Australia Blog
News and rising stars from YouTube Australia
Addressing Youth Violence On YouTube
Monday, 27 October 2008
Like you, we're continually surprised, moved, and entertained by the videos people post on YouTube. And, like you, we're occasionally dismayed when people use YouTube for less positive purposes. That's why we count on you to know our
Community Guidelines
and flag videos you believe don't belong on the site.
We've recently made a change to our flagging menu we think you should know about: We replaced the category "minors fighting" with "youth violence." You can find it in the pull-down menu under "Violent or Repulsive Content," and we'll still follow our usual process of reviewing all flagged videos quickly and removing those that violate our Guidelines.
The reason for this change in language is simple: We want to make it easier for you to help us take down the increasing number of videos showing children involved in violence of some sort, including threats and actual altercations. The "minors fighting" flag simply wasn't being used enough, yet the number of these kinds of videos has been increasing. Now you can more easily flag violent videos that include underage people, and we'll take it from there.
Think of the Guidelines and the flagging pull-down menu as part of our ongoing conversation with you. We give you a structure that makes it easier for you to talk to us, and you become the eyes and ears of the site. Of course, the best conversations are never static, and the same is true about this one. We're always reviewing our Guidelines and the flagging categories to make sure they reflect what you see on the site.
The new flag is part of a larger, continuous effort here at YouTube to keep the community safe for all of our members. But we can't do it alone.
Literally.
With 13 hours of video uploaded every minute, we need you to be our first line of defense against content that violates our Community Guidelines, and we'll keep doing all we can to make doing your part clear and easy.
We're committed to having transparent, effective policies and to helping you understand them through blog posts like this. (If you haven't seen it, check our our
first post
in this series about how to contact us to report abuse.)
Let us know how we're doing and what you think about this new flag. And check back here soon for the next post in our series: How to Flag Videos.
The YouTube Team
A Behind the Scenes Look at Contacting Us
Monday, 20 October 2008
We've heard some of your concerns around trying to get the assistance you need when having an issue on the site. Our ultimate goal is to keep improving the product so you essentially won't need any help at all. We try our best to keep our
Help Resources
up to date with information about all of our features and policies, in addition to any current product issues or quirks. Most often, the solution to your problem is one that you can resolve on your own rather than contacting someone at YouTube directly.
Please keep in mind that human beings do actually review emails that are sent to us, but if we see the answer to your issue is already listed in the Help Centre we may not send a customised response. Many of our help options (listed below) allow you to resolve a problem immediately, rather than wait for a member of our team to respond to your inquiry by email:
First, and most importantly, check out our
Help Centre
. The handy search box lets you search for information about YouTube or look up issues across all Google products (as well as the entire Web). Click around and check out the articles. We're constantly adding more content to address site issues, big and small.
Our
Abuse and Policy Centre
is a one-stop-shop for resources related to safety and abuse on YouTube. You can browse through articles covering topics like how to deal with spam or gaming, how to control your account settings to limit interactions with certain users, and how to keep yourself generally safe while using the site.
The
YouTube Community Help Forum
is also a great resource. The Forum's discussion board is the official place to share ideas, provide feedback, ask and answer questions, and offer help to your fellow YouTube community members.
If after checking out all these resources you still haven't found exactly the information you're looking for, go ahead and send us an email. If the answer to your question isn't already in our Help Centre, we'll do our best to get back to you as soon as we can. Check back in the coming weeks and months for more posts about how to keep your YouTube experience safe, exciting, and always entertaining.
Here for you,
The YouTube Team
Your Video Second-by-Second
Friday, 10 October 2008
YouTube Insight
has helped you learn more about your YouTube videos, enabling you to establish when and where your videos prove popular. But what if you could learn not just which of your videos are hot on the site, but which specific
parts
of those videos are hotter than others? What if you could know exactly when viewers tend to leave your videos, or which scenes within a video they watch again and again?
Happily, this information is now available to all YouTube video uploaders via an innovative new feature for Insight called "Hot Spots." The Hot Spots tab in Insight plays your video alongside a graph that shows the ups-and-downs of viewership at different moments within the video. We determine "hot" and "cold" spots by comparing your video's abandonment rate at that moment to other videos on YouTube of the same length, and incorporating data about rewinds and fast-forwards. So what does that mean? Well, when the graph goes up, your video is hot: few viewers are leaving, and people may be rewinding on the control bar to see that sequence again. When the graph goes down, your content's gone cold: viewers are moving to another part of the video or leaving the video entirely.
Here's an example of Hot Spots in action, based on a video of YouTube employee Michael Rucker
making like Soulja Boy
:
src="/img/hot_spots_blog.jpg" width="456" height="414">
You can see that many viewers are not initially impressed with Rucker's efforts; they're leaving the video at a faster than average rate almost immediately after the video begins. But the longer the video plays, the more people tend to stay, generating a hot spot at the end of the video. Better late than never.
