Australia Blog
News and rising stars from YouTube Australia
New Personalised Homepage and Improved Email Notifications
Tuesday, 24 June 2008
The new features included in our most recent site update are geared toward a more personalised experience for you. Here is a quick rundown...
NEW PERSONALISED HOMEPAGE
Our goal is to give a simple answer to the question, "What should I watch today?" with a personalised, customisable homepage that makes it easy to find the videos and the people that you care about. After reviewing results from our beta test and feedback from the community, we're happy to now release the new personalised homepage to all logged-in users. Since launching the beta version in February, data has shown an increase in the number of users visiting the homepage, the frequency of visits and the number of subscriptions users make over time. So, this optimised version of the homepage not only means a customisable experience for you, but more exposure for your YouTube videos and channels (Note: if you are logged out or do not have an account, you won't be able to access personalised homepage and will default to our former incarnation).
IMPROVED EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS
The email messages you receive from YouTube have been updated with a new layout. In addition to a streamlined design and many wording changes, any comments or messages are now included directly within the body of the email, helping you keep track of your conversations over time.
We're eager to hear your feedback, so please
let us know what you think
of this latest round of updates.
The YouTube Team
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
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
Sunday, 8 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
How Can the Internet Make the World a Better Place?
Friday, 6 June 2008
Trying to remember what life was like before the Internet gets a little bit harder every day. How did I buy a plane ticket again? We wrote letters by hand and sent them in the mail, you say? What did I do when I needed driving directions?
The Internet has become a necessity in the daily lives of people all around the world, and on June 17 and 18, ministers from more than 40 countries will meet with global business leaders, technical experts, and academics in Seoul, Korea, at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s meeting on the "Future of the Internet Economy." Here they will discuss how the World Wide Web can make the world a better place, and they want to hear from you.
Similar to YouTube's Davos Question framed around the World Economic Forum back in January, the OECD wants to give you the opportunity to ask questions and share your ideas with global leaders about the future of the Internet and how it can be used for good. The best videos will be shown during the meeting in Seoul, and responses from the ministers will be posted on YouTube during the event.
So share your questions and ideas on YouTube now! Visit the OECD's
"Future of the Internet"
channel and tell the world what you think by submitting a video to it.
Cheers,
The YouTube Team
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New Personalised Homepage and Improved Email Notif...
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