YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGp8Z8Yb28

There’s little question we all would love to see an improvement in the quality and flow of YouTube video comments. That’s why the introduction of a “better commenting” system is beginning this week is cause for hope. Diving right in, we’ll take a look at what Google suggests as the three main takeaways with this comment system:

• Comments you care about move to the top: You’ll see posts opportunities the top of the list from the video’s creator, popular personalities, engaged discussions about the video, and people in your Google+ Circles. You can still see the most recent comments by switching from “Top Comments” to “Newest First.”
• Join the conversation publicly or privately: You can choose to start a conversation so that it is seen by everyone, only people in your Circles, or just your bestie. Like Gmail, replies are threaded so you can easily follow conversations.
• Easily moderate comments: If you also post videos on your channel, you’ll have new tools to review comments before they’re posted, block certain words or save time by auto-approving comments from certain fans.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAVgwA9Gx1A&list=PLbpi6ZahtOH57d6L_q8YzZ0QwZeP_J4Fe&index=1

Following last night’s first ever YouTube Music Awards, YouTube has posted some highlights from the event and below we have a full list of winners for each of the six major categories from the show.

Unfortunately the broadcast, hosted by Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts and featuring live music video-like performances from Eminem, Lady Gaga and others, didn’t manage to attract many viewers during its live stream last night. According to Time, YouTube’s award show was able to capture only around 250,000 simultaneous viewers. That’s compared to around 1.9 million for the live YouTube stream of the Coachella festival each year and 10.1 million viewers for MTV’s latest VMAs award show.

Reviews of how the show went seem to be mixed, but we’ll post the full video of the show as soon as its available here. Head below for the full list of winners and hit the playlist above for more videos of last night’s performances:
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Jason Schwartzman and Reggie Watts are hosting the new event which is meant to take on the big players in the music industry. Spike Jonze is directing and Lady Gaga, Eminem, Avicii and Arcade Fire will be making appearances.

Update: The show is over, see what you missed here.

YouTube is planning to launch a subscription-based video-focused music streaming service, according to Billboard. Like many other streaming music services, YouTube’s program will have both free and paid accounts. Unlike other services, however, YouTube plans to integrate video into their platform by allowing users to stream music videos along with regular audio tracks.

Paid subscribers will reportedly an ad-free listening experience, on-demand access to any song or video in the service’s catalog, and unlimited streaming. Offline listening is also being considered, allowing subscribers to download songs to their mobile devices for playback even without an Internet connection.

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While from the outside, the most recent YouTube update looked rather minor, Android Police has done some deep digging and discovered a couple of very interesting tidbits regarding future features coming to the app. First off, the APK file makes several hints at background audio support. This means that you will be able to start a video within the YouTube app and navigate to another app and not have your content disrupted. Currently, leaving the YouTube app makes your video automatically pause. Android Police notes that the feature should work when the device’s screen is off, as well.

Within the YouTube app now, the settings option for background audio is hidden, but Android Police managed to reveal the options for a very brief period of time. Regarding the upcoming offline feature, the APK teardown also revealed some of the dialogue messages users will be presented with, though they’re all pretty standard.

Background audio support will be huge for listening to music via YouTube, in addition to other things, such as podcasts and videos. It’s unclear when the feature will launch, but between this and offline video support, YouTube for Android is about to get a lot more useful.
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Following a report back in July showing that Google+ gets only 2 percent of social sharing, new figures from Shareaholic (via Marketing Land) reveal that the service drives an average of 0.06 percent of all referral traffic. This contrasts with Facebook at 8.11 percent, Pinterest at 3.24 and Twitter at a surprisingly low 1.17.

Google+ traffic is also growing at a far slower rate than other social media.

Shareaholic also says that Google+ is growing the slowest as a referral source at just 6.97 percent over the past year. Referrals from Facebook (58.81 percent), Pinterest (66.52 percent), Twitter (54.12 percent) and YouTube (52.86 percent) all grew more than 50 percent since September 2012.

Viewed against a backdrop of Google’s aggressive promotion of the service, making it virtually impossible not to have a G+ account by linking it to every product the company has, it does make me question whether Google+ has a long-term future … 
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We first brought you the story of a 30-year-old man finding his lost mother and family using Google Earth earlier this year, and Google has posted an emotional video on YouTube of Saroo Brierley telling his story of technology leading to his reunion.

Brierly was disconnected from his family at the age of five in a turn of tragedy, and decades later saw Google Earth as an avenue to search the streets he recollected in fragments for answers of his origin. Check out the compelling video below:
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Google has announced that Hulu has added Chromecast support to its Hulu Plus app, enabling online shows to be viewed on the big screen – something it promised back in July.

Now you can easily enjoy your favorite shows, such as “Modern Family,” “New Girl” and “Parks and Recreation,” on your big-screen TV by casting from Hulu Plus on your mobile phone or tablet. It’s the same intuitive, remote-free experience you’ve come to enjoy with the other Chromecast-supported apps, and is as simple as pressing the Cast button which will now appear in the app … 
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YouTube has announced a crowd-sourced music awards show streamed live from New York on 3rd November, with the winning acts chosen by YouTube viewers.

