YouTube UK Blog
Insight Data: Any Way You Want It, That's the Way You Need It
Wednesday 29 April 2009
We launched
YouTube Insight
a year ago to help you better understand your viewers and how they engage with your videos. Along the way, we've introduced features like
Demographics
,
Hot Spots
and
Community
to give you sophisticated ways of analysing viewer data. Whether you want to know how old your audience is, how many times your most viewed video was rated last week, or which minute of your clip is most engaging, YouTube Insight can give you the answer. As we add functionality, we're careful to preserve YouTube Insight's clean and easy-to-use look and feel.
Throughout this process, we've realized that there are limitless ways viewing data can tell fascinating stories about your audience. As you continue to post videos, we will continue to make viewing data transparent and accessible for you.
Today, we have added a link that allows you to export your Insight data into CSV files. CSV files are open format files that organize data so it can be moved and analysed using common spreadsheet software such as
Google Docs
and
Microsoft Excel
. Now you can view and manipulate your data any way you like.
Looking for ideas? Try comparing the view count for different videos side by side, mapping out where your viewers are coming from over time, or comparing discovery sources by country. As always, tell us about the interesting fun facts you learn in the comments below!
Cheers,
Tracy Chan and Kenny Stoltz
Product Managers
The YouTube Team
Win a Place on Team YouTube at Cannes Young Lions
Wednesday 29 April 2009
At midnight on May 15 the clock starts ticking on a 48-hour YouTube contest that will catapult two users onto the Cannes Croisette at the very moment that the world’s advertising community is in town for their annual get together at the Cannes Lions advertising festival.
The two victors of this online iteration of the Young Lions Film Competition will form a YouTube team that will take on 37 others from around the world in a week-long challenge to shoot and edit a 60-second commercial on behalf of a charity. Previous entries (and winners) can be seen on the UK homepage today:
In terms of the YouTube competition, would-be winners (who must be 28 or younger) will be able to see the brief from midnight on May 15. They will then have to upload their finished ads to the
Cannes Lions
channel within 48 hours, and then embark on a quest for clicks and kudos before the curtain comes down on the competition on June 1.
As well as views, ratings and the profile of the ad, a panel of industry professionals will review the entries before announcing the winners. So, stay tuned to the
Cannes Lions
channel for more information, review the efforts of those who have gone before you and make sure your creative juices are set to flow forth once the starting pistol is fired on May 15.
Have fun,
Jamie
YouTube UK
Six Easy Ways to Live Green
Wednesday 22 April 2009
Today is Earth Day, and we want to help you take care of our great planet. It's not hard at all if you know
where to start
. Here are six things you can do now to make a difference:
1) Get a houseplant
This might seem small, but adding a little bit of greenery to your home can help remove harmful particles from the air.
2) Be vigilant of the faucet
We use far more water than we really need. Taking shorter showers, planting drought-tolerant plants, and only running the washing machine when it’s full are just a few ways to conserve this precious resource.
3) Call your energy company
Find out if they have a green energy plan or ask for an audit to see where you may be able to save energy.
4) Shop local
Buying produce from neighboring farms can help reduce your carbon footprint.
5) Change your commute
Try biking to work once a week instead of driving. It's better for the environment and better for you, too.
6) Turn trash into treasure
Before you throwing something away, stop: You might be able to turn it into something useful for your home.
Our
Live Green
channel has lots more videos with fun projects and ideas to help you to do more to green your lifestyle.
Happy Earth Day,
Sadia Harper
YouTube HowTo & Style
Changes to the Homepage
Wednesday 22 April 2009
As we alluded to in
a post
a few weeks ago, you'll notice that our homepage looks a little different today if you're signed out. We've redesigned this page to better reflect what's currently popular on YouTube, as chosen by you. We hope it's more visually appealing now, too. Here's a rundown of what's new:
* We've streamlined "Spotlight Videos" and given it greater prominence on the page. It won't appear every day, but when it does, videos will be organized around a theme, such as today's Earth Day videos, or a community trend. Feel free to suggest themes in the comments below. (Oh, and if you're signed in, whenever we show Spotlight Videos it'll appear wherever it does today, according to your settings.)
* "Videos Being Watched Now" got a makeover; we hope this gives greater emphasis to the videos that are rising up right now, according to what people are watching.
