YouTube Creator Blog: Product Update

November 12th Live Stream: YouTube Product Updates and an Interview with OlgaKay

Thursday, November 8, 2012

On Monday, November 12th, the YouTube Partner Support team is hosting a Partner Meet-Up in Los Angeles. The event is at capacity so if you’re not already registered to join us in person, be sure to tune in at youtube.com/partnersupport.

During the meet-up, we'll be live streaming an update from the YouTube Product team on changes to your video management features and YouTube / Google+ identity integration. Additionally, we’ll be livestreaming the next episode of “Partner Support Talks With...” featuring OlgaKay. You can find a schedule for the stream below:

Time	Session
2:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. PST	Updates on YouTube / Google+ Identity Integration
2:30 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. PST	Updates on New & Upcoming Video Management Features
3:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. PST	Partner Supports Talks with... OlgaKay

We want to hear from you! Throughout the stream we’ll be taking live questions from viewers around the world via comments on youtube.com/partnersupport.

We’ll also be soliciting questions in advance for our talk show with OlgaKay. Have questions for Olga? Submit your questions and vote for the questions you like here: http://goo.gl/KWn4i

Can’t tune in? Don’t worry - as always, we'll also post the episode on youtube.com/partnersupport after the show.

John Langan and Devon Storbeck, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched "BUYRAL - Professional Clicking."

Mark Your Calendars: YouTube Stars Show You How to Build Your Audience

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

On Monday, October 29th, the YouTube Partner Support team will be hosting a Partner Meet-Up in New York. The event is at capacity so if you’re not able to join us in person you can tune in at youtube.com/partnersupport.

During the meet-up, we'll be live streaming the latest episode of ‘Partner Support Talks with...’ starring Charlie Todd of ImprovEverywhere. Additionally, we’ll be broadcasting a panel with other super popular YouTubers, and you’ll have a chance to hear from our product team. You can find a schedule for the stream below:

Time	Session
1:15 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. EDT	Partner Supports Talks with... ImprovEverywhere
2:00 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. EDT	“Cultivating Your Audience Online” with Laura Vitale, Creator of Laura Vitale’s Kitchen Molly Templeton, Director of Talent & Audience at My Damn Channel and Creator of MemeMolly Mark Douglas and Todd Womack, Stars of Barely Political
3:00 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. EDT	Presentations from YouTube Next Lab and YouTube Product Team

We want to hear from you! Throughout the stream we’ll be taking live questions from viewers around the world via comments on youtube.com/partnersupport.

We’ll also be soliciting questions in advance for our talk show with ImprovEverywhere. Want to know what inspires Charlie’s top videos? Want his advice on best practices? Submit your questions (and vote for others) here to be answered live: goo.gl/w4rZa

Can’t tune in? Don’t worry - we'll also post the episode on youtube.com/partnersupport after the show.

John Brandt & Sofia Sheth, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched "CONAN Exclusive: World's Shortest Freefall! - CONAN on TBS.”

Channels just got simpler to navigate

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Today we’re simplifying the browsing experience on channel pages by merging the Feed and Videos tabs into one “Browse videos” tab.

This new tab will house all Channel activity: uploads, playlists, likes, activity, and comments. Upon clicking the “Browse videos” tab, by default your viewers will be taken to Uploads, but they can easily view other activity using the menu. For example, everything you used to see on the Feed tab can be viewed by clicking on “Activity.”

Our testing showed that this change makes Channels easier to navigate. Read about the changes in more detail here, and let us know what you think.

Tim, Software Engineer on the Channels team, recently watched Starry Night - Vincent van Dominogh

Expanding custom thumbnails to more partners

Friday, August 24, 2012

Why not just give custom thumbnails to everyone?focus on watch time when suggesting videosCommunity Guidelinesabuse of this featureAndy Stack, YouTube Product Manager, recently watched “Written By A Kid: Scary Smash.”

Tags removed from video watch pages

Friday, August 17, 2012

upload interfacevideo managerShiva Rajaraman, Director of Product Management, recently watched “Y.N.RichKids - Hot Cheetos & Takis.”

Here’s your invite to reuse and remix the 4 million Creative Commons-licensed videos on YouTube

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Today’s guest post comes from Cathy Casserly, CEO of Creative Commons (CC), for an update on CC BY videos on YouTube.
videos on YouTubereimaginedlaunchCreative Commons Attribution licenseSan Francisco vacation videofootage of the moonsquirrel eating a walnutlicense it under CC BYYouTube Video Editorlicense your future videos under CC BYYouTube’s Creative Commons pageGuest to the YouTube blog, Cathy Casserly, CEO of Creative Commons

Get a birds-eye view of your channel with the Creator Dashboard

Thursday, June 28, 2012

YouTube Creator Dashboardyoutube.com/dashboard

db-feedback@youtube.comHelp CenterJung Kim, UX Designer. Recently Watched “Metallica - Orion Festival 2012.”

