Author Archives: John G. Doe

Google Home includes 6 months of YouTube Red, gives music lovers the best in-home music experience from YouTube

YouTube is where music lovers dig deep for music videos, live performances, and new songs that move them. YouTube Red makes music on YouTube even better, letting you play songs ad free, in the background, offline, and more.

Now with YouTube Red and Google Home, you can fill your home with more songs, more versions, and more dance parties. Google Home, a voice-activated speaker powered by the Google Assistant, is available for pre-order today. And it comes with a free 6-month YouTube Red membership, making it the best way to listen to music from YouTube at home.

Access a nearly endless catalog of music from YouTube just by using your voice. All you have to do is speak the name of a song, artist, or genre you want to hear and Google Home will play it. Want to get the party started? Just say “Ok Google, play a song by The Weeknd.” On top of that, playing any song starts a never-ending mix that taps into exactly what you’re in the mood for. Need something to listen to while you’re cooking dinner? Just say "Ok Google, play some chill music.”

In addition to being able to access all of YouTube’s music on Google Home, with YouTube Red you’ll be able to enjoy ad-free videos and more, almost anywhere you’re signed in to YouTube. You’ll also get access to all-new original movies and series from top creators made specifically for YouTube Red members.

Pre-order your Google Home with 6 free months of YouTube Red today. This offer’s only available for a limited time (for new members only), and we’d hate for you to miss out.

Sarah Ali, YouTube Living Room Group Product Lead, recently watched "Alicia Keys - In Common."
Matthew Leske, YouTube Red Group Product Lead, recently watched "Kygo - Firestone ft. Conrad Sewell."

Source: YouTube Blog


With nearly 2 million concurrent viewers and over 3 million live watch hours, first presidential debate breaks political record

Last night's debate marked the largest political live stream of all time and was one of the biggest live streams in YouTube history. This record-breaking political stream garnered nearly 2 million live concurrent viewers and 3 million live watch hours across the six news organizations that streamed the debate on YouTube.

To put these numbers into context, we took a look at 2012 debate viewership on YouTube. Compared to 2012, last night's debate had 14x larger live viewership, 5x higher watch time, and 4x more peak concurrent viewers. And views on all debate-related videos exceeded 88 million.

Of course YouTube is a global community and people in the U.S. weren’t the only ones watching. Here are the top five countries, in descending order, outside of the U.S. that tuned in live:

  1. Canada
  2. Mexico
  3. Argentina
  4. Australia
  5. New Zealand

And remember, today is Voter Registration Day and YouTube creators along with The Rock, Conan, Bill Maher, and The Chainsmokers want you to head to the polls and #voteIRL.

Up next we’ll see you live from the vice presidential debate on Tuesday, October 4.

Kurt Wilms, Product Lead, Live Streaming at YouTube, recently watched "Fastest Skateboarder Ever!"

Source: YouTube Blog


YouTube Go: YouTube reimagined for the next generation of YouTube viewers

Earlier this year, I had the chance to travel to India to see how people there were enjoying YouTube up close. While in Nagpur, I met a young man who loved using YouTube to watch WWE wrestling and wanted to show us his favorite video. But after he found it and tapped to play, the video just wouldn’t load. Maybe it was his phone or his 2G connection, but it just wouldn’t work.

Unfortunately, this story isn’t an exception for our Indian viewers. They love YouTube and its amazing selection of Bollywood hits, comedy vlogs, cricket matches and—yes—even wrestling. But even as they discover the joys of YouTube, their experience is not great on slower connections and less powerful mobile phones.

We’ve always believed that connectivity should not be a barrier to watching YouTube. In 2014 we launched YouTube Offline so you could watch videos without suffering from buffering. A few months ago we rolled out Smart Offline, a feature that allows you to schedule videos to be saved offline later at off-peak times, when there’s more bandwidth so data is faster and cheaper. But we realized that for the next generation of YouTube users to fully discover all that YouTube has to offer, we had to reimagine the YouTube mobile app from the ground up.

That’s why I and a team of engineers, designers, and researchers have been travelling to India, collecting ideas and testing prototypes with hundreds of people across 15 cities. They’ve helped us build a brand new YouTube app that’s faster, more relevant, and more affordable, with innovative new features.

