YouTube Engineering and Developers Blog: August 2014

Engineering and Developers Blog

What's happening with engineering and developers at YouTube

Find videos uploaded from any location with the YouTube Data API v3

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

When news breaks, it's critical to have immediate, unfiltered access to information about the unfolding developments. During events like the Ukrainian protests and the Arab Spring, people are uploading firsthand, breaking news stories to YouTube. The YouTube Data API (v3) makes it easier to find those videos by supporting the ability to search for videos within a given radius of specified latitude/longitude coordinates. By using this feature in conjunction with the specific Freebase topic filter and upload date with time, you can discover up-to-the-minute breaking news material from people witnessing important world events.
To see an example, check out this web app that uses the new YouTube location search feature and Google Maps APIs. The app is used by news agencies to find legitimate footage and allows them to filter videos based on location, keywords, and upload time.

To search for geotagged videos, set the latitude and longitude to specify the center of a circular geographic area to be searched and the location radius to define the size of the circle. The radius can be in meters, kilometers or miles with a max size of 1000 KM.
Don’t have the latitude and longitude? Not a problem. The Google Maps API can geo-code search terms (e.g., “Boston”) and return the appropriate geographic coordinates. The Google Maps API also lets you create interactive maps to plot the results of the search. For your convenience, we’re publishing the code as open source for all to use. Vladimir Vuskovic, Stephen Nicholls and the YouTube for Developers team.