Improvements to Scheduled Publishing

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

scheduled publishingWhat’s new with standard publishingNotify subscribers at time published (i.e. first set public), not time uploadedNo more “0% published”What’s new with scheduled publishingVideo ManagerWe’re not donescheduled-publish-team@google.comVladimir Vuskovic, Product Manager, recently watched "Why do YouTube views freeze at 301?"

Cut to the chase with improved YouTube playlists

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

One of the best ways to build an audience for your channel is by creating playlists, a quick and easy way to make a collection of videos you can share with your friends or the world.

Many of you have told us that when making playlists, you sometimes want to include just a clip and not the whole video — like starting the video right at the dramatic moment or the crazy trick play. So, you can now choose start and end times for each video in your playlist using a trimmer in the same way you can with YouTube Editor. When you choose start/end times, your playlist viewers will only see your selected portion of the video, unless they choose to watch the video in its entirety.

We also updated the look of the playlist editing page to make editing easier and faster, with description, privacy and other settings on the right. Here’s what you’ll see:

These updates will be rolling out over the next day or so. For more information, visit our help guide.

Molly Nix, User Interface Designer, recently watched “Shot-for-shot remake of the lobby scene from The Matrix but except with toys.”

New Upload Page & Metadata Editor for Partners

Thursday, April 19, 2012

We want to make uploading and publishing as fast and easy as possible for you. So, we’ve got a round of updates that will be made available over the next few days that make key parts of the process more efficient: configuring monetization and choosing custom thumbnails on the upload page, and improved metadata editing.

Configure monetization settings: The new upload interface features a Monetization (or Claiming Options) tab where you can select monetization settings while you upload. Click the “?” icons to learn more about the different options available. Basically, more monetizing, less scrolling and clicking.

Custom thumbnail uploads: Lots of you have been asking for custom thumbnail uploads directly on the upload page. If you have this feature, you can now upload a custom thumbnail after the video reaches the processing stage. This means less waiting, clicking, and general hassle to get your custom thumbnail image ready to go before your video is published.

Metadata, meta-easy: The metadata editor you have in the upload process is also available in the Video Manager. To access and edit these settings after your upload is complete, go to the Video Manager and click the Edit icon next to the video.

This will direct you to the new metadata editor page. Here you can adjust settings you made to your video during the upload process, such as change monetization settings or publish a private video by changing it to public.

If you have any ideas about how we could improve the experience, drop us a line through the feedback link at the bottom of the page, and we’ll continue to roll out new features for this interface in the coming weeks.

Give it a try right now, or read our help guide and watch this overview video to learn more.

Johannes Leitner & Ben Bernard, Software Engineers, recently watched "Cool Sound and Water Experiment!"

Video Editing presents: Audio Editing

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Your video’s soundtrack can be just as important as its visuals. Let’s face it: as cute as your kitten’s antics are, as amazing as your Little Leaguer’s home run, as radical as your buddy’s skateboard stunts, the ambient sounds captured with many videos leave something to be desired.

We introduced AudioSwap to let you replace a video’s soundtrack for free with a song from our library of thousands of tracks. With more of you using AudioSwap and giving us lots of feedback, we have some cool improvements to share today in YouTube Audio Editing:

You asked for more tracks, and our library of songs now includes more than 150,000 tracks--and growing!

You can now mix music into your video’s soundtrack at levels ranging from “soft background” to “completely replace.”

Our “featured tracks” make it easy to find the best songs across genres for a variety of moods.

We’ve revamped the Audio Editing user interface to make it easier to use. Here’s a look:

These improvements will be available over the next day to all creators around the world. To try it out, go to Video Manager > Edit > Enhancements > Audio. Here’s a little video demonstration:

These are only the first in a series of exciting improvements we have planned for Audio Editing. Stay tuned for more updates (and tunes!), and in the meantime use some music to start turning your videos into YouTube gold!

Bob Glickstein, Software Engineer, recently watched “Skate 3 funny stuff compilation part 1” and laughed himself right out of his chair.

Celebrating YouTube Live’s first birthday

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

To celebrate the first birthday of YouTube Live, we went through the normal birthday thought process: rent a bouncy castle or bring in the magicians. Neither of these seemed just right to celebrate the millions of you who’ve seen live videos, so we went with our favorite gifts: new features from our tireless engineers.

