YouTube Highlights 1/6/2011

This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular updates on new product features, interesting programs to watch and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “YouTube Highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.

Happy New Year! Since our last update, we’ve rolled out some new programs and features to help you share and discover great video content on YouTube. We’ve also got advice and tips on how to succeed as a videomaker, content publisher or advertiser on YouTube.

Sports favorites on YouTube and ESPN
More than 2,000 YouTubers submitted sports videos to “Play of the Year,” vying to make it onto ESPN’s SportsCenter. After closely reviewing thousands of entries, we’d like to congratulate the winner of the latest YouTube | ESPN Your Highlight Presented by AT&T, Jay Fleming of Nashville, TN. In this video, shot by his father, the one-armed swimmer won his heat in the 25m fly at the 2010 Nashville city swim meet. See the runners-up here.



YouTube Trends feature helps you find your favorite content
With 35 hours of video now being uploaded to YouTube every minute, keeping up can be a challenge. With YouTube Trends, you can watch the hottest local videos in your area and see how to stay on top of the latest popular videos and content overall on YouTube. Tune in so you don’t miss YouTube’s best content.

New capabilities for YouTube
We’ve been working to make it easier customize your YouTube experience so you can both discover and share great content.

• Personalize your own YouTube homepage. Opt in to try enhancements such as recommended videos based on your viewing history, what your friends are up to, a single place to view all the videos you’ve subscribed to and more.
• Send a personal video greeting. We’ve made it easier for friends and families to stay in touch through video greetings. Try the “Unlisted” feature to share videos with a specific URL so only those people you want to view a video will see it.
• Customize your personal video greeting using background themes and other bells and whistles. You can quickly make original videos starting with video templates from third-party tools from Animoto, Stupeflix and Xtranormal.

New $1,000+ partner grants
Whether you’re a filmmaker, musician or other content provider, you can continue to build the next generation of media companies as a YouTube partner. To help spur our partners’ success, 500 of our top 2010 partners worldwide received new grants of $1,000 to $5,000 to help fund the necessary tools (cameras, sound equipment, etc.) to produce even higher-quality videos and garner bigger audiences.

Useful advice and tips for filmmakers
The web and YouTube continue to change filmmaking and online video publishing, and you can take part.

• Gain insight and tips on why it’s important to surround your videos with context.
• Filmmaker Sam Kauffmann, Professor of Film at Boston University, has chosen to tell his stories using short documentaries and the web. Find out why.
• Learn how the web has changed film school.
• Learn how to share videos on YouTube courtesy of TeachParentsTech.org.

Ads Worth Spreading with TED
TED and YouTube have issued a challenge called Ads Worth Spreading, and you’re invited to submit an entry. TED’s mission is to spread worthy ideas around the world—and why should advertising be different? We believe that advertising should make you think, respond and want to share—whether it’s a great idea, a product that makes the world better or an initiative that might change the world. So create an ad that makes a difference—see the submission rules here.

We’ll update you again in a few weeks. In the meantime, get more info from us on the YouTube Blog.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager, The YouTube Team

YouTube Highlights 12/16/2010

This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you an update on new product features, interesting programs to watch, and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “YouTube Highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.

Since our last update, we’ve taken a look at the year on YouTube, asked for your ideas on how to make the world a better place, launched a series of contests and announced a wave of new features. We have a lot to cover!

The year on YouTube
From videos that blew our minds to ones that made dreams come true, the Top 10 YouTube videos show what video stars captured the world’s attention this year. In the past year, viewers watched more than 700 billion YouTube videos, and uploaded more than 13 million hours of video. See what people watched in 2010:



We are also counting down YouTube highlights for the year with the New Year’s Countdown.

Your ticket to Davos, Switzerland
Do you have an idea about how to close the poverty gap? If so, submit it to the Davos Debates program for a chance to win an all-access pass to the World Economic Forum in Davos. To enter, submit a one-minute video sharing your ideas about the importance of inclusive growth—economic growth that benefits everyone—a key theme of this year’s event. The deadline to submit your ideas is January 14, so visit the Davos channel today.

Your vote counts on YouTube
Your opinion can help determine bragging rights for artists of all stripes. Get the chance to weigh in on your favorite music star, auditions for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra—and find out who won another recent competition.

