YouTube opens up live streaming to all nonprofits

Jordan Kahn

YouTube often provides live streaming of special events from concerts and its own product unveilings to media events and the recent Google+ hangout with President Obama. Today, over on the Official YouTube blog, we learned live streaming is now opened to everyone in the YouTube Nonprofit Program. In the blog post, YouTube noted it live streamed a play from the American Foundation on Equal Rights last Saturday, as well as various events on World AIDS Day. Now all members of the YouTube Nonprofit Program open to those in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada can enable live streaming by following these instructions. You can learn more about applying for the program here.
Read more

Controversial War on Drugs hangout with Mexican narco baron Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman Loera airing on YouTube on March 13

9to5 Staff

I am a huge fan of National Geographic’s documentaries on the narcotics industry, especially shows like “Drugs, Inc.“ and “Banged Up Abroad.” To be perfectly clear, I am enjoying them for educational purposes only. Now, touching on this age-defining question, Versus from Intelligence2 teamed with Google to bring a debate on the drugs industry to its users.

It is chaired by BBC newsreader and presenter Emily Maitlis and will also feature WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, British tycoon Richard Branson, English entertainer Russell Brand, the former presidents from Mexico and Brazil, and others.

It is the first in a series of global debates in co-operation with Versus that will occur through Google+ Hangouts and stream on YouTube. A post over at the official Google blog said the first motion up for debate is: “It’s time to end the War on Drugs.” You can join the hangout on Google+ here.

 

Read more

YouTube enhances captions with new features, languages, formatting choices

9to5 Staff

YouTube is bringing new capabilities to its popular captioning feature, according to today’s blog post by the search engine giant. The company added Japanese, Korean, and English language to auto-captioning and transcript synchronization features. Captions and subtitles are now supported in 155 different languages. Movies and Shows information finally show available subtitle languages, and users can now search for memorable quotes in closed captions.

This is accomplished by adding “, cc” to any search or clicking Filter > CC after searching to only see results with closed captions. The CC icon in the bottom-right of the video player now lets you change the font size or colors for captions. YouTube now supports broadcast captions for precise positioning and styling (check out this demo) in various industry formats, such as .SCC, .CAP, EBU-STL and closed captions created for TV or DVDs or those in MPEG-2 files with CEA-608 encoding…

Read more

Users can now promote Google+ profiles on their YouTube Channel

Jake Smith

The YouTube team announced a few updates to YouTube Channels on its YouTube Blog today. The major addition to Channels include the ability to promote your Google+ profile (as seen to the right). Viewers can now click on Google+ Profiles from YouTube, signifying Google is continuing its push to integrate Google+ across services.

The second addition is that users can posts videos onto their Channel’s Feed by posting a Channel Bulletin. This can be done from the “Post to Feed” box under the feed tab on your own channel. You can also a comment under the video. Lastly, the YouTube team implemented new annotations to add on your own videos, as seen below.

 

Read more

Google and the Super Bowl: Mobile browsing, YouTube uploads skyrocket

E. Betters



Americans were busy consuming record amounts of chicken wings and dip during yesterday’s big game, but they were also mobile web browsing more than ever before.

According to an official Google blog post, United States viewers used their tablets and smartphones to Google the Giants and Patriots, halftime acts and the best Super Bowl advertisements.

“In fact, around 41 percent of searches related to [Super Bowl ads] that were made during the game came from mobile devices, up from 25 percent for the same time the day prior,” wrote software engineer Jeffrey Oldham.

The Super Bowl XLVI streamed live for the first time this year, and a soaring spike in related searches came with the flagship circumstance. Predominate searches initially came from desktop devices, but mobile devices leaped forward as the four-hour game launched into full swing.

Read below for more details on Google and the Super Bowl.

Read more

YouTube and NBC Sports launch Ad Blitz Super Bowl XLVI channel

Jordan Kahn

In case you miss any of the upcoming Super Bowl commercials, the new YouTube Ad Blitz channel launched by NBC Sports will bring you the ads right after the have aired and allow you to vote on your favorites. Available through the YouTube channel and NBCSports.com, the website is currently populated with pre-game content including party recipes, tailgating tales, playoff coverage, and big game predictions.

As the premier online gallery of Super Bowl commercials, YouTube Ad Blitz puts all the commercials in your hands, letting you view and vote on the top ads of the Super Bowl, whether you’re on a computer, mobile phone or tablet. This year, NBC Sports is the official partner for YouTube Ad Blitz, adding online promotion to its Super Bowl coverage.

Voting will continue until Feb. 13 at midnight and NBC Sports and YouTube will be having a live Google+ Hangout following the game with “an NBC celebrity.” You can also check out all of the 2011 Super Bowl Commercials on the Ad Blitz channel here.
Read more