YouTube UK Blog
The YouTube Screening Room: Now Playing
Friday, 20 June 2008
Today, we're pleased to announce the launch of
the YouTube Screening Room
, a platform for films from around the world to find the
audiences they deserve.
Every year, tens of thousands of films are produced, but many of them
never get a chance to be seen by a wide audience. Until now.
The YouTube Screening Room will connect films and audiences in the
world's largest theatre, not only providing filmmakers with a
much-needed showcase, but also helping you find new high-quality
content every two weeks.
While some of these films have played at film festivals around the
world, others will be showing to a wide audience for the first time.
Our debut shorts include an Academy Award nominee from the United
States, an Academy Award winner from Norway, the world's first
animated opera from Sweden, and a poignant short from indie favourites
Miguel Arteta and Miranda July, also from the United States.
In the next few months, you'll see films from the UK, Canada, Germany,
Ireland, Australia, Austria, France, Kenya and more. Every Screening
Room film is displayed in our High Quality player, and has been posted
with the filmmaker's involvement. So be sure to rate, share and leave
comments. This is your chance to not only watch great films from all
corners of the globe, but also to converse with the filmmakers behind
them.
And if you're a filmmaker interested in playing in the YouTube Screening Room, send an email about your film to
ytscreeningroom@youtube.com
. We look forward to hearing from you!
The future of film on YouTube starts now,
Sara P.
YouTube Film
Now We Are One: Edit Us
Thursday, 19 June 2008
Believe it or not, YouTube UK is one year old today. We know… we know… we don’t look it, but it’s true. The localised homepage launched on June 19, 2007, with the stated aim of increasing the visibility of local talent – of which, happily, there is clearly plenty. One element of which turns out to share our birthday and seems set on celebrating the occasion with cardboard friends taped to lolly sticks:
However, one side-effect of this surfeit of fine film-making has been that finding an appropriate way to reflect a year in the life of the UK site has proved extremely tough. Which – as regular readers of this blog will know – is usually when we turn to you for support. This is no exception.
So, if you are interested in presiding over a UK homepage takeover designed to sum up the past 52 weeks, keep reading. We are looking for a user to generate a full set of 12 video selections to reflect UK user activity over the 2007/2008 season. Pick a theme, select videos month-by-month, make your decisions based on horoscopes – the choice is yours. All we ask is that you mail your selections (together with a short explanation) to
editor-uk@youtube.com
by July 5, with a view to sharing the results on July 19. Remember: reading, understanding and adhering to YouTube’s
Community Guidelines
will greatly enhance your chances of success.
Have fun – we look forward to seeing what you come up with,
The YouTube Team
YouTube In Your Living Room
Monday, 16 June 2008
We've heard many users say, "YouTube is the new TV!". Well, the YouTube Syndication team is excited to now offer a number of options to actually consume YouTube on your television sets. We're also proud to have helped many leaders in the consumer electronics space create YouTube experiences on TV.
Getting YouTube right on TV is extremely challenging from both a design and technology perspective. Each of our partners' engineering and design teams had similar questions:
- What would users, accustomed to a simple remote control interface for their TVs, expect given their typically much richer interaction options when surfing
youtube.com
?
- How could the YouTube experience be personalised for TV?
- How could the extra computing power and memory often required to make this work on their devices be added effectively?
- What were the most important YouTube features to retain, and how would they translate to a 10-foot user experience?
All these partners used the
YouTube APIs
to build their products. One partner's summary of their experience with the APIs: "The YouTube API was very simple, but powerful. It enabled us to develop our user interface flexibly and quickly." Music to our ears!
Here's a quick overview of some products that enable you to access YouTube from your living room...or anywhere else you may have your television(s)!
AppleTV
: In
June 2007
this became the first product to offer a way to watch YouTube on your TV.
Sony Bravia Internet Video Link
: Last week, Sony announced the general availability of YouTube content on their Bravia TVs via the Internet Video Link. Some clips from the YouTube team at the event are linked below.
Nice tie
, Brent!
HP MediaSmart
:
HP announced availability
of YouTube as part of the HP MediaSmart platform.
Panasonic: At
CES 2008
, Panasonic announced
VieraCast
, which allows you to
access YouTube
directly from your TV. The device will be available later this month.
Samsung: Samsung launched their IPTV device which supports YouTube (currently only available in South Korea) in early May.
TiVo
:
Announced that YouTube would be available
on their devices.
Verismo
: A start-up in the IPTV space, has
announced availability
of a YouTube-enabled device.
