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YouTube is Google's massive video streaming platform, accepting videos from creators large and small

YouTube is a major video platform owned by Google — and it has grown to be one of the most famous social media destinations on the web.

150 Princeton students offered choice of Google Apps or Office 365, 2 of them chose Office 365

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Princeton University’s Office of Information Technology recently polled 150 students who tested Google Apps’ Gmail and Microsoft Office 365 and results showed only two preferred the latter.

According to The Daily Princetonian, the undergraduate student government is collaborating with OIT to move the student body from its current email server Webmail to either Google Apps or Microsoft Office 365.

Google Apps is a cloud-based productivity suite that features several Web application user-interfaces similar to traditional office suites—like Microsoft Office 365. The services vary per edition but generally include Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Sites, Groups, Video, and Marketplace. Its popularity among students and educational institutions is rapidly increasing due to enhanced sharing features, accessibility, and cost.

Google Apps for Education is just one edition that offers 25 GB of storage space per user for free through K-12 schools, colleges, and universities with up to 30,000 users. Forty-million active users currently use Google Apps, and according to US News & World Report, 61 of the Top 100 schools have switched to the educational service.

USG IT Committee Chair Josh Chen said the University’s polled students prefer Gmail due to its “many benefits and no drawbacks.” Meanwhile, U-Councilor Lily Alberts said the poll’s results likely attribute to the student’s prior familiarity with Gmail during pilot testing. The group of 150 students piloted the two options, and those students came from a pool that replied to an earlier campus-wide email.


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Report: Apple plans to reduce Google’s iOS presence by adding Baidu to mobile search options next month

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Reports surfaced in China that claim Apple plans to integrate Baidu into iOS next month as the country’s possible default search function—suggesting iOS aims to become less dependent on Google’s services.

According to Chinese news website Sina Tech (machine-translation):

Sina Technology News on March 26 morning news, according to informed sources, Apple iOS operating system next month will be formally introduced Baidu search, Baidu and Apple between cooperation component in the China region.

Google’s Susan Creighton revealed last fall that two-thirds of the Mountain View, Calif.-based Company’s mobile search comes from Apple iOS devices.

Meanwhile, recent speculation claims Apple is moving to an in-house Mapping solution that would replace Google Maps. The firm also recently removed its publish to YouTube option in QuickTime for Mountain lion. If these latest rumors deem true, Apple’s move to Baidu would further indicate a significant effort to reduce Google’s presence in iOS.


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Google I/O registration opens 7 a.m. PDT March 27, last year it took less than an hour to sell out

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Google opens its registration for its annual I/O conference on March 27. Remember, tickets sold out last year in under an hour so set your alarms!

The conference also moved from May to June this year where Google will debut many new technologies, including some Glasses hopefully. While we do not have official word on the Glasses “Project WingFront,” we were told by a Google employee that this year’s I/O was going to be “totally insane.” Perhaps so insane that Google moved from a two-day format to three days this year.

 

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Google also updated its I/O website with some fun and games.
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YouTube opens up live streaming to all nonprofits

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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.

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Microsoft bypasses YouTube, goes to Vimeo for Internet Explorer 9 advert

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http://vimeo.com/37918278

Software giant Microsoft took to video sharing service Vimeo to disseminate its new commercial promoting the Internet Explorer 9 browser. Tentatively named “A More Beautiful Web,” it features a soundtrack by Alex Clare and fast-paced (albeit a tad amateur-looking) MTV style editing. Both treats are not usually associated with neither the Microsoft brand nor the company’s dull television advertising.

While watchable, it does not hold a candle to Google’s memorable Chrome advertising. The 60-second video highlights the browser’s headlining features, such as hardware-assisted canvas rendering, high-definition video playback, rich web apps like Chillingo’s “Cut the Rope” game, and more.

Two important observations here:

1. The commercial was a Vimeo exclusive at post time— despite Microsoft’s official presence on YouTube, including the Internet Explorer team’s channel. It is interesting that Microsoft chose to tap a rival video sharing service and not leverage the world’s most popular destination for online video to get the word out. An anti-Google move, cynics might say.

