YouTube

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Friendly, amusing, relevant, focused on product features but without offending either camp (Samsung, we’re looking at you). Love the cheap tune, BTW.

From the YouTube description:

The iPhone 4S owner learns the hard way that its new camera can’t hold up to some of the killer camera features on the T-Mobile HTC Amaze 4G such as BurstShot, SmartShot panorama and SweepShot.

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We already gave you an early look and detailed some of the changes included in the major YouTube UI overhaul a couple weeks ago, and now Google has finally made things official. On top of a completely redesigned homepage with gray background and brand new layout, the update also brings improved channel integration for both users and content providers including new channel templates. The major focus, however, is Google+ integration with new sharing and filtering options based on your Google+ account preferences.

Another addition included in the update is the official launch of TrueView, the advertising model that allows users to skip an ad after five seconds or select from one of three pre-roll ads. It also allows advertisers to pay only for users who don’t skip their ads. However, traditional ad formats will still be available in addition to TrueView.

YouTube has had no problem staying relevant amid a growing number of competitive content providers, especially in the mobile space. As of today, YouTube is reporting around 400 million views a day on mobile, up 3x year/year (13% of the service’s daily views which gets approx. 800M uniques a month). The rollout is happening today, so you should be seeing the redesign anytime now.

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In a move that should make producers and video enthusiasts jump with joy, Google has finally rolled out an improved analytics feature on YouTube, allowing anyone to retrieve detailed reports and see who is watching their videos. The new capability goes beyond the existing Insight feature, which provides only basic analytics.

According to a post at the official YouTube blog, some of the features include a quick overview of how your videos have been doing in terms of view count, more detailed statistics, audience builders that let you discover which videos are driving the most views and subscriptions and audience retention, basically the ability to see “how far viewers are watching through your video”.

You can filter reports by a number of criteria, see line charts, download reports and analyze key metrics in different ways. The new tools should help anyone, especially YouTube’s content partners that share ad revenue with Google, make the most of their videos. The new Analytics feature will be released to everyone on a modern browser over the course of the day, Google said. More information is available in a support document here.

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A new San Francisco based start-up called Switchcam combines YouTube videos from concerts, political events, and more to stitch together one video with multiple angles from the event. The service uses YouTube videos, which are turned into a seamless video. Above, I was watching a concert from My Morning Jacket where two camera angles were used. While Switchcam will automatically switch between the angles, you can also do it manually. The service works very seamlessly.

The service goes beyond two angles however, and can also have a set list to the left of the video. Right now the service has a vast majority of concerts, which seems to just be curated by the staff. The product is currently in beta, but is launching soon the company says on their blog. Presumably when it launches, Switchcam will allow its users to do the stitching instead of the staff. Check out their full list of events.

This is an awesome use of the large amount of videos YouTube offers. You may remember the music video service called Rokker we showed you a few months ago. Hopefully we continue to see products like these roll out in the future.

Google last month announced that its software powering the Logitech Revue set-top box and Sony’s networked television sets (and soon Samsung’s) will be updated with Android 3.1 Honeycomb code and new features. Today, the first in a series of several software updates is rolling out to Google TV devices, bringing with it enhanced experience for YouTube and Photos apps.

Per the official blog post, the new YouTube app  now lets you watch the videos you’ve subscribed to and access your playlists, favorites and the Watch Later queue. It is also possible to add videos to your own channel from your Google TV.

As for the Photos app, you get the new Discover feature, basically a pretty screen saver that animates a collage of all your photos sourced from your Picasa or Flickr accounts. Like the shuffle feature on the iPod shuffle, Discover is a great way to enjoy your long forgotten photos.

Sony’s Google TVs have already received this update, but it’s still pending for Logitech’s Revue box, which has yet to receive a Honeycomb firmware update.

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We reported a couple weeks back that Disney and Google were partnering to bring Disney content to YouTube, and today the first of that content is beginning to roll out with movies from Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks available for rent at youtube.com/movies (U.S. and Canada).

Adding to the thousands of Hollywood titles already available for rent through YouTube, the company will roll out hundreds of Disney titles in the weeks to come, with a handful of titles available today including Alice in Wonderland, Winnie the Pooh, Cars 2, and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. As always you’ll have 48 hours to view the rentals which range from $1.99 for older titles to $4.99 for newer releases.

While YouTube has already signed up Warner Brothers, Sony, and Universal to provide content, the addition of Disney films sees Google buddying up with one of Apple’s closest allies. Apple has a close relationship with Disney, to say the least. Other than iTunes previously being one of the biggest online portals to Disney content, the company was also the first to back movies on iTunes and became even closer connected with Apple as the acquisition of Pixar saw Steve Jobs become the largest individual shareholder at Disney.  More recently, Disney CEO Bob Iger joined Apple’s board after restructuring named former board member Arthur D. Levinson Chairman. This major push of Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks content to YouTube could prove to be one less reason to pick iTunes over Google’s content services.
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There have been rumors that Google is testing a new redesign for YouTube. While we’re not sure if it’s rolling out to everyone today, we’re starting to get reports from Canada and elsewhere that the redesign is live. As you can see from the screenshots above and below, these are some quite significant changes including a new customized homepage that is essentially a news feed of trending content and your subscriptions and channels. A new sidebar on the left lets you manage and track all of your subscriptions, channels, and trending content, while Google+ integration lets you view and filter content recommended by people in your Circles.