• Rihanna or Justin Bieber? Show these artists how devoted you are with the MyYouTube contest. Artists score points if you subscribe to their channels and share with your friends. You, in turn, get their latest videos delivered to your YouTube homepage and get to win some great prizes.
• We’re down to 336 finalists from 46 countries for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, and voting ends on December 17. The winners will perform for a global audience at the Sydney Opera House in March 2011.
• The winner of this month’s “On the Rise” competition is the irresistible Jack Russell terrier, Jesse. Check out some of his fun antics.

Creating an efficient, healthy home
Ask any working parent and they’ll tell you they have two jobs: the day job, and the one that takes up all the other hours of the day—that of “Chief Household Officer” (CHO). A new YouTube series from HP takes you inside the lives of women who meet the demands of work and family using new media know-how.

Eating right can also be a challenge for busy families. Sesame Street and Chef Art Smith have teamed up to raise awareness about how families can eat healthy food on a budget. See what Elmo and Chef Art have to say.

New features for YouTube
We’ve made a handful of updates over the last two weeks to make your viewing experience and more robust:

• Enhanced the video discovery experience in Leanback with Personalized Channels.
• Allowing selected users to upload videos that are longer than 15 minutes.

• Improvements to annotations including a new annotation editor and a new title annotation type.

And we announced the three-year anniversary of Content ID, a technology that lets rights holders control their content online.

Google Apps for YouTube
Businesses and organizations using Google Apps can now use YouTube. YouTube can help Google Apps customers in lots of ways—whether archiving company videos, marketing their company through branded video channels, or assisting with private, internal communications.

We’ll update you again in a few weeks. Till then, for more information on what we’re up to, head on over to our YouTube Blog. Happy holidays and see you in 2011!

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager, The YouTube Team

YouTube highlights – 12/2/2010

This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular updates on new product features, interesting programs to watch and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “YouTube Highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.

Since our last update, we’ve premiered a new film on YouTube, highlighted a host of holiday content to get you geared up for cooking, entertaining and decorating with style, celebrated the one-year anniversary of auto-captions on YouTube and introduced a “viewer’s choice” video ad format.

New film premieres on YouTube
Wong Fu Productions (Wesley Chan, Ted Fu, Philip Wang) and Ryan Higa premiered their new film, Agents of Secret Stuff, on YouTube. Written in a few days and shot in an intense week by a small crew, the movie is a powerful example of what a little ingenuity and a video camera can do. More than 3 million people have already checked out the film, which is about an assassin trying to fit into high school while carrying out an assignment.



Cooking for the holidays
If you’re looking to pick up a few new culinary tricks for the holidays, you can learn how to make chocolate sea salt crostini, scalloped oysters and more from Chef John Mitzewich, star of YouTube’s most subscribed cooking channel, FoodWishes. More than 97,000 foodies have viewed Chef John’s 500th video posted to YouTube, Potato Ball in Potato Box. He recently answered a few questions about how he makes his videos and the trends he’s seeing in viewer demand for recipes.



More recipes and how-to tips on the YouTube Holiday Solutions Center
Every holiday season we see a surge in viewers searching for cooking videos and recipes on YouTube. To discover a delicious new dish, check out the YouTube Holiday Solutions Center, where we’ve collected a range of videos on a single channel from party-planning experts such as Chow.com, Cool Mom, the Food Network, Real Simple, Southern Living and Target. In addition to recipes, this channel also includes fun projects and home decorating tips.

Happy birthday to YouTube’s automatic captions
November 19 marked one year since we launched automatic captions on YouTube. Captions not only help the deaf and hearing impaired, but with machine translation, they also let people around the world access video content in any of 51 languages. Captions can also improve search and even enable people to jump to the exact parts of the videos they're looking for. Since last year, people have watched video with automatic captions more than 23 million times. We’ve also seen more than 7.6 million caption translations.

How to upload great-looking web video and other helpful tips
Heather Menicucci, director of the Howcast Filmmakers Program, has returned to the YouTube Blog for her series of tips on improving your video-making skills. In one post, Clayton Long, producer for the Bajillionaires Club, offers his expertise on the preferred genres, cameras and workflows for making web videos. For advanced videomakers, Professor Compressor provides insights on best-quality codecs (H.264 and MP4), how to fix common issues such as video that looks squished or stretched, why multi-pass encoding is important and more.