If you have YouTube Live, here’s what you’ll see:

Wirecast for YouTube Live: This new software is free for YouTube partners and allows you to produce and stream professional-looking live events directly to YouTube from your desktop. It allows capture and switching between multiple video and audio sources, roll in of media files and images and add live effects and overlays. If you’re enabled for livestreaming, you’ll see a link to download Wirecast for YouTube in your YouTube account.

New publishing flows and real time analytics: You now have a guided flow to set up and preview live events before you go live. You can also see real time access to data like playbacks and concurrent viewers of your live streams by geography and format.

Monetize live streams: You can now monetize your live events with advertising or paid options. A live event can be claimed in the new video manager like any other video and monetized with instream ads or paid options where you can set price by country. You can see more details on this in our Help Center on ads and paid livestreaming sections.

If you’re one of the many people who’ve asked for YouTube Live but don’t have access yet, we want to thank you very much for your patience. We’ve developed these features with the expectation many more of you will eventually use YouTube Live, and like we said last year, this process takes time to roll out broadly.

Learn more about YouTube Live in the Help Center and check out youtube.com/live for everything happening right now.

Varun Talwar, YouTube partner product manager, is getting ready to watch “Americas Cup” live tomorrow!

Improving rights management at YouTube

Monday, April 2, 2012

Content IDremember: 1 hour of content is uploaded to the site every second Partner-provided video User-provided video Partner-provided video User-provided video Partner-provided video User-provided videowww.youtube.com/t/contentidLars Krüger, Product Manager, Recently watched “Improv Everywhere - Best Buy Uniform Prank.”

Improving video awesomeness with one click

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Whether you’re perfecting your double backflip at the park, capturing a flash mob on your phone, or enjoying singing in a subway, it’s not easy to get your video quality perfect. Sometimes videos suffer from symptoms like “shaky-camera-itis” or “augmented-darkness-levels” that keep viewers from seeing just how awesome your video really is. We made a big step last year with the YouTube Video Editor, and now we’re adding a feature that does the work of curing these symptoms for you.

If you upload a video that’s shaky or dark, we’ll automatically offer to fix it for you, creating an updated version of your video on YouTube.

When you upload a video that could use a fixup, you’ll see a notification bar on the Upload page and in your Video Manager. Click the button to fix it, and you’ll see a side by side preview to decide if you want to accept the edits.

Select “Okay” if you’d like us to update your video to the preview version (you can always undo this later). Even if you’re uploading a video from your mobile device, the Video Manager on the desktop will give you a notice if this video can be cured as well. Here’s an overview:This breakthrough in video awesomeness is possible thanks to our research team who expanded on the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button launched last year, automatically detecting if stabilization or color correction would be helpful for you. The result is a one-click option rolling out over the next few days that cures these two symptoms now, and more planned in the future. So you keep capturing those awesome moments, and we’ll keep on developing ways to help you make those videos even more awesome. John Gregg, software engineer, recently watched “Panda,” and then watched “Panda (stabilized).”

Analytics Engagement Report Available for Download

Friday, March 16, 2012

As we mentioned last week, we’re updating Related and Recommended videos to help provide viewers with a more engaging and enjoyable experience on YouTube.

To help you make the most of this change, we’ve created a new downloadable Watch Time report (currently for YouTube Partners only) that displays new metrics like Estimated Total Watch Time for particular videos and at a channel level. This data is available in YouTube Analytics, found by clicking the option in the banner displayed at the top of the Analytics Views report. Here’s what it looks like:
One helpful use of this report is to look at the videos receiving the most total Watch Time and least total Watch Time, in conjunction with your Analytics Audience Retention report to find your most engaging videos. Looking at these videos individually and collectively can help surface best practices, helping you find the right mix of elements like video style, length, promotion and more. To note, these reports can be the most helpful once you have at least one week’s worth of data, since video views and channel traffic can vary daily.

You can learn more in the Help Center and here are some best practices to get you started. We’ll be rolling out additional YouTube Analytics Watch Time metrics more broadly in the coming weeks.

Posted by Ted Hamilton, Recently watched SUPER PIOLA TICO

Monetize Lots of Videos - At Once!

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Do you want to monetize more of your videos at once? Starting today you can monetize multiple videos through a simple, single flow. Here’s how:

On the Video Manager, select videos you want to monetize by checking the box next to each video. You can currently select up to ten videos at the same time. In the Actions drop-down menu, select Monetize.

Next, you’ll opt-in the video for different advertising formats. Then, click “Monetize.”