We think you'll find Hot Spots useful in several ways. For example, you can figure out which scenes in your videos are the "hottest" and edit them accordingly, or insert annotations at key moments to keep your audience more engaged. Now that Insight shows what parts of videos viewers are watching and skipping, you'll no longer have to guess why people watch your work – you'll know. You can find this new feature under the "Hot Spots" tab within the
Insight dashboard
(you must be logged in to your YouTube account).
As with all of Insight's features, we learn about
the most creative examples
from you. Are you using Insight in a new and interesting way?
Upload
a video to YouTube and let us know.
Have fun,
The YouTube Team
New Video Upload Redesign Beta
Sunday, 28 September 2008
We're excited to unveil our new and improved video uploader. A random sample of YouTube users have already been using the beta version, but now we're inviting everybody to check out this more streamlined uploading experience. Just login to your YouTube account and click
this link
to opt in. The new video upload flow includes these cool features:
You can enter in your video's metadata (title, description, tags, etc.) while the upload is processing.
Upload multiple files at once, without downloading a plugin (separate progress bars will display for each file).
The file-size limit for uploads has been raised from 100MB to 1GB.
We want your feedback, so don't be shy. Please leave a comment here, upload a video (using our
new upload beta
, of course) or
join the discussion
on our Community Help Forums.
The YouTube Team
Announcing "In My Name," a Global Effort to End Poverty
Thursday, 25 September 2008
Today, in New York City, world leaders will meet to discuss the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight time-bound, measurable goals that they set in the year 2000 to combat global poverty. These ambitious objectives were promises made to the poor, meant to hold world leaders accountable for ending global poverty by 2015. Today, we are halfway there.
That's why YouTube, Will.i.am, and nonprofit organisations
Oxfam
,
GCAP
,
Save the Children
and
Comic Relief
are launching "
In My Name
," a global effort to raise awareness around these goals -- and to give you the opportunity to tell your leaders to do more. See Will's message on the project here:
John Legend, Scarlett Johansson, Fergie and others are joining Will to speak out about the importance of achieving these goals. But world leaders also need to hear from you.
From now through November 1, visit
www.youtube.com/inmyname
to upload a video stating your name, your home country, and your simple message to your government about the need to meet the MDGs. Be as creative, compelling, simple, or wordy as you like -- this is your chance to join the video petition to end world hunger.
At the end of the programme on November 1, a mash-up of the most powerful submissions from around the world will be broadcast directly to global leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, as proof that global citizens are holding them to their commitment to create a better world for everyone.
You can make a difference in the fight against poverty -- all it takes is your name.
Sincerely,
Ramya R.
YouTube Nonprofits & Activism
New Features For Channels: Category Browsing & Comments Moderation
Monday, 15 September 2008
New features for channels we hope you dig:
BROWSE CHANNELS BY CATEGORY
All channels are now categorised so you can more easily find your favourite creators and videos. On the
Channels
page, under
All
, you can browse for channels uploading videos to categories like
Film & Animation
,
News & Politics
,
Sports
, etc. You can also use this functionality to filter your results to show
Partners
only.
MODERATE COMMENTS ON YOUR CHANNEL
Now you can moderate all comments other users leave on your channel page.
To turn this feature on, go to the
Edit Channel Info
page in
My Account
. There you can change your settings to allow comments from "Friends" or "Everyone" to display on your channel automatically or only once you have approved them. All comments waiting for your approval are highlighted on the
"see all"
page of your channel comments. Once you have chosen which individual comments you want to approve, click the "Approve Selected" button. If your
email options
are set to notify you of new bulletins or comments on your channel, the link in your email brings you to the page where you can approve selected comments.
We're always interested in hearing your feedback! So, if you've got something to say about the aforementioned features, please leave a comment on this post or join active discussions on our
Community Help Forums
. You will find pinned topics for the site improvements listed above in the
Feeback & Suggestions
section.
Holler at us,
The YouTube Team
Help Centre Videos Made By You: Call for Submissions
Saturday, 13 September 2008
YouTube is, well, a video product. So we thought, why not use videos to provide help to our users? That's where you come in...
We know you know how to make informative, creative videos -- the site's full of them. We're asking you to use your skills to create videos that we can embed in our
Help Centre
. If selected, your video will be seen by many of the 1 million+ users who visit the Help Centre each day!
To participate, here's what you need to do:
1. Decide which
Help Centre entries
you'd like to make an original video about:
Captions / Subtitles definition
Editing my video
Make a playlist
How to upload
Customizing channels
Contact lists
Transferring from camera to computer
Add/Change Profile Picture
Viewing Higher Quality Videos
Video annotations definition
2. Upload your video to your YouTube account, then submit it through
this page
.
Here are a few tips to help you along the way:
Keep it brief
(1-2 minutes is perfect)
Be creative, clear and 100% original
Stay on topic
(only submissions which address the Help Centre entries included in the list above will be accepted)
Keep our
Terms of Use
and
Community Guidelines
in mind
Have fun with it
The deadline for submitting your video is
October 10, 2008
, so get up off of your keester and make some videos to help your fellow users!
Good luck,
The YouTube Help Team
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