Meet YouTube Go: a new YouTube app built from scratch to bring YouTube to the next generation of viewers. YouTube Go is designed with four concepts in mind. It’s relatable, with video recommendations and a user interface that is made for you. The app is designed to be offline first and work even when there’s low or no connectivity. It’s also cost-effective, providing transparency and reducing data usage. And finally, it’s a social experience, connecting you with the people and content you care about.


The new preview function shows you what to expect before choosing to save or play the video, and in which resolution. You can also share videos to friends nearby, without using up any data.

Here are some of YouTube Go’s most notable features:
  • Find and discover relatable videos right on the home screen: YouTube Go homescreen features trending and popular videos in your area, so that you’ll find and fall in love with new videos that you and your community care about.
  • Preview videos before you save or watch: Not sure if you want to watch the video? On YouTube Go when you tap on a thumbnail, it’ll trigger a quick preview of the video, giving you a better sense of what the video is about before you decide to save or play it.
  • Choose your resolution when saving or streaming videos: Whether you’d like to save a video for offline viewing later, or stream it now, you can see and choose the amount of data you’d like to spend on that video.
  • Share videos with friends nearby: Share videos with friends and family nearby without using any data. You can send and receive videos instantly and offline with others using the YouTube Go app.
We’ll gradually roll out YouTube Go to more and more people over the next few months, getting their feedback and improving the product before launching it widely early next year. If you'd like to be among the first to find out when the app is ready, you can sign up at youtubego.com/signup.

We’re thrilled to bring YouTube Go to India … ab Mazze udao, data nahin!

Johanna Wright, Vice President of Product Management, YouTube, recently watched ”How To Be a Ninja - EPIC HOW TO.”

Source: YouTube Blog


Watch tonight’s presidential debate live stream on YouTube — and don’t forget to #voteIRL

With 42 days remaining, voters across the U.S. are gearing up for this year’s presidential election -- and tonight they’ll be able to watch the first presidential debate live on YouTube!

We announced last week that more news organizations than ever before are live streaming this major political event on YouTube. Have your choice and tune-in to your favorite news channel starting at 9:00 p.m. ET tonight. Here is where you can watch live on YouTube:


Can’t decide on one stream? Check out youtube.com/news to follow all of the live coverage.

You can also join The Young Turks and Complex News on the ground reporting from the debate using YouTube Live directly from their phones.

And don’t forget, tomorrow is National Voter Registration day and YouTube creators want you to head to the polls and #voteIRL. Tune in to this playlist to see how you can register to vote in the amount of time it takes Ryan Seacrest to host a radio show or The Fung Bros to shoot hoops. Surprising fact: it only takes one minute and 34 seconds!

Brandon Feldman, YouTube News and Politics, recently watched "How to Vote in Every State."

Source: YouTube Blog


Growing our Trusted Flagger program into YouTube Heroes

YouTube has always allowed people to report content they believe violates our Community Guidelines and we often hear questions about what happens to a video after you’ve flagged it. When a flag is received, the reported content is always reviewed by YouTube before being removed. We have internal teams from around the world who carefully evaluate reports 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, and these teams remove content that violates our policies or are careful to leave content up if it hasn’t crossed the line.

Back in 2012, we noticed that certain people were particularly active in reporting Community Guidelines violations with an extraordinarily high rate of accuracy. From this insight, the Trusted Flagger program was born to provide more robust tools for people or organizations who are particularly interested in and effective at notifying us of content that violates our Community Guidelines.

As part of this program, Trusted Flaggers receive access to a tool that allows for reporting multiple videos at the same time. Once content is flagged, our trained teams review them to determine whether to remove the flagged videos or not. Our Trusted Flaggers’ results around flagging content that violates our Community Guidelines speak for themselves: their reports are accurate over 90% of the time. This is three times more accurate than the average flagger.

Given the success of the Trusted Flagger program, we want to do more to empower the people who contribute to YouTube in other ways. That’s why we’re introducing YouTube Heroes, a program designed to recognize and support the global community of people who consistently help make YouTube a better experience for everyone. These “Heroes” do this in big and small ways by adding captions & subtitles to videos, reporting videos that violate our community guidelines, or sharing their knowledge with others in our help forums.

The program is now available to a select group of contributors from across the globe who have histories of high quality community contributions. People who are interested in joining the program can express interest here and we will gradually admit other top contributors into the program. 