2. Per data from StatCounter (see the chart below), the Windows maker’s possible motivation to bypass YouTube likely includes Internet Explorer’s continuous downward spiral. It has been a trend, not a temporary hiccup. Last summer, Google’s Chrome claimed one-fifth of the worldwide market for browsers and is now No. 2 in some key markets that traditionally favor Microsoft’s product.

Microsoft appeared late to the party and has lost momentum in browser innovation that now almost exclusively belongs to Google and —in small part— to Apple and its Safari browser. If it were not for big businesses’ reluctance to upgrade to a more modern browser, Internet Explorer would already be severely beaten in browser wars.

The writing has been on the wall for quite some time, indeed.


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

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui1SzY6OZDk]

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 Intelligenceteamed 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.

 


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YouTube enhances captions with new features, languages, formatting choices

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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…


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comScore: Google grabs nearly half of the 40 billion online views in January

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A new comScore research study revealed that United States viewership in January 2012 suffered a slight decline from December 2012, also proving Google was right to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into getting premium partners for content on YouTube. Last month, 181 million online users in the U.S. consumed nearly 40 billion online videos, which is a drop from 43.5 billion clips watched by 182 million users in December 2011. On average, we watched 22.6 hours of online clips with a 6.1-minute duration for each clip.

The search and Internet giant continues to lead the online video market with 152 million unique viewers. Google-operated websites cumulatively account for a whopping 18.6 billion views. Rival Hulu and VEVO delivered 877 and 717 million views, respectively.. In addition to Google websites, VEVO (51.5 million), Yahoo websites (49.2 million), Viacom Digital (48.1 million) and Facebook (45.1 million) round-up the top five online video destinations in the country.

Be advised that comScore defines a video as any streamed segment of audiovisual content for both progressive downloads and live streams. For long-form, segmented content, such as television episodes with ad pods in the middle, each segment of the content is counted as a distinct video stream…


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Users can now promote Google+ profiles on their YouTube Channel

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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.

 


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Google’s ‘big’ Google TV announcement is a new YouTube app

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Google just announced on its Official Google TV Blog the “big announcement” for tomorrow. The Google TV crew announced an all-new YouTube app for the Google TV platform. The app features a smoother experience and bug fixes. The big feature here, however, seems to be a new feature called “Discover” that lets users view YouTube channels by different categories (as seen above).

The YouTube app will also gain the new channels that the desktop version of YouTube has seen. From there, you can navigate through users’ videos, favorites, and subscriptions.

When viewing a video, you can use the up and down arrows on your Google TV’s remote to navigate to the information screen. On the information screen, you can interact with a video by giving it a thumb’s up, adding it to your favorites or playlist, and leaving a comment.

The update should roll out to every Google TV user in the next few days from the Android Market. Oh, and I have to say that I am disappointed. Google overhyped this announcement.


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

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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.


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Madonna premiers new song ‘Give Me All Your Luvin” on YouTube

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cItHOl5LRWg]

YouTube really is becoming the de facto No. 1 destination for premium entertainment and what better proof than Madonna, who is a 53-year-old American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur choosing to debut her latest music video titled “Give Me All Your Luvin'” on YouTube. The song features Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. and it was released today to radio and as a digital download, while marking Madonna’s new three-album deal with Interscope Records. The music video that was filmed in December 2011 and directed by MegaForce can be seen above and on Madonna’s YouTube channel. You can pre-order the song through iTunes for $1.99 and check out Madonna’s Google+ profile for latest news. Go past the fold for a nice teaser on Madonna’s halftime show performance during Sunday’s big game.