Choice and control with TrueView Video Ads
Our new family of ad formats called TrueView Video Ads gives viewers choice and control over which advertiser’s message they want to see and when. We think TrueView has something for everyone: consumers choose ads that are more relevant to them, advertisers more precisely find the audiences they want, and content creators continue to fund great content with an ad experience that is less intrusive. Read our announcement on the InsideAdWords blog.

We’ll update you again in a few weeks. Till then, for more information on what we’re up to, head on over to our YouTube Blog.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager, The YouTube Team

YouTube highlights – 11/18/2010

This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular updates on new product features, interesting programs to watch, and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “YouTube Highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.

Since our last update, we’ve reached a new milestone in video uploads, seen new comedy and music programs launch, and shared a new, more “cinematic” YouTube viewing experience with Google Chrome. Read about all of it below.

35 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute
Remember in March when we shared that more than 24 hours of video was being uploaded to YouTube every minute? Well, our users continue to amaze us, and as of last week, 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. If we were to measure that in movie terms (assuming the average Hollywood film is around 120 minutes long), it’s the equivalent of more than 176,000 full-length Hollywood releases every week.

Laugh along with us and Comedy Thunder
NextNewNetworks, the YouTube partner responsible for bringing original content like Obama Girl and Key of Awesome to YouTube, recently launched a new series called “Comedy Thunder.” Eight comedy teams and comedians will each post a video based on a specific theme that changes every week. Here’s one of the latest videos:



Do you love K-POP?
Korean pop music or “K-POP” has earned millions of fans around the world. MBC, a major TV network in Korea, has joined with YouTube to search the world for the next big K-POP talent. Check out some of the top Korean music labels like YG Entertainment, SM Entertainment and JYP Entertainment for inspiration before submitting an audition video. Don’t worry if you don’t speak Korean; you can audition in any language.


The Mexican Revolution on YouTube
November 20 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of the Mexican Revolution and we’ll observe that anniversary on YouTube by celebrating a new revolution: Mexican film-making. Thanks to YouTube partner Mubi, we’ll present feature film Revolución, made up of 10 individual shorts that explore the topic of Mexico’s revolution from celebrated filmmakers such as Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna, Carlos Reygadas, Rodrigo Garcia and Patricia Riggen. You’ll also have the opportunity to get your questions answered by the filmmakers using Google Moderator for YouTube.



Google Chrome browser extensions for YouTube
For you movie buffs out there, we did some research and found a few handy Chrome extensions that can make your YouTube viewing experience more “cinematic.” For example, Window Expander for YouTube maximizes YouTube videos to fill your entire browser. With Turn Off the Lights, you can make the entire page outside the video fade to dark like you’re in a movie theater. The OpinionCloud extension summarizes comments on YouTube, so you can quickly get the crowd’s overall opinion.

The Google Chrome team also recently released an extension called YouTube Feed, which notifies you whenever new videos are available in your YouTube homepage feed. You can directly access, rate and like videos—right in your browser.

Give YouTube Topics on Search a whirl
We know that sometimes people come to YouTube looking for a specific video, but at other times, they have only a rough idea of the kind of videos they want. We’ve been there too, and have been thinking for a while about this challenge of searching when you don’t yet know exactly what you’re looking for. Here’s our take on how discovery for videos could work on YouTube in the not-too-distant future. Find out what happens when we search for [LOL] and [cat] to find funny cat videos.



YouTube marketing tips for advertisers
Many businesses use YouTube to get the word out about their company, launch a new product or connect with customers. Orabrush has earned 13 million video views from a video made for just $500 about its tongue-cleaner, and has used YouTube along with Google AdWords to achieve more than $1 million in sales. The Orabrush team offered five tips for success in this recorded webcast with AdAge.

And finally—if you missed the live-streamed Bon Jovi concert, you can still catch it on the band’s YouTube channel. To stay-up-to-date on YouTube news and events, visit us on the YouTube Blog.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager, The YouTube Team

YouTube highlights – 11/4/2010

This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular updates on new product features, interesting programs to watch, and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “YouTube Highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.

Below is our update from the last two weeks with news from the recent U.S. elections, product improvements, video contests for both viewers and partners and a couple milestones reached.