YouTube Heroes will have access to a dedicated YouTube Heroes community site that is separate from the main YouTube site, where participants can learn from one another. Through the program, participants will be able to earn points and unlock rewards to help them reach the next level. For example, Level 2 Heroes get access to training through exclusive workshops and Hero hangouts, while Level 3 Heroes who have demonstrated their proficiency will be able to flag multiple videos at a time (something Trusted Flaggers can already do) and help moderate content strictly within the YouTube Heroes Community site.

A sneak peek at the new YouTube Heroes Community site

YouTube Heroes will also be able to track their own contributions and see their overall impact. They can easily find out when a video they reported has been removed by YouTube for violation of our policies, a subtitle they contributed has been approved by the creator, or a help forum answer they’ve posted has been marked as best answer.
A look at how YouTube Heroes can track their contributions

To kick the program off, we brought our first class of YouTube Heroes together for the first time this week at a two-day summit at YouTube HQ.
Meet our first class of YouTube Heroes!

It’s early days for the program and we will continue to roll out the details of YouTube Heroes and the dedicated YouTube Heroes Community site over the coming months. We’re excited to learn through this initial launch and to continue improving the program over time, as we’ve done with our Trusted Flagger program. We appreciate everything our community does to make YouTube vibrant and diverse, so on behalf of the team: thank you!


Jen Carter, Product Manager, YouTube Heroes, recently watched “#voteIRL - Use Your Voice. Vote in Real Life.”

Source: YouTube Blog


Celebrate Minecon on YouTube

I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons like "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and "Transformers." Now when I spend time with my nephew and niece, we watch Minecraft videos, the new version of Saturday morning cartoons. Minecraft can be both educational and entertaining to people of all ages — players create their own worlds whenever and wherever they want. Minecraft is a huge phenomenon on YouTube with rich content, an engaged community and 130M+ videos.

Minecon, an annual event dedicated to all things Minecraft, is happening on September 24 and 25 in Anaheim, Calif. For Minecrafters who can't attend, we are bringing Minecon to you by launching a Minecon 2016 event page on YouTube Gaming. You’ll be able to keep up with videos from your favorite creators and the latest Minecon announcements as they are happening.

Minecraft gamers have been incorporating 360-degree video and VR into their content, and one of my favorite examples of this is the “Wonder Quest” series, which just released a new episode called "Spot the Differences.” Fans can expect more VR in upcoming episodes with a rollercoaster ride through highlights from season two, a 360-degree look into Stampy’s dreams, a scary Halloween-themed tale and much more.



We are also excited to announce support for 360-degree live streaming of Minecraft videos, which will come from the developer CrushedPixel. CrushedPixel first blew our minds with his Replay Mod, which allows you to record Minecraft videos in 360 degrees. His new upcoming mod will take it a step further with the capability to live stream Minecraft videos in 360 degrees! CrushedPixel will be joining YouTube creator and star StacyPlays on stage at Minecon for a special 360 panel to discuss both her Bookcraft series as well as his work with the 360 mods.

Together, we've built a new virtual world and a strong and open community on YouTube. We're excited to celebrate Minecon with you this year.

Posted by Ryan Wyatt, Global Head of Gaming Content, recently watched "Wonder Quest 360 Video - Spot the Difference" with my nephew.

Source: YouTube Blog


Introducing YouTube Creators for Change

Video affects us like no other medium. It can heighten our passions, stoke our fears, awaken us to new experiences and make our hearts ache. It can educate, build understanding and even change the way we see our world. In fact, over half of our millennial subscribers have said a YouTube creator has changed their life.

At a time when the internet is criticized for fueling division and distrust, we want to help demonstrate the incredible power YouTube has to generate a positive social impact. That’s why today, we’re introducing a new global program called YouTube Creators for Change, as well as new resources and grants dedicated to social change work.

YouTube Creators for Change is a new initiative dedicated to amplifying the voices of role models who are tackling difficult social issues with their channels. From combating hate speech, to countering xenophobia and extremism, to simply making the case for greater tolerance and empathy toward others, these creators are helping generate positive social change with their global fan bases.

Our first six Creators for Change ambassadors are Natalie Tran (Australia), Abdel en Vrai (Belgium), Nilam Farooq (Germany), Omar Hussein (Saudi Arabia), Barış Özcan (Turkey), and Humza Arshad (United Kingdom).