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YouTube boss on channelizing and game-fying YouTube experience with six dimensions of entertainment

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[vodpod id=Video.16032192&w=425&h=350&fv=videoGUID%3D%7B5D778932-8D5E-495F-84C6-CA9ECF2911AB%7D%26amp%3Bplayerid%3D4001%26amp%3BplyMediaEnabled%3D1%26amp%3BconfigURL%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fwsj.vo.llnwd.net%2Fo28%2Fplayers%2F%26amp%3BautoStart%3Dfalse]

YouTube boss Salar Kamangar sat down yesterday with AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski at the “D: Dive Into Media” conference to talk content, the future of video entertainment and the big picture. He stressed the apps cable companies are building for Google TV let them control the entire experience, from the interface to delivery methods to monetizing mechanism.

As for YouTube, a global video delivery platform used by over 800 million people, it has the eyeballs and the audience. What it lacks is the minutes, as compared to traditional broadcast. The executive confirmed plans to “channelize” YouTube with more interactive and niche content than available on any other platform.

The website is already moving from individual kitten clips to groups of videos (channels), he said. Moreover, in the near future, YouTube wants to become a platform to enable “game-fying” of video content with six dimensions of entertainment…


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YouTube and NBC Sports launch Ad Blitz Super Bowl XLVI channel

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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.

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Each day, 4 billion online videos streamed via YouTube

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sHPfc6whaSk]

Each day, Google’s YouTube video sharing service clocks in more than 4 billion views, a blog post over at the official YouTube blog revealed Monday. The figure represents a 25 percent increase in the past eight months as the number of people who visit YouTube soared to 800 million a month. People are now uploading about 60 hours worth of video to the service every minute, a 25 percent increase over the 48 hours of video uploads a minute in May 2011. The video above is a sample of a new interactive collection of “what happens in a YouTube second” available at onehourpersecond.com.

Yet, only 3 billion YouTube videos a week are monetized with various adverts that appear when users click on clips. Google acquired then-young startup YouTube in 2006 for an astounding $1.65 billion. The Mountain View, Calif.-headquartered Internet giant committed considerable resources to making professional content available through the video sharing service to better pursue its broader entertainment strategy centered around Google TV, a software-based project that drives set-top boxes and networked HD TVs from participating partners.


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Vevo: Out with YouTube, in with Facebook?

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Facebook held at least two meetings with Vevo —the most recent one occurring within the last couple of weeks— to discuss moving the music video service from YouTube to the social network’s platform.

However, sources told CNET that the talks are “very preliminary,” and they mentioned there is one year remaining on Vevo’s contract with Google’s YouTube.

Vevo launched in 2009 and offers music videos from Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music. YouTube helped launch the startup, and subsequently Vevo’s videos appear on the partner’s service, with Google and Vevo sharing advertising revenue.

Vevo features the most extensive catalog of premium music content on the Internet, and it is available in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom through its website, mobile apps, or by way of connected televisions. The service currently powers music videos on artist profiles across Facebook, and its content is syndicates to numerous online websites, including AOL, BET, CBS Interactive Music Group, Fuse.tv and Univision. Moreover, through YouTube, Vevo is accessible in over 200 countries.

Facebook is allegedly interested in an arrangement similar to the one Vevo has in place with YouTube now, which would allow the social network to stream Vevo’s music videos with the two companies sharing profits from advertising revenue…


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YouTube launches action sports channels with Tony Hawk’s RIDE, The Red Bull Channel, and more

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=PL7BA70F5BEEDF8C6A&v=jaXzWM11M8w]

Yesterday Reuters announced it became YouTube’s largest news partner with a redesigned Reuters TV channel, and now YouTube is continuing its push of original content with a brand new lineup of action sports channels.

The new channels include action sports networks Alli Sports and Network A, Red Bull: The Red Bull Channel with 13 original episodic programs, and RIDE —Tony Hawk’s 24-hour channel “devoted to the skateboarding lifestyle” that will roll out 21 new shows throughout 2012.

The four channels have each released preview videos showing off what you can expect in terms of content. The preview video for Tony Hawk’s RIDE channel is above, and the other three are available below. YouTube also announced today that it has made its CES 2012 keynote address available online where the company talked about some of the new original content headed to the website in the future. To accompany the keynote video, YouTube released the teaser video below featuring Stan Lee, Rainn Wilson, Felicia Day, and others bringing original content to YouTube in the coming months.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FeRg4U7H_aY#!]

