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YouTube Highlights 1/6/2011
January 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
A sneak peek at “Life in a Day”
January 6, 2011
(Cross-posted from the
YouTube Blog
)
In December, we announced that “
Life in a Day
,” a documentary film directed by Oscar-winner Kevin Macdonald, produced by Ridley Scott, and filmed on July 24, 2010 by thousands of YouTube users around the world, was finished—and would have its world premiere at the
2011 Sundance Film Festival
on January 27.
Today we’d like to share with you the first in a series of clips we’ll release between now and the world premiere. In this clip, beautifully shot by Toniu Xou and Patricia Marinez del Hoyoa of Spain, a young girl climbs a human castle in the small town of San Jaume dels Domenys in the Spanish province of Tarragona.
If watching this clip gets you excited for more, subscribe to the
Life in a Day channel
to be automatically updated when new clips are released.
And, most importantly, don’t forget to tune into the world premiere of “Life in a Day” at 5pm PT on Thursday, January 27, to see the 1,125 clips—out of more than 80,000 submitted—that made it into the final film.
Live in an incompatible time zone? Not to worry. The film will be re-broadcast at 7pm on Friday, January 28, in your local time zone, whatever that may be. This will be your only chance to see “Life in a Day” before it is released later in 2011, so don’t miss out!
And for those of you who want to experience Sundance even more intimately, check out the Life in a Day channel daily from January 24 to January 27 to see on-the-ground updates from Kevin Macdonald and a group of contributors to the “Life in a Day” project whom Kevin has invited to join him for the world premiere. You can also submit questions on the channel during that time for a chance to take part in a live Q&A with Kevin and the 20 contributors following the world premiere.
Posted by Tim Partridge, Product Marketing Manager
Google blogging in 2010
December 31, 2010
On the last day of 2010, it’s time for us to reflect on the past year of Google blogging. This year, we published 454 posts (including this one) on the Official Google Blog—7 percent more than 2009. Those posts had an astonishing number of readers: 24,768,052 unique visitors stopped by this year, more than 70 percent more than last year. (The huge increase is mostly due to this year’s April Fools' post, which benefited from a link in a
prominent location
; more on that below.) People come to the blog from all around the world; the top countries sending visitors in 2010 were the U.S., U.K., Canada, India and Germany, but readers came from dozens of other places as well.
The top posts this year run the gamut from policy changes to product arrivals:
A different kind of company name
- 10,604,183 unique pageviews, more than 30 percent of the year’s total. Our April Fools' Day post about changing our company name to “Topeka” had a crazy-high number of pageviews, in large part because there was a link to our humble blog on Google’s homepage that day. That’s a lot of eyes!
A new approach to China
- 924,335. We post about our new approach to business in China; we will no longer censor search results on Google.cn.
Introducing Google Chrome OS
- 653,803. This post introducing our open source operating system was published in July 2009 (and was the top post of 2009), but continued to draw readers this year. (This month, we
launched a pilot program
for Chrome OS notebooks.)
Think big with a gig: our experimental fiber network
- 483,399. We announce our plan to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States.
Update on Google Wave
- 469,164. We share the news that we don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product.
Introducing Google Places
- 341,136. The Local Business Center (the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google) becomes Google Places.
Announcing Google TV: TV meets web. Web meets TV
- 314,991. At Google I/O, we unveil a new experience for television that combines your familiar TV with the freedom and power of the Internet.
Our new search index: Caffeine
- 271,393. Our new indexing system provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and is the largest collection of web content we‘ve offered.
A new approach to China: an update
- 228,591. In March, we stop censoring our search services on Google.cn, redirecting users from there to Google.com.hk for uncensored search in simplified Chinese. (Later, we
introduce a landing page
for Chinese users that links to Google.com.hk.)
Introducing Nexus S, with Gingerbread
- 220,482. We introduce Gingerbread, the latest version of the Android platform, and Nexus S, the next Android device from the Nexus line of mobile products.
Other popular posts included
Google’s new look
, the
ability to change the background image on your Google homepage
,
Google Instant
, a
playable PAC-MAN doodle
,
the ability to call phones from Gmail
and—oh, that—
cars that drive themselves
.
In 2010, we kept up with our
search
and
apps
series, and introduced a few new ones: about
small businesses using Google’s products
,
updates from YouTube
,
great Google stories from users
and a
bunch of new “Search On” videos
. We also shared our
thoughts
on the
future
of
display
advertising
. We had fun with
giant photo collages
and
other wall art
, got into the
spirit
of
the
World
Cup
and shared a
new kind of musical experience
built for the modern browser. We shared imagery of
Haiti after the January earthquake
and the
Gulf of Mexico after the oil spill
. We also talked about how Google Earth played a role in the
discovery of a rare hominid ancestor
in South Africa, celebrated
quite
a
few
milestones
, and gave you a glimpse of the
bzzz-iest Googlers on campus
at the Hiveplex.