Videos from the Sony announcement in NYC:
We're excited that the YouTube APIs have enabled these products and look forward to sharing information about even more products, upgrades and innovations from our partners. We're determined to see more devices and applications
"Powered by YouTube"
so that our vision of YouTube Everywhere feels even more real to our users. Head over to the
API Blog
to read more about where you can expect to see YouTube other than
youtube.com
!
The YouTube Team
Video Annotations: New Beta Feature
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
We're happy to announce a new way to add interactive commentary to your videos: Video Annotations. Using this new tool you can add background information on-screen, create branching ("choose your own adventure" style) stories or add links to any YouTube upload, channel, or search results page -- at any point in your video.
Uploaders have control over creating and editing an unlimited number of annotations on their videos. To start annotating, first make sure you have videos uploaded into your account. Log in, then go to view one of your videos. On the Video page, click the blue "Edit Annotations" button to the right of the video.
As you play your video, you can insert commentary by adding speech bubbles, notes and highlight boxes anywhere you want. You can also use the menu on the left to save a draft, delete commentary, edit start/stop times or add links to your annotations. Once you save the final version, click "Publish" to reveal your annotated video to other users. (Note: Video Annotations are shown by default, but the viewer can turn them off while watching a video through the "Menu" button on the bottom right of the video player).
Looking for some creative ways to use annotations? Check out these examples: a
shell game
,
skydiving adventure
and
magic trick
.
For more information on how to use annotations, please visit the
Help Centre
.
We're really looking forward to seeing how you decide to use this new facility and will add more fun tools and features soon!
Don't forget to
share your feedback
with us,
The YouTube Team
Accuracy Restored to Subscriber Counts
Thursday, 29 May 2008
If you notice a significant change in your subscriber count within the next few days, don't be alarmed - this is due to a fix we are running to rectify a bug which has affected subscriber counts on some users' channels. Normally, when a user subscribes/unsubscribes from your channel, this change is reflected in your subscriber count almost immediately. We discovered an issue which was preventing these numbers from being updated. We expect the fix to take just a few days to reach affected accounts. Once it is complete, everyone's channels will reflect the current and accurate number of subscribers.
Thanks for your patience,
The YouTube Team
23 Days: Euro 2008 on YouTube
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
On June 7 the UEFA Euro 2008 Football Championships kicks off, with Switzerland (who share hosting duties with Austria) taking on the Czech Republic in Basel. Over the following 23 days the 16 finalist countries will play 31 games to see who gets to raise the trophy – and enjoy bragging rights across Europe until 2012.
One of the defining characteristics of the European Championships is its unpredictability. Since its launch in 1960, the 12 stagings of the event have produced nine different winners – a fact that seems to drive players to produce some of the best football of their careers (for some reason Paul Gascoigne in 1996 springs to mind…) and whip fans into a frenzy.
Where YouTube sees excitement, it sees opportunity. Cue our 23 Days programme, which is designed to share your skills, passion and football knowledge with the wider world. To this end channels have been set up in
Germany
,
France
,
Spain
,
Italy
,
The Netherlands
and
Russia
– not to mention a
pan-European
channel – designed to showcase users’ football skills (All About Football), their passion for the game (Fans In Action) and their analysis of the on-pitch action (Football Reporter).
So, whether you dream of representing your country in the competition, are intent on cheering your team on to victory or want to talk through the drama as it unfolds, 23 Days is for you. Head for the channel, do your thing and who knows – maybe the world will get to experience an important slice of Euro 2008 through your eyes.
Have fun,
The YouTube Team
Missing People On YouTube
Sunday, 25 May 2008
Every year 210,000 individuals are reported missing in the UK -- two-thirds of whom are classed as young people. In a bid to raise their profile and support the efforts being made to find them, Sunday, May 25, has been named International Missing Children’s Day and YouTube UK is happy to help support the
Missing People
organisation’s ongoing efforts to reunite friends and families.
Missing People – formerly known as the National Missing Persons Helpline – set up its channel on YouTube on December 8, 2006. On average it features 10-15 profiles of missing people a month and currently has 94 active campaigns running. Since its launch, 39 of the people featured on the channel have been found, but the organisation clearly has a mountain to climb.
So, in a bid to help Missing People in its efforts – and in order to salute its innovative and overwhelmingly positive use of YouTube – why not head to their
page
, have a look through the profiles and think about subscribing. You never know, you may be in a position to help someone as a direct result.
Enjoy your Bank Holiday,
The YouTube Team
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