tens of thousands more videos: Watch official music videos like Taylor’s latest hit.

New YouTube channel guide: Swipe your finger from the left edge of the screen to reveal a guide with your subscribed channels on YouTube, giving you instant access to everything from Alli Sports to YOMYOMF.

Find awesome videos faster: Get to videos like “Gangnam Style” faster with new search tools that give suggestions while you type, and let you sort through videos or channels. Flip through related videos, comments and more info, all while watching a video.

More ways to share with the people you love: Share that incredible video you found on YouTube on Google+, Facebook or text message in the app, as well as from Twitter and email.

There’s even more to explore with the new YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch, available for download from the App Store today. We’re working on an optimized version of the YouTube app for iPad in the coming months, and stay tuned for more details.

You’ve already shown us you love YouTube on mobile—to the tune of 1 billion mobile views a day—so we can’t wait to see what you think about this new experience.

Andrey Doronichev, head of YouTube mobile, recently watched “One-Shot // Goodbye, beloved sister.”

Learn with Google Webinar: Great Content Discovery on YouTube

What great content does YouTube have to offer? How can you easily find it? Please join us for this installment of the Just Add YouTube webinar series.  We will share the masses of quality content YouTube has and will show how you can advertise against it.  Hosted by the UK Webinar team, but anyone can register!  

See the upcoming webinars, as well as previous recordings, at google.co.uk/ads/webinars

Register Now!

What: Learn with Google Webinar: Great Content Discovery on YouTube
When: Tuesday July 31st, 3PM GMT (UK time) 

Posted by Allison Sommer, Google Ads Team

How November Will Be Won: By the Numbers

Did you know that 1/3 of people who see a campaign ad on YouTube have not seen it on TV? We recently shared this on our Politics & Elections Blog. You can read an example of the types of things we talk about on that blog below. For more information about marketing a campaign on YouTube visit our YouTube for politicians website.


Earlier this year, we introduced “Four Screens to Victory”, a framework for political campaigns that outlined how Google can help make the web work for candidates and issues groups up and down the ballot. With these digital platforms, campaigns can build their organizations, define the issues, persuade the electorate and - importantly - get the vote out and win the moment that matters in November on Election Day.

Access to political information no longer comes from one place - or one screen. In just the four years since the last presidential election, the continued growth of the web and the proliferation of mobile devices has radically transformed when, where, and how voters access political information.

The numbers are in, and savvy political campaigns need to take notice. The rules of reaching voters have changed and new approaches are warranted because:

• More than 80% of eligible voters are online
• Similarly, 83% of mobile phone owners are registered voters
• 1 out of every 3 likely voters in November say that they didn’t watch tv in the past week
• Voters are spending more media time on their mobile devices than newspapers & magazines combined

(Click the infographic below to get a larger version)

If you’re as inspired as we are by some of the data and the implications on your own political campaign, check out the “Four Screens to Victory” site to spark some ideas of your own and see how you can make the web work for your campaign.

David Kaufman, Google Politics & Elections Team, recently watched "i like ike"

Learn with Google Webinar: VOD on YouTube

78% of online video viewing in the UK is on YouTube, which makes it an excellent platform for VOD. But what are the best ways to maximize it and make it work for your business?

We will cover how to run your TV ad on YouTube in two easy ways - running it on YouTube Homepage to deliver incremental reach and using TrueView InStream formats to deliver scale and engagement. We will also explain how to effectively add YouTube to your TV schedule. This webinar is specifically designed for a TV savvy audience who values the importance of reach and frequency to ensure maximum impact of VOD campaigns.

You can also view the upcoming webinars, as well as previous recordings, on google.co.uk/ads/webinars

We hope you can join us!

Register Now
https://googleemea.connectsolutions.com/vodonyoutube/event/registration.html

What	Learn with Google Webinar: VOD on YouTube

Where

Tuesday 17th July, 3 pm GMT

Posted by Allison Sommer

Google Video content moving to YouTube

Later this summer, all remaining hosted video on Google Video will be moved to YouTube. Google Video stopped taking uploads in May 2009 and now we’re moving the remaining hosted content to YouTube as private videos. Google Video users can rest assured that you won’t be losing any of your content as it will be fully available on YouTube, and you can choose to make those videos public on YouTube if you’d like.

If you would prefer to migrate, delete or download your content yourself, you can do so by visiting the Google Video status page prior to August 20, 2012. After the videos have been moved, you can access all of your videos by visiting the YouTube Video Manager. By default they’ll all be set to private, and you can publish them publicly to your channel at any time. If you haven’t published on YouTube in a while, check out our latest channel designs and more in the YouTube Creator Playbook.

As we said nearly three years ago, the Google Video team is now focused on tackling the challenge of video search. We want to thank the millions of people around the world who have taken the time to create and share videos on Google Video, and we hope that you will continue to share your videos on YouTube.

The YouTube and Google Video Teams