Debating the issues on YouTube
Leading up to the US midterm elections this past Tuesday, political campaigns, voters and interest groups came to YouTube to debate the issues. Who emerged on top of the YouTube elections heap? We took a look at all videos categorized as News & Politics on YouTube and found a mixture of official campaign videos, viewer-generated content and videos from interest groups. Here are the top 10 most-viewed videos—by the numbers.

Celebrate the natural world
If you enjoy nature or are passionate about environmental issues, a new program gives you the chance to create a video that brings your passion to life. The most innovative short film—judged by the YouTube community—will receive a National Geographic photography workshop and $1,000 gift card from The North Face. Get started at Planet Inspired.

Release notes: improvements in 3D, new languages and easier bug reporting
We’ve made several updates since our last product release in September. Try our new player for 3D videos, which is faster than the previous player. YouTube is also now available in Amharic and Swahili, and the virtual keyboard that appears on your computer or mobile screen is available in 26 languages. Finally, we’ve added a "report a bug" link at the bottom of any YouTube page.

Here's where you can turn on the virtual keyboard

On the rise
Many YouTube partners are hitting subscriber numbers in the 100,000s and even in the millions. To help more video makers get to those kind of subscriber numbers, we started a new feature on the YouTube Blog called “On the Rise,” where your vote counts on who should be featured on the YouTube hompage. So far, emilynoel83 has received the most votes—check out an example of her work below.



A billion subscribers and a half a billion Promoted Video views
In 2006, we introduced an easy way for community members to keep track of each other’s updates on YouTube: the yellow subscribe button. When you subscribe to a channel and sign in, new videos from that channel show up as “Subscriptions” on your personalized YouTube homepage. Today, the button that’s been immortalized as a throw cushion hits an important landmark: it’s been clicked more than 1 billion times.

We also announced last week that Promoted Videos has hit half a billion views. Promoted Videos allow you to promote your video ad alongside search results and related videos on YouTube. The first Promoted Video campaign was “Penny Pranks” by Office Max in November 2008.

And congratulations to Lady Gaga who has received more than 1 billion video views on her YouTube channel!

Happy Halloween
Finally, Halloween’s already over, but we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss the first-ever user-designed doodle, which was created by xperpetualmotion and spent last Sunday on our homepage.

Don’t forget to check out the latest advice on filmmaking in the digital age, and for more information on all things YouTube, please visit us at the YouTube Blog.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager, YouTube Team

YouTube highlights – 10/21/2010

This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular product features, interesting programs to watch and tips anyone can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “YouTube Highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.

From a video biennial in New York to classical music in Sydney to 24 hours of live-streaming comedy courtesy of Conan O’Brien, we’ve got a lot to cover! Below is our update from the past two weeks.

YouTube Play: live from the Guggenheim
Later today (Thursday), the YouTube Play jury will announce the top 25 creative videos selected from the 23,000 submissions received for the Biennial of Creative Video. In celebration, YouTube and the Guggenheim have partnered to host a one-of-a-kind art exhibition and event featuring music, collaborations, eye-popping projections and, of course, some really fantastic videos. If you’re in New York, you can catch some of the projections on the façade of the Guggenheim tonight and tomorrow (sneak peek below). Or head to youtube.com/play to catch the event live, starting at 8 p.m. ET.

Video submissions from YouTube Play projected on the Guggenheim in New York City

YouTube users discuss ideas to help fix the global economy
YouTube users often have a lot of useful, imaginative and altruistic ideas—including thoughts on how to fix the global economy. For example, take The Young Turks and How the World Works, a.k.a. Cenk Uyger and Lee Doran, who’ve brought their political commentary beyond YouTube to a special forum on Reuters.com focused on fixing the economic slowdown for good.

Dancing tacos? 80’s aerobics? Intern Twister?
What could these things possibly have in common? A 24-hour webcast by Conan O’Brien (of course)! You can now watch Conan and Team Coco prepare for their upcoming show on TBS with “behind-the-scenes” footage filmed from a webcam strategically situated on their office’s second floor stairwell. What could possibly go wrong?

Audition for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra’s 2011 performance
Two years ago, the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, the world’s first online collaborative orchestra, debuted at Carnegie Hall. It’s back, and this time a new round of performers will be playing their part onstage at the iconic Sydney Opera House in March 2011. Find out how you can audition for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011 presented by Hyundai.