In December, we revamped our
blog directory
so you can more easily find the exact place to get the news you’re looking for; you can sort by category, language or region. We revamped our
Twitter directory
too, and added new directories for our
Facebook pages
and
YouTube channels
.
Speaking of Twitter, this was our second year of tweeting officially on @
google
. We crossed the 2,000-tweet mark earlier this month and now have more than 2.6 million followers. Our Twitter family grew by leaps and bounds as well—you can now follow Google on
more than 100 Twitter accounts
posting news of all kinds, from API updates for developers to product news in countries around the world. Twitter was also our biggest referrer to this blog in 2010 (excluding Google search, Google properties such as
google.com/places
and Feedburner)—followed closely by Facebook.
As always, we’re grateful to all of our readers for keeping up with us over the year, and we’re looking forward to bringing you more news in 2011!
Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor
Battle of the Demos: Musical Holiday Edition
December 24, 2010
Nothing brings out holiday spirit like caroling around town or sharing a good time with friends. But when you combine both of those fun activities with Google technology, Weezer, Greyson Chance, and Demo Slam, you get
Battle of the Demos: Musical Holiday Edition
.
This winter season,
Weezer
and
Greyson Chance
stepped to into the
Demo Slam
arena to show the world their most creative tech demos. We know they can both sing, but who will win in a battle of technology?
Spending his Christmas home in Oklahoma City, Greyson Chance figured he could combine Google Local Search and caroling to spread some musical cheer around town:
Weezer is known for their adoring fans (well, at least one adoring fan authoring this post). Check out this slam that gets the whole crowd involved:
Head over to
demoslam.com
to vote and help decide whether a voice search performed by 3,000 people or crooning through the streets of Oklahoma City will reign supreme.
Posted by Laura Melahn, Weezer Fan Club and Amanda Kelly, Greyson Chance Cheer Squad
Dashing through the snow... with NORAD and Google
December 23, 2010
(Cross-posted from the
Lat Long Blog
)
Every Christmas Eve, children all over the world ask themselves—and their parents—questions about Santa’s magical journey.
How does Santa visit so many children in one night? Will he eat the cookies I left out? How does he fit all those presents into his sleigh?
These childhood mysteries are part of what makes the Santa tradition so special.
There’s one timeless question that we’re proud to say we can help answer:
Where in the world is Santa at this very moment?
Thanks in part to recent advances in warp-speed GPS technology and some very clever elves (elveneering?)
NORAD Tracks Santa
is once again prepped and ready to go.
Starting tomorrow, December 24 at 2:00am EST, visit
www.noradsanta.org
to follow Santa as he journeys around the world delivering presents to children in more than 200 countries and territories. There are a few different ways to find the jolly old man in his unmistakable red suit over the course of the day, so feel free to track him using any of the following methods:
See Santa on a Google Map:
On your home computer or laptop, visit
www.noradsanta.org
and choose your preferred language. You’ll see a large Google Map on the page displaying Santa’s current location and his next stop. Click the video icons to watch
“Santa Cam” videos
, and click the gift icons to learn more about each city.
Watch Santa fly with the Google Earth Plug-in:
From
www.noradsanta.org
, click on the link
Track Santa in Google Earth
. You'll see Santa steering his sleigh right on the webpage. If you don't have the Google Earth plug-in, you can get ready by
downloading
it ahead of time.
Follow Santa on your phone:
Track Santa from your mobile phone by opening
Google Maps for mobile
and searching for [santa]. Or, visit
m.noradsanta.org
on your phone’s browser.
Subscribe to his YouTube channel:
Santa’s home on YouTube is at
http://www.youtube.com/noradtrackssanta
. That’s where you can find videos from his journey throughout the night.
Get real-time information about Santa’s location:
Use Google’s
Realtime Search
to get updates from social networks, news and micro-blogs like Twitter at
@noradsanta
, and keep up with news about his journey on this
Facebook page
.
For any techie questions you might have, we’ve also put together some helpful
tips and tricks
about all the cool ways you can experience Santa’s journey. Now that you know how to follow Saint Nick on Christmas Eve, it’s our tradition to tell the story of how this all started...
NORAD
(North American Aerospace Defence Command)
first began to track Santa
in 1955 when a misprinted advertisement in a Sears & Roebuck catalogue mistakenly led callers expecting a Santa-hotline to the NORAD commander-in-chief's telephone. Embracing the spirit of the season, NORAD used its satellite and radar capabilities to offer callers sleigh-location updates, and has
tracked Santa's whereabouts
on Christmas Eve ever since. Then in 2004, Google started tracking Santa on Google Earth as a 20% project, which in 2007 grew into a partnership with NORAD, adding the mapping technology of
Google Maps
and
Google Earth
to the NORAD experience. Over the years, other Google teams have also joined in the holiday fun (
YouTube
, Google Voice’s
www.SendACallFromSanta.com
and
Google SketchUp
).
As we approach this year’s Christmas Eve adventure, Santa was able to take a break from the preparations to visit the New York Stock Exchange this past Monday. His helpful elves kept everything at the North Pole on schedule while folks from Google and NORAD attended the Closing Bell ceremony, and stood alongside Santa from Macy’s going over last minute details about tomorrow’s big ride.