* The new "Most Popular" section features the hottest video in each category at the moment, in addition to the overall Most Viewed and Top Favorited video. This category display should help surface a wider variety of videos.
As always, we'll track page usage so we can make sure you're always able to find interesting videos when you come to YouTube.
Best,
Brian Glick
Product Manager
The YouTube Team
Ask BAFTA TV Stars A Searching Question And Attend The Awards Ceremony
Monday 20 April 2009
The 55th BAFTA Television Awards will be held in London on April 26, and YouTube is offering you the chance to put your questions to the stars and maybe even attend the ceremony itself.
Reporter James Rhodes will be stood on the red carpet, tasked with collaring the talent and asking the questions you want to hear answered. So, take a look at the
list of nominees
and then post your question as a video response or comment to the clip below, which is hosted at the
BAFTA Online
channel:
At the end of this week BAFTA will pick their favourite question and the person who posed it will win two tickets to the ceremony itself: accommodation, travel, and a walk down the red carpet all included. You'll be contacted through your YouTube account, so make sure to keep checking your inbox.
YouTube will also be the official online media partner of this year's Television Awards. We have always been a site where people around the world can upload their own videos and find an audience. Over the last few years we have also become a platform for clips from some of the biggest and best TV shows.
You can view clips from many of this year's nominees on YouTube including:
Bryony Makes a Zombie Movie
by YouTube's very own Paperlilies,
June Brown
,
Stephen Fry
,
Jonathan Ross
,
Rob Brydon,
David Mitchell
,
Shameless
,
Spooks
,
Doctor Who
,
Dead Set
,
The Devil's Whore,
House of Saddam
,
The Bill,
EastEnders,
Dexter
,
Life in Cold Blood
,
A Boy Called Alex
,
Celebrity Masterchef
,
The Choir
,
Top Gear
,
The Friday / Sunday Night Project
,
QI
,
Harry and Paul
,
Star Stories
,
The Inbetweeners
,
The IT Crowd
,
Peep Show
and
Skins
.
Good luck,
Tim Partridge, Product Marketing Manager, YouTube UK
Sliding To Victory: UK User Bags Barclaycard Bonanza
Friday 17 April 2009
Seeing as it isn’t every day that YouTube film-makers are offered the opportunity to tour the world's finest water parks or pocket £10,000 for doing what they do best – making inspired videos – today we are showcasing some of the entrants to the
Barclaycard Waterslide Competition
on the UK homepage.
With submissions spanning everything from stop-motion to swimshorts-clad entrants being dragged behind cars – which, by the way, isn’t something we recommend trying – the competition provoked equal parts of creativity and lunacy in the YouTube community. Winners were decided by a YouTube-wide vote, with teaaandcheese’s
8-bit offering
taking top spot (and the big prize) and five other entrants securing runner-up status:
In the YouTube spirit of inclusion, we have added a further six videos to today’s homepage takeover, but remember to head to the
Barclaycard Create
channel to review all the entries. Our congratulations go out to the winners, but we also extend a hearty handshake to all who made the effort. Rest assured that we’ll keep you abreast of similar opportunities via the blog, so stay tuned for updates.
Have fun,
Jamie, YouTube UK
YouTube Symphony Orchestra: From Idea to Reality
Wednesday 15 April 2009
Today represents the final culmination of an idea many months in the making: a first-class global orchestra brought together by YouTube. This week, over 90 musicians from around the world -- including a
Spanish guitarist
, a
Dutch harpist
and a
Lithuanian birbyne player
-- have gathered in New York City in preparation for tonight's historic YouTube Symphony Orchestra performance at Carnegie Hall. And today on YouTube's home page, we are proud to present the world premiere of Tan Dun's composition "Internet Symphony, Eroica," as selected and mashed up from nearly 3,000 video submissions from around the globe.
Maestro -- the mash up, please!
Along with the "Eroica" premiere, we're also posting exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of the preparation leading up to tonight's performance. Learn more about the
YouTube Symphony Orchestra
by watching candid vlogs, early rehearsals with conductor and creative director
Michael Tilson Thomas
, and meet-and-greets between the musicians lucky enough to participate in this once-in-a-lifetime event. Many thanks to our "Vlog Squad" team of classical musicians (
Caeli Smith
,
Jeremy Denk
, and
Eiko Sudoh
), and to
Harmony Films
, who are currently putting together a full-length documentary on the YouTube Symphony Orchestra.