Leanback premieres on Google TV
We recently announced YouTube Leanback in beta, and now it’s on Google TV. When you view YouTube in Leanback on Google TV (or online), you’ll see videos begin to play immediately based on your subscriptions and viewing history. You can watch popular and interesting videos in genres like Comedy, Entertainment, News, Science & Technology and How To & Style, or rent full-length movies and TV shows from the youtube.com/store.

Calling musicians worldwide
For singers, songwriters or bands looking to promote their music, we’ve extended our Musicians Wanted program to Argentina, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden and the U.K. This program lets musicians make money from their videos. Find out where to sign up here.

Get your viewers’ undivided attention
If you’re an advertiser, you might be interested to know that according to Nielsen, the average American watches five hours of TV per day. Five. Hours. But a new study conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates, YouTube and Next New Networks found that viewers are 2.5 times more likely to pay full attention to video content created specifically for the web than to TV. This finding suggests that advertisers can take advantage of opportunities to reach viewers online—where they are most fully engaged.

Country duo Sugarland live from New York City
Finally, if you missed the live-streamed Sugarland concert on YouTube, you can still catch the third installment of our “Unstaged” series with Vevo and American Express. Directed by Kenny Ortega of High School Musical and Dirty Dancing fame, highlights from the show included songs from the band’s new album, The Incredible Machine, a special guest appearance by Ronnie Dunn and behind-the-scenes footage with band members who answered questions tweeted by fans.



Don’t forget to check out our continuing series of tips on how to thrive at YouTube and for more information on what we’re up to, head on over to our YouTube Blog.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager, YouTube Team

YouTube highlights – 10/7/2010

Welcome to the first in a regular series of YouTube updates. We’ll keep you informed every couple of weeks about new product features, interesting programs to watch, and tips anyone can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “YouTube Highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.

YouTube is where the world comes together to share stories—people around the world upload 24 hours of video every minute and watch more than 2 billion videos every day. We’ve been busy keeping up and adding new features and the last two weeks are no exception. Here are our recent updates:

Farm Aid live stream
This year, Farm Aid broadcast its 25th anniversary concert live on YouTube in HD. If you couldn’t make it for the live event in Milwaukee or online, you can still catch performances from Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp, Neil Young, Dave Matthews, Norah Jones, Band of Horses, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and others. Farm Aid was founded with the mission to raise awareness about America’s family farms, and to date, it’s raised more than $37 million to better connect urban food lovers with food grown on family farms.


Willie Nelson & Steven Tyler - One Time Too Many (Live at Farm Aid 25)

Video editor enhancements and more languages
We’ve recently announced a handful of new releases to make creating great video content even easier and to bring YouTube to more audiences around the world.

We’ve enhanced our video editor, which lets you combine and trim your videos right on YouTube.com, without installing any software. Now you can rotate your videos via the editor and add transitions, like cross-fades and wipes, between video clips. Just select the transitions tab in the media picker, drag the transition and drop it between any two videos in the storyboard.


YouTube is also now available in seven new languages (Arabic, Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Romanian, Slovenian, Ukrainian and Vietnamese). Welcome!

See details of these and other enhancements in our monthly release notes.

Tips for videomakers
How do you get as many video views as some of our top partners like Fred? Make it easy for viewers to find and watch more of your video content by using annotations and playlists. We recently shared this handy tip you can use to easily let your viewers know what to do or where to go next.

If you’re looking to be the next Quentin Tarantino, the Howcast Filmmakers Program can help address your biggest fears and answer your most burning questions about being a filmmaker in the digital age.

Advertisers and agencies get inspired
With so much popular content on YouTube, many businesses large and small have discovered the cost-effective reach of online video advertising. From Old Spice to Dynomighty, advertisers have found their audience when it comes to marketing their products on YouTube. Find out what makes a successful online campaign and how to appeal to the masses with our latest installment of YouTube Show & Tell, a documentary series featuring the creative minds behind Old Spice, Dynomighty, Axe and Show & Tell itself.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our first roundup of YouTube news. For more information about what we’re up to at YouTube, visit our blog.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Marketing Manager, The YouTube Team