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YouTube signs up biggest news partner yet with new Reuters TV channel

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YouTube announced today its biggest news partner yet for original TV quality content with the addition of the new Reuters TV channel. The channel adds to the almost 100 partner channels including WSJ, TED, WWE, Pitchfork TV, Vice, SB Nation, Machinima, and many more.

The programming will include 10 news, analysis, and commentary channels in a unique style that is “suited for Internet programming and does not mimic traditional TV.” Reuters Global Head of Programming Dan Colarusso said the following regarding the announcement:

“This deal with YouTube gives Reuters a way to showcase our collection of talented journalists and compelling video from around the world. It will offer unique insights and images that other media companies simply can’t match.”

The new content will be available through the redesigned Reuters TV YouTube channel, but it will also be made available on Reuters.com. A description of all of the new programming from the press release is listed below:

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YouTube targets niche audiences, recruits cable networks to carve web-based TV channels for tomorrow

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YouTube's latest interface that displays video channels upfront versus individual uploads.

The New Yorker’s John Seabrook recently interviewed YouTube’s Global Head of Content Robert Kyncl about the video-sharing service’s future and extensively detailed how YouTube is targeting a $300 billion chunk of the television industry through increased viewership, enhanced content, connected devices, and niche audiences.

Niches, as The New Yorker illustrated, are the future of television. The iconic industry started with just three networks decades ago, and it now features hundreds of cable channels each serving a niche—news, sports, food, weather, music, and more.

“People went from broad to narrow,” said Kyncl to The New Yorker. “And we think they will continue to go that way—spend more and more time in the niches—because now the distribution landscape allows for more narrowness.”

The downside to niches, as Kyncl explained, is cost. Apparently, it is expensive to program niche channels when factoring in various technical costs and the practicality of filling a 24/7 loop. However, with the advent of the Internet, niches are in high-demand, costs are lower than ever, and accessibility is at an all-time high…


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Google looks to Marvell to lead its GoogleTV transition to ARM and 3D

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Marvell could not quite wait for Consumer Electronics Show 2012 to spill the beans this on its huge GoogleTV win. The ARM-based processor company will have its Armada 1500 chipset at the heart of upcoming GoogleTV 2.0 solutions.

Most of the processor details are below, but the big news is that Google is going with low cost/low heat ARM processors for its next-generation set top boxes rather than Intel, who dropped out of the set top box market.  With Marvell, Google should be able to compete on price with Roku, AppleTV and the other players in the market, and more importantly, it should be able to persuade TV manufacturers to include the low cost chips into hardware designs.

Marvell boasts that the Armada 1500 does 1080P 3D, as well as Flash – even though Adobe’s long-term plans outside of the desktop market are murky at best.

It does not appear that Google will build its own devices (although, the image above makes for interesting conversation), but it will continue to OEM out Google software. In a statement, Mario Queiroz, VP, Product Management Google TV said: “The Google and Marvell teams have been working closely together to bring our combined software and chipset technologies to market to grow the Google TV ecosystem of manufacturers and devices. Marvell-powered Google TV solutions will enable powerful products to be brought to market at attractive prices.”

Eric Schmidt recently said Google hopes to have GoogleTV embedded in the majority of SmartTVs by the summer of 2012, so this is a very aggressive rollout plan.  We expect to hear much more at CES, where most consumer electronics companies release product plans for the upcoming year.

Another interesting tidbit: GoogleTV appears to be fully underneath its YouTube wing with media contacts listed for YouTube press people. The full press release is available below.
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YouTube launches video discovery experiment called YouTube Slam

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YouTube launched a neat video discovery experiment this afternoon called YouTube Slam. Slam is a little game that allows you to vote between videos in a wide-range of topics, including Comedy, Cute, Music, Bizarre and Dance. The video with the most Slams earns a spot on the leaderboard each week.

YouTube Slam also has a game aspect to it: users will earn more points as they predict crowd favorites. This is a cool time waster that you should check out.


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