Is there one issue facing the world today that you feel passionate about? Have you always wanted to take your cause directly to people who have the power to do something about it, but lacked access to have your voice heard? Now is your chance to make your pitch - and win a spot at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where world leaders will gather to hear what you have to say about the issue that matters most to you.There is just one week left to submit a video for the opportunity to go to Davos. Each year, heads of state, business leaders, and social entrepreneurs gather at the World Economic Forum to discuss the most critical challenges facing citizens and nations around the world. And this year, one of you will get direct access to a special panel of these leaders at the Forum, to let them know why your cause matters.The submission deadline is Monday, January 4, 2010, and all videos should be no longer than three minutes. Speak clearly and from the heart. Five finalists will be selected by a judging panel comprised of Paolo Coelho, Arianna Huffington and Muhammad Yunus. These finalist videos will then go to public vote on January 8, with a winner announced on January 19.This is the chance you've been waiting for... unprecedented access to the worlds most powerful leaders who can make a difference for your cause. Visit the Davos YouTube channel to submit your video and make your pitch to the world.Steve Grove, News & Politics, recently watched Mahmoud Jabari - Davos Competition
This year has been the biggest yet for online video, and for the first time we're sharing our official Most Watched lists and some of the fastest-rising search terms on YouTube. Some moments were big (President Obama's inauguration), some small (a Minnesota wedding party erupts into dance), some expected ("New Moon"), some surprising (Susan Boyle) — but all of them inspired, entertained and connected millions of people around the world via YouTube.For these lists, we looked at view counts of YouTube's most popular videos this year (in some instances we aggregated views across multiple versions of the same video):Most Watched YouTube videos (Global):1. Susan Boyle - Britain's Got Talent (120+ million views)2. David After Dentist (37+ million views)3. JK Wedding Entrance Dance (33+ million views)4. New Moon Movie Trailer (31+ million views)5. Evian Roller Babies (27+ million views)Most Watched music videos on YouTube (Global)*:1. Pitbull "I Know You Want Me" (82+ million views)2. Miley Cyrus "The Climb" (64+ million views)3. Miley Cyrus "Party in the U.S.A." (54+ million views)4. The Lonely Island "I'm On a Boat" (48+ million views)5. Keri Hilson "Knock You Down" (35+ million views)Then, to determine the fastest rising search terms for each month, we examined the billions of queries that people searched for on YouTube (through December 15):
Creating captions for your videos on YouTube has become much easier thanks to the introduction of automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology.Auto-Timing: Upload a transcript (a simple file with the text of what's said in the video), and through speech recognition technology we'll turn it into synchronised captions. Timing is the toughest part of creating captions, but now this should be much easier. The technology works best for videos with good sound quality and clear spoken English.Auto-Captions: We use the same speech recognition technology to create machine-generated captions (which can then be translated into 51 languages). You can see auto-caps in action right now on a range of educational channels, such as UC Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Yale, UCLA, Duke, UCTV, Columbia, PBS, National Geographic, Demand Media, UNSW and most Google channels, including YouTube's. Click on the menu button at the bottom right of the video player, then click CC and the arrow to its left, then click the new "Transcribe Audio" button. In time, we hope to expand this feature for many more YouTube videos.
Social features like commenting, rating, video responses and even just emailing or IMing a video's link have always been a part of the YouTube experience. So that's why we spend a lot of time here thinking about how to make the site an even more social place. We're especially focused on wanting to make it as easy as possible for you to find the people you know on YouTube and to follow their activity (what videos are they rating? favouriting? commenting on?) by subscribing to their channel; it's a great way to stay up on what they're into as well as discover new content yourself. As you consume these videos and start sharing your own, you in turn "feed" your friends a tasty helping of video goodness. It breaks into this virtuous distribution cycle:
Face facts: in a swimming race against 14-time Olympic gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps, you'd have no chance whatsoever...but you may be able to beat him in speed putting! If you can make more than 12 five-foot putts in a minute, you'll have bragging rights forever:This is "The Best of Us Challenge," presented by the International Olympic Committee, where Olympic athletes challenge the YouTube community to compete in some truly unique events. For example, you can challenge American Olympic gold medalist gymnast Shawn Johnson by tapping-your-ears-while-doing-a-handstand. (FYI: she did it 54 times in 30 seconds.) Or take on one of the world's fastest men, Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell, who balanced a stick on his foot for two minutes and 30 seconds. Six-time Grand Slam winner and Olympic gold medalist Rafael Nadal picked up 24 tennis balls in 30 seconds (making great use of his groin area) — how many can you get?If you've got the moxie to best these world class athletes, check out the The Best of Us Challenge channel on YouTube to learn how to submit your video. Prizes include a trip for two to the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games in February 2010 and a trip for two to the Youth Olympic Games in Singapore in August 2010, as well as T-shirts, video games and posters. Submissions end on Sunday, November 15, so whatever your skill is — putting, hand-standing, hula-hooping, etc. — get out there and show the world your best.Andrew Bangs, YouTube Sports, recently watched "Tiger Woods Golf Swing in Slow Motion"
We are counting down the hours to this evening's U2 concert at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, CA. The live stream begins at 8:30 p.m. Pacific Time (3.30 a.m. GMT), and YouTube users all around the world can tune in. (To figure out what time the concert starts where you are, simply click the time converter here and select the name of your country in the pull-down menu.)Once the show starts, scroll down on U2's channel for a Twitter gadget displaying real-time comments about the webcast. If you Tweet from this tool, you'll see that each message is pre-populated with the hashtag #U2webcast, instantly plugging your comments into wider discussions about the show.For those of you who miss the live event, the full performance will be re-broadcast two consecutive times after it ends. It will also be archived as a video on the U2 channel -- so there's really no excuse to miss Bono's distinctive wail, the Edge's guitar mastery, the roll of Larry Mullen's drums, or Adam Clayton's thumping bass lines. Let this preview whet your appetite for the experience up ahead...
Today, Comments Search moves into Test Tube, the place where our engineers and developers test out new features and gather data and feedback before pushing them out to a wider audience. This feature allows you to search the comments people are making on YouTube in real time. The full comment will appear on a continuously updated results page, and "trending topics" indicates the hottest topics of conversation on YouTube at that particular moment. Comments Search is a way you can find out what YouTube users are saying about everything from the news stories of the day (below, see results when we typed in "balloon boy") to your individual channel or brand.So try it out, enter your feedback here or comment below, and help us get this feature ready for the masses. We're always working on new ways to enhance search across YouTube and give quick and easy access to the information people are looking for.Jamie Davidson, Product Manager, recently watched "Strange Cloud Over Moscow Oct 2009."
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