We'll be introducing other ambassadors soon, and we will be sharing their stories — starting with Humza Arshad whose "Diary of a Badman" series is helping redefine what it means to be a young Muslim today in the U.K. Since video is such a powerful form of expression, watch and learn more about how Humza is using comedy to create change:



Over the next year, program ambassadors will drive greater awareness of social issues and foster productive dialogue around these topics through the videos they create. They’ll also help identify and empower emerging creators who also want to speak out on these crucial topics. To support and amplify these brave voices, we are committing $1M in equipment and production grants as part of the Creators for Change program. We’ll also welcome these creators at new programs at YouTube Spaces throughout the year, so stay tuned for more details soon.

Our efforts don’t stop here — we’ll also continue working with NGOs, schools, and media companies around the world to launch more local programs as part of Creators for Change. We recently introduced a program in France that brought together more than 700 participants who created 140 videos under the theme of fraternité. In Germany, YouTube creators joined forces under #NichtEgal, a movement dedicated to unite Germans in countering online hate.

We’re also pleased to announce that Google.org, our philanthropic arm, is establishing a $2M charitable fund to support nonprofits working on innovative solutions that promote inclusion and cross-cultural understanding.

We hope these new programs and resources will continue making YouTube a place where anyone can have a voice and where anyone can use the power of video to help generate positive social change.

Juniper Downs, Head of YouTube Public Policy, recently watched "Web Rangers - ORT Sajur 2016."

Source: YouTube Blog


Change is Made with Code

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog

What would the world look like if only 20 percent of women knew how to write? How many fewer great books would there be? How many important stories would go unreported? How many innovations would we lose? How many brilliant women would be unable to fulfill their potential?

That’s not just a theoretical question. Today, only a small minority of women know how to write code. That limits their ability to participate in a growing part of our global economy. It limits their ability to affect change as entire industries are transformed by technology. And it limits their potential to impact millions of lives through the power of code.

To change this trajectory, we need to do all we can to inspire women and girls that learning to code is critical to creating a brighter future for everyone. That’s why I’m excited to share that, today, Google’s Made with Code, together with YouTube, is teaming up with the Global Citizen Festival and millions of teen girls to ignite a movement for young women to change the world through the power of code.

Over the last five years, millions of Global Citizens have influenced world leaders and decision makers, and contributed to shaping our world for the better. As we’ve seen this movement grow, we’ve learned about some incredible women who saw problems in their communities and realized that the biggest impact they could have was through computer science. They’ve used an interest in computer science and tech to help the homeless, stop sexual assault, and bridge the gender gap in technology - check out their stories here:

 

These women are doing big things, blazing a path for the next generation of girls, but they can’t do it alone. The vast potential around using code to improve the world cannot be realized if there are only a few voices influencing how it’s shaped. That’s why, today, we’re inviting teen girls everywhere to join the movement. Our new coding project gives young women a chance to make their voice heard by coding a statement about the change they want to see in the world.

This week, hundreds of thousands of girls from around the country have already used code to share their vision for a better, more inclusive, more equitable world:


These coded designs will be displayed onstage at the Global Citizen Festival, as symbols of the many different voices from teen girls, standing up for the change they want to see in the world.

Together with musicians, sisters, YouTube sensations and newly minted coders, Chloe x Halle, teen girls are getting their start in code

Our efforts go well beyond this project. Made with Code is joining forces with Iridescent and UN Women to support the launch of the Technovation Challenge 2017 which gives girls the opportunity to build their own apps that tackle the real-life issues they see around them.

Please tune into the Global Citizen Festival livestream at youtube.com/globalcitizen on September 24 to catch all the action. And, more importantly, join us and encourage the young women in your life to try out coding and contribute their ideas for how to make a better future.

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, CEO, YouTube

Source: YouTube Blog


#voteIRL: Announcing YouTube’s get out the vote initiative and presidential debate live streams

At YouTube, we believe in giving everyone a voice. So this U.S. elections season, we’re committed to making sure that people--especially young people--use their voice by voting.

With November just around the corner, election-related content is exploding. Over 200,000 election videos have been uploaded to YouTube every day since the July Conventions and you’ve watched more than 110 million hours of candidate and issues-related content on YouTube.