Santa with NORAD, Google and members of the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation (that’s me, the tall guy in the back row clapping)
So don’t forget to visit
www.noradsanta.org
tomorrow morning starting at 2:00am EST when Santa embarks on his flight. From all of us here at Google, happy holidays and here’s to a very happy New Year!
Posted by Brian McClendon, Original Google Engineering Elf
Investing in New York
December 22, 2010
Google New York started in a Starbucks on 86th Street with one person in 2000—a scrappy, highly-caffeinated sales “team.” After moving to a larger office in Times Square, in 2006 we relocated to our current home in Chelsea, at
111 Eighth Avenue
—a former Port Authority building. In June of 2008, we took additional space in the Chelsea Market building at 75 Ninth Avenue. Now we have more than 2,000 Googlers working on a variety of projects in both sales and engineering—and we’re
hiring across the board
.
Today, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve closed a deal with the partnership of Taconic Investment Partners, Jamestown Properties and the New York State Common Retirement Fund to purchase 111 Eighth Avenue (also known as 76 Ninth Avenue). As part of the deal, we’ve retained Taconic Management Company to continue the leasing oversight services and management of the building on our behalf, providing the same level of customer service the building’s tenants have come to expect. We believe that this is a great real estate investment in a thriving neighborhood and a fantastic city.
Like the city, our New York office is a melting pot of cultures and ideas—it’s home to Googlers from more than 35 countries who speak more than 40 languages. They live in the five boroughs and spread across the tri-state area. We’re excited to continue to
build our presence
there.
Posted by David Radcliffe, VP Real Estate and Workplace Services
Trip report: Google and YouTube in Pakistan 2010
December 21, 2010
Earlier this month, a team from Google and YouTube went to Pakistan to explore business and content opportunities, following up on Google’s
Clinton Global Initiative commitment to Pakistan
and to sponsor and participate in Pakistan’s first
International Youth Conference and Festival
. It’s hard to imagine a country more at the nexus of geo-politics today than Pakistan, and our team learned a lot about the state of the Pakistani technology, media and non-profit sectors.
Internet connectivity in Pakistan is quite low—estimates put penetration at around 10%—but opportunities for growth are evident. For one thing, broadband costs are quite cheap compared to other parts of the world—around $13/month. Smartphone usage is also on the rise, and there are a growing number of Pakistani developers who are creating mobile applications for sale both in Pakistan and abroad. Around 60% of Pakistanis have a mobile phone, and their average bill is around $3/month. Not surprisingly, SMS is one of the primary means of communication in Pakistan.
One of the keys to bringing more Pakistanis online is the amount of local Pakistani content available on the Internet. There are some great examples so far: for instance,
Coke Studio
, a “fusion” music project sponsored by Coke that features popular Pakistani musicians, grew so popular on YouTube last summer that it was the 11th-most viewed
channel
on the site. Dozens of news organizations have begun to use YouTube as a global distribution platform as well, reaching not only Pakistanis online but the diaspora abroad. The Pakistani media is young and voracious—it was just eight years ago that the government opened up the airwaves to allow non-state media channels to exist, and in that short time the media has grown to become an important player in the public discourse in Pakistan, despite occasional crackdowns from authorities. Citizen media has also played an increasingly big role in Pakistan: for example many Pakistanis used cellphone cameras to document the devastation wrought by
the floods
in Pakistan last summer.
Google.org granted $1 million to Pakistani
flood relief
in September, localized crisis response tools, and launched a
flood relief landing page
. On our trip we met with several non-profits who are doing incredible work to help the affected citizens get back on their feet. Our products, in particular
Google MapMaker
, proved to be of use to flood relief agencies for tracking development in the wake of the tragedy. Over countless cups of hot chai and mixed grilled barbecues, we heard stories of ordinary Pakistanis using Google technology to document the flood and connect with one another during the crisis.
Pakistan’s future no doubt lies with its youth—an incredible 62% of Pakistanis are under the age of 25. Perhaps the highlight of our trip was the International Youth Conference we participated in, which was run by an organization called
Khudi
. Khudi was founded by the dynamic
Maajid Nawaz
, a former extremist who changed his views towards moderate Islam and has since devoted his life to educating young people on freedom of expression and anti-extremism (Nawaz also
spoke at
Google Zeitgeist this year). It was inspiring to meet leaders like Nawaz who are committed to emboldening Pakistan’s younger generations to use the web to bring Pakistan to the rest of the world, and to give the rest of the world a more complete picture of Pakistan. In this way we saw an opportunity for technology to not only foster economic development, but also to break down borders in the region. We asked a few of the Pakistani leaders we met with to talk about Pakistan’s future, and here’s what they had to say.
This was the largest delegation of Googlers ever to visit Pakistan, and we’re looking forward to continued engagement in the region.
Posted by Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics, YouTube and John Lyman, Google.org
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