And for those of you who can't make it to New York in time for the big show, don't fret. We'll be posting the full performance from Carnegie Hall on YouTube tomorrow at http://www.youtube.com/symphonyuk.
Symphonically Yours,
The YouTube Team
Survival Of The Fastest: Counteracting The Crisis Via YouTube
Saturday 4 April 2009
YouTube has long been a place to come to look for information and to connect with other people with similar interests and passions. In the spirit of this, today we have turned over the UK homepage to a selection of videos from the
Survival Of The Fastest
channel, a new initiative from the London Business School, The Daily Telegraph and Google, designed to showcase insights and inspirational ideas from some of the best business brains in the UK.
The channel has some of the country's leading businesses offering their insights on how to speed up in the slowdown; turning current trading conditions to your advantage rather than focusing solely only on the negatives. Contributors include Ogilvy UK vice-chairman
Rory Sutherland
, Internet Advertising Bureau chief executive
Guy Phillipson
and London Mayor
Boris Johnson
. Shortly, you'll also be seeing videos from
Sir Martin Sorrell
, whose business credentials need no introduction.
If you head to the
Survival Of The Fastest
channel, you will also get to review the all-new Google Barometer. Using Google search data, this is designed to show how consumer confidence is fluctuating compared with other key economic and social indicators.
As always, users will be able to rate videos, leave comments, subscribe and offer up video responses. The hope is that this will become a thriving business community in the spirit of YouTube – so head to the homepage, hear what the experts have to say and feel free to make your voice heard.
Yours,
Lee Hunter, Product Marketing Manager, Google
Adopt a Feature: Round #2
Thursday 2 April 2009
Amazingly, it has been two weeks since our
last adoptafeature post
and, though we've had some good new submissions since then, like
this video from BeforeandAfterTV
, we're still hungry for more, more, more. So we thought we'd up the ante a bit. For one, this Thursday, we're planning a homepage "Adopt a Feature" takeover during which we'll highlight many of the videos created thus far for the programme, about one every hour. (Remember: these videos must adhere to our
Terms of Service
.) Watch, comment, rate -- then pick up your video camera and try to top these pioneers by doing a better, more creative job of explaining any of these six features yourself:
AudioSwap
,
Country Pulldown
,
Insight
,
Playlists
,
Quick Capture
, and
Subscriptions
. Don't forget to include the tag "adoptafeature" in your video; this is essential for it to be discoverable.
Two, if we feature your video in this installment or in a future showcase, there's a neat-o YouTube T-shirt with your name on it. All your friends will be
very
jealous.
Looking forward to seeing what you come up with. Be back April 14 with the next update.
Cheers,
Hunter Walk
Director, Product Management
The YouTube Team
Welcome To Your New Watch Page
Wednesday 1 April 2009
With things like
Release Notes
, we're focusing on sharing our philosophy behind changes on YouTube to give you a better understanding of why we make certain product decisions. We review the emails, blog post comments and Tweets you send our way, and want to thank all of you who wrote in to share your opinions. Today, we are beginning to roll out the new watch page. The update will begin with videos on the home page -- go to
www.youtube.com
, click on any video featured, and you'll get dizzy with excitement.
We think you'll find that the new watch page makes it even easier for you to view content while doing the
Exorcist Walk
or
a headstand
.
It also gives you even more control over picture quality -- our internal tests have shown that modern computer monitors offer better picture quality when flipped upside-down. Below are some of the features we're most excited about.
Real-Time Topsy-Turvyness
The biggest part of the new watch page is the real-time disorientation you'll get when you've clicked on a video from the home page. The new watch page lets you know what's happening right now in your world -- and it feels kinda funny. The page also makes it simpler for you to view content in the southern hemisphere (or, if you live in the southern hemisphere, then you should head north for the optimum viewing experience).
The Escape Route
One of the important things to remember about the page is that you might get a neck ache. That's why there's an improved
Escape Route
. It makes it easy to say, "Whoa, I prefer the old-fashioned layout!" So anytime your neck starts to hurt, you will know there's an out.
Discovering Fun
The final piece of the new watch page is the
Laughs
we get in confusing you on April Fool's Day.
Affectionately yours,
The YouTube Team
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