Finally, you’ll see a confirmation that your videos were monetized:

This update will be available to all U.S.-based partners initially, but we’re rolling it out globally over the coming months. You can also find others ways that YouTube can help you discover your voice and improve your skills, build larger audiences, and monetize your content at the YouTube Creator Playbook 2.

Posted by Jason Toff, Product Manager, recently watched “Thumbs Up for Rock and Roll”

YouTube Release Notes: More ways to communicate

Monday, February 20, 2012

You keep adding and watching more videos, so we’re working to keep adding more ways for you to watch, share and enjoy the channels and videos on YouTube. This week in Release Notes we’ve got a new way to promote your Google+ profile on YouTube, more options in the Annotations Editor, posting to your Channel Feed and more.

Google+ profile on YouTube
Want to share your Google+ profile or Google+ Page on your YouTube channel? We’ve added a feature to let you promote your presence on G+. We’re looking for other ways to bring the benefits of Google+ to your YouTube channel, so as always please give us your feedback!

Post videos/playlists to your own feed
You can now share videos and playlists in your Channel Feed by posting a Channel Bulletin. When you’re on your Feed tab you’ll see a box “Post to Feed,” where you can enter a comment and add a link to share a video or a playlist. When you’ve posted the bulletin, it will show up in your Channel Feed with your comment below the video. Viewers who are subscribed to your channel will be notified when you post to your feed in their homepage feed.

Homepage and Channel Feeds
After experiments and lots of your feedback, we’re releasing an update to how events are displayed in the feed. The update focuses on three main changes: (1) the video title is more prominent for upload and sharing events, (2) aggregated events now feature a “+more” button which will bring more attention to the event than the previously smaller notification and (3) adding videos to a playlist has a new cleaner styling.
Before: After:
Annotations
Customizing your videos is easier with our new annotations features. We’ve been adding more options to the Annotations Editor like a new annotation type, a full color palette and a new timeline. We’ve also added annotation styles, which lets you choose a templated design to apply to your videos. You can quickly pick a design for your annotation and apply it your video. Start using these today in the Editor by clicking the arrow next to any upload in the Video Manager.

The YouTube Team recently watched, “KevJumba vs. NY Yankee Nick Swisher Ping Pong FaceOFF.”

Changing the Channels by March 7

Thursday, February 2, 2012

As we shared in December, we want you to have more options for how you organize and showcase your content on your YouTube Channel so you can continue to grow your audience. To that end, we launched a new design for Channels, which allows you to select one of four templates to better fit your needs as a creator, as well as customizations to keep your viewers engaged and coming back. In order to provide your viewers with a consistent experience across YouTube, we’d like you to migrate your current Channel to the new design by March 7. We will automatically convert all Channels on the site to the new design on March 7, so update yours before then to make sure it is set up to your liking.

If you haven’t already, you can opt in by clicking the blue “Try the new design” button on the top of your Channel page. You may also switch back to the old Channels design repeatedly before March 7 by clicking the “Switch Back” button in the appearance tab of the Edit Channel menu on your new Channel.

To help you get your Channel fully ready, we have resources within the Help Center.

Your feedback on the new design has been tremendously helpful as we continue to make refinements to improve both your and your viewers’ experiences.

We hope that you have a successful transition to this new design.

The YouTube Partnerships Team

YouTube Release Notes: Updates to Browse page, Video Editor and Video Manager

Thursday, January 26, 2012

This week we’re kicking off our recurring Release Notes post for 2012, highlighting some of the most recent updates to YouTube. Our scrappy engineers have been hard at work to make your experience even better, and here’s what’s new.New look for BrowseBrowseYouTube.com/browseVideo Editor with new featuresannouncedYouTube homepage updateYouTube.com/editorVideo Manager with oldies and new goodiesVideo ManagerupdateDavid Wang, product specialist, recently watched “Somebody That I Used to Know - Walk off the Earth (Gotye - Cover),” Alan deLespinasse, software engineer, recently watched “Extreme Sheep LED Art [HQ],” and Jung Kim, User Experience Designer, recently watched “[M/V] ITAEWON FREEDOM (with J.Y. Park).”

Check out the new Video Manager

Friday, December 9, 2011

Simplified top and left navigation bars to help you get to the tools you need more quickly

Icons to indicate privacy status, if monetization is enabled and scheduled publish status

Badges to indicate whether videos are HD, Creative Commons and/or captioned

A new look that’s consistent with our fresh coat of digital paint

video walkthroughHelp Centerour forumDan Auclair, Web Developer, recently watched “Halloween Light Show 2011 - Party Rock Anthem.”

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