But while people are clearly engaged with the election online, we want to make sure they get involved “in real life,” too. Today, we’re announcing YouTube’s get out the vote campaign, #voteIRL, where together with the YouTube creator community, we’re helping get young people to the polls. Check out our new #voteIRL anthem video featuring some of YouTube’s top talent, including Bethany Mota, Hannah Hart, Kingsley, Hank Green and more.



Did you know it only takes 1:34 to register to vote?1 With voter registration deadlines looming in October, it’s fast and easy to register to vote using registration tools built by Google. Starting today, look out for familiar faces making 1:34 videos where they do anything from hosting their radio show (hey Ryan Seacrest) to doing their eyebrows, while encouraging their fans to go register. We teamed up with AwesomenessTV, Fullscreen, Machinima, and Maker Studios, so watch for more 1:34 videos every day until National Voter Registration Day.

In addition to the link above, you can also find voter registration tools directly on YouTube. Watch out for registration reminders on the homepage, watch page, and search results page on September 27, Voter Registration Day.



Voting also requires you to get educated with the latest and greatest from the candidates. That’s why we’re also excited to announce that we’re live streaming the presidential debates from more news organizations than ever before including PBS, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and Telemundo. You can also follow your favorite YouTube creators, including The Young Turks and Complex News, who will be on the ground reporting from the debates using YouTube Live directly from their phones.

Stay tuned to youtube.com/youtube and our social media channels as we release new videos, report from the presidential debates, and bring you closer to the election (and the polls) this November. And make sure you’re registered to vote!

Claire Stapleton, YouTube Elections team, recently watched "Maymo the Dog Runs for President: Maymo 2016."

1 We got a group at YouTube together and registered in every state and the average was just 1:34.

Source: YouTube Blog


Why Flagging Matters

YouTube allows people anywhere to share their stories with the world. They share their sense of humor, their talents, their opinions, what’s happening around them and within them. YouTube is also a community, and over the years, people have used the flagging feature located beneath every video and comment to help report content they believe violates our Community Guidelines.

We want to empower you, the YouTube community, to better understand how flagging works and how you can get involved in maintaining our community guidelines. To shed some light on how your flagging activity has helped keep YouTube a platform where openness and creative expression is balanced with responsibility, here are some of the latest data:
  • Over 90 million people have flagged videos on YouTube since 2006 - that’s more than the population of Egypt - and over a third of these people have flagged more than one video.
  • As YouTube grows, the community continues to be very active in flagging content: the number of flags per day is up over 25 percent year-on-year.
  • Community flagging on YouTube is international: People from 196 countries have flagged a video. The five countries with the most accurate flagging rates are: Indonesia, Turkey, Germany, Ukraine and France.
  • We’re also continuing to strengthen our policy enforcement processes: In 2015 alone, we removed 92 million videos for violation of our policies through a mix of user flagging and our spam-detection technology. While we are vigilant and fast in removing terrorist content and hate speech, it's worth noting that it actually represents a very small proportion of the content that violates our guidelines - those two violations account for only 1 percent of the videos removed in 2015.
When flagging, you can report which policy you think a video violates, from spam and sexual content to harassment and violent content. This helps us route and review flagged content more efficiently and effectively:



We have trained teams, fluent in multiple languages, who carefully evaluate your flags 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year in time zones around the world. They remove content that violates our terms, age-restrict content that may not be appropriate for all audiences, and are careful to leave content up if it hasn’t crossed the line. As YouTube grows, we continue to scale our policy enforcement resources to meet your needs as a community.

Flagged content, however, doesn’t automatically get removed. YouTube is an important global platform for information and news, and our teams evaluate videos before taking action in order to protect content that has an educational, documentary, scientific or artistic purpose.

We also take into account local laws in the countries where we operate and if we receive a valid legal notice that content violates a local law, we will restrict that content in the local country domain. You can find information about government removal requests in Google’s Transparency Report. Similarly, if we remove content for policy reasons after receiving a valid legal request, we will include that in our transparency reporting.

We want to encourage you to continue flagging and we hope this additional transparency will help you continue reporting responsibly. For more information about how these processes work, visit our Policy and Safety Hub.

Posted by Juniper Downs, Head of YouTube Public Policy, who recently watched “Leon Bridges' NPR Tiny Desk Concert.”

Source: YouTube Blog