We get it. You love music. From propelling unknown artists to the top of the charts, to cheering on established artists as they reinvent the music video, to remixing and reimagining your own, music fans have turned YouTube into the world’s go-to music destination. Now, to celebrate music fans and the music you love, we’re announcing a new kind of awards show–one powered by you … 
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YouTube announced today on its YouTube Partners & Creators Blog that is launching a new Audio Library that will provide YouTubers with access royalty-free instrumental audio tracks to use in their  YouTube videos and elsewhere. The new Audio Library tool is available via a link in the YouTube video manager and currently provides access to over 150 tracks grouped by genre, instrument, and mood that can be downloaded as 320 Kbps MP3s.

Google also noted that it teamed up with a number of musicians to record the original tracks:

As you can see, this project was a whole lot of fun. We searched far and wide for musicians to create tracks for us and ended up finding co-conspirators in multiple places: an acquaintance down in LA, music houses across the country and a well-known music producer in Brooklyn. And it turns out the latter produced albums for Phish and Sean Lennon. So, we’re basically rock stars now (or we felt like them for awhile).

You can check out the new Audio Library for yourself here. Musicians that are interested in submitting music to be considered for the audio library can do so here. Unfortunately, in exchange for offering up your tunes royalty-free forever, Google does not seem to be crediting artists for their contributions in the Audio Library. 
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As we are all well aware of, YouTube comments are often some of the oddest things on the web, but as announced in a blog post today, Google is finally looking to improve the quality and relevance of comments. On the Official YouTube Blog, the company has announced that starting this week, all comments on channels with the discussion tab will be transitioned to Google+ discussions. All videos on YouTube will receive Google+ comments later this year.

This means that you will now see comments and discussions that are most relevant to you at the top of the page. For example, comments from people you know, follow, or engage with on Google+ will be shown first. This also somewhat enforces a “real name” policy on YouTube.

This also means that you will be able to create a discussion in the comments section of a video, but only with a limited circle of friends from Google+. These discussions and comments will only be visible to who you choose to share them with, not the public.

• Comments you care about move to the top: You’ll see posts at the top of the list from the video’s creator, popular personalities, engaged discussions about the video, and people in your Google+ Circles.
• Join the conversation publicly or privately: You can choose to start a conversation so that it is seen by everyone on YouTube and Google+, only people in your Circles or just your bestie. Like Gmail, replies are threaded so you can easily follow conversations.
• Better ways to moderate comments: You have new tools to review comments before they’re posted, block certain words or save time by auto-approving comments from certain fans. These can help you spend less time moderating, and more time sharing videos and connecting with your fans.

Google+ powered comments will rollout to channel discussion tabs this week and all videos later this year.

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Yesterday we reported that Google-owned YouTube was finally planning to offer a way to watch videos offline, but at the time, very few details of the service were available. AllThingsD has now, however, obtained a copy of an e-mail sent out by YouTube to its content “partners”.

Essentially, you will be able to save YouTube videos to your mobile device using the YouTube app for up to 48 hours. Should your device be offline for more than 48 hours, the videos will be unavailable until you reconnect to a network. The videos will still contain ads and you must use the app to watch them, not YouTube.com or any other platform.

YouTube also notes that this feature will not apply to the TV shows and movies it has available for rental. Also worth noting is that YouTube does not make any mention of music videos being supported. Given its tense relationship with most music labels, I’d be very surprised if music/lyric videos were made available to save offline.

If you are a video producer and do not want want your content being saved offline, you do have the ability to disable the functionality, though it will be enabled by default.

The offline functionality is set to launch in November. Read the full memo after the break. 
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The YouTube Creator blog reveals that offline video viewing will be launched in November, but doesn’t reveal any details.

We’re always exploring ways to bring more viewers to your content. As part of this effort, later this year we’ll launch a new feature on YouTube’s mobile apps that will help you reach fans — even when they’re not connected to the Internet. This upcoming feature will allow people to add videos to their device to watch for a short period when an Internet connection is unavailable. So your fans’ ability to enjoy your videos no longer has to be interrupted by something as commonplace as a morning commute … 
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Samsung’s JK Shin today announced the Galaxy Note 3 at IFA today with improved LTE radios, better enterprise capabilities and improved specs. The Note 3 has a 5.7″ 1080p screen (up from 5.5″), 3GB of RAM (up from 2), 13 megapixel camera, 32/64GB storage, 3200mAh battery and a leather-like rear cover. It is also thinner and lighter even with the bigger display.

Samsung also updated the Note 10.1 2014 edition with better speakers, leather cover and display.

September 25th is the launch date and the products will roll out globally in October. Press releases and videos follow:
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AllThingsD reports that Google may be in discussions with NFL to buy the rights to the Sunday Ticket package when DirectTV’s contract runs out at the end of the 2014 season.

Today, according to sources, Google CEO Larry Page, along with YouTube content boss Robert Kyncl, met with a delegation from the NFL led by commissioner Roger Goodell. And the Sunday Ticket package was among the topics of discussion, according to people familiar with the meeting … 
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