You’ll also notice the new gray background, while the YouTube logo in the upper left now takes you to YouTube.com/guide.  In the image below you can see new resizing UI gives three buttons, one for your normal view,the second for an expanded widescreen view, and the third for full-screen. The rest of the site obviously gets a redesign in line with everything you see on the homepage. The screenshots below pretty much speak for themselves.

YouTube has also begun adding support for 1080p playback, native full-screen mode, annotations and captioning to the HTML5 video player  (via Electronista). More screenshots after the break showing the full redesign.

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Google has announced on their Commerce Blog this evening that they are now rolling Google Checkout into Wallet. Since Checkout’s focus was to simplify online checkouts, Wallet will now be rolling out to more places over the web including the Android Market, Google+ Games, YouTube, and even more Google sites.

Since both products have a similar goal, to simplify purchasing items, it makes sense for Google to roll the products together. For current Commerce users they will be able to setup a Wallet account when logging again, while merchants won’t have to make any changes. Wallet looks like its ready to roll for this Holiday season.

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A new web service called Rokker.fm uses YouTube’s vast music library to stream music to users for free. The service is very sleek (still in beta), and reminds us of Spotify and Grooveshark. Since it uses YouTube, Rokker also displays the video in a tiny spot in the bottom right of the page.

If you’re interested in buying the song you’re listening to, you can purchase it through an Amazon link on the website. Rokker also gives you the ability to signup for an account and manage playlists. Here’s to Google not blocking it!

Rokker.fm also plans to release both a Mac and iOS app to Apple’s App Store. Check out screenshots of the apps after the break:

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Google is looking into offering a paid cable subscription model WSJ reported today. The move would put Google at competition with cable providers, and bring new technology to the Google TV. In September, Google brought on former cable-TV executive, Jeremy Stern, to look into adding the subscription model to the platform.

The report says that Google has already begun talking to Walt Disney, Time Warner, and Discovery Communications — but no final decisions have been made. Besides Google TV, Google also has the opportunity to incorporate cable streaming into YouTube, but that is not on the table right now says the report. Google’s fiber network would help with the delivery of the content, which is expected to roll out in Kansas in 2012. We look forward to seeing this story develop.

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GoogleTV updates should be happening any second now.  We’ve just got the following email from Google:
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YouTube announced on their blog yesterday that they plan on adding more well-known content creators to the video platform in the coming weeks. YouTube’s efforts are to make the website more like a TV network, bringing in well-known personalities from fields outside of the internet.

Today we’re announcing that even more talented creators and original entertainment will soon join YouTube’s existing channel lineup, including channels created by well-known personalities and content producers from the TV, film, music, news, and sports fields, as well as some of the most innovative up-and-coming media companies in the world and some of YouTube’s own existing partners. These channels will have something for everyone, whether you’re a mom, a comedy fan, a sports nut, a music lover or a pop-culture maven.

The channels YouTube hopes to provide will appeal to everyone, as they state above. YouTube says they’re doing this to “broaden their range of entertainment”. The new channels will be due out in the coming weeks.

YouTube Movies features a wide selection of movies that users can rent for $2.99, but today we have discovered that YouTube Movies now features free movies in its lineup. The free section isn’t just released movies by any means, so don’t expect to get the latest and greatest. The free section does however feature a pretty nice set of older titles, including the popular Step Brothers, Resident Evil, Ghost Busters II, and more. Clicking on the movie page will bring up a description of the movie, a review of the movie from Rotten Tomatoes, and suggested movies.
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ASUS just released a teaser for their next generation tablet (Honeycomb? ICS?) which should be released in the coming days.  What’s inside?  Perhaps a Tegra 3 Kal-El chip, which also got its own video below:
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Google has announced some new interesting features for YouTube partners over at The Official YouTube Blog. In addition to announcing the site is now reaching over 800 million visitors per month, they’re also introducing the ‘Merch Store’.

The Merch Store will allow YouTube partners to sell concert tickets, digital downloads, merchandise, or events such as “meetups” directly through their channel. YouTube has also partnered with affiliates to power the merchandise and ticket sales. “Concert tickets and experiences” (and merchandise) will be powered by Topspin, Songkick will take care of concerts, and iTunes and Amazon will handle digital downloads.

While the Merch Store will start to roll out across the globe over the next couple weeks, TechCrunch notes that Google has declined to inform partners of profit sharing percentages. As of yet, they’ve only confirmed they will take “a small percentage of sales just to cover costs”.

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Wondering what that space inspired YouTube logo is all about? As part of the YouTube EDU program, Google today announced YouTube Space Lab, a new initiative and competition encouraging students to create concepts for science experiments that can be performed in space.

In partnership with Lenovo, NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the Space Lab was created essentially as a one stop shop for students and teachers interested in learning about space.

Perhaps the most important section of the YouTube Space Lab is “The Competition”. Open to users 14-18 years old, the basics of the comp is to encourage kids to create a science experiment that can be carried out in space. To enter, you create a YouTube video explaining the experiment (you don’t actually have to perform the experiment in your submission) and upload it to the Space Lab. Examples of submissions can be seen here and here.

A selection of winning submissions will have their experiment conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and also broadcast live on YouTube. Then, whoever is crowned the “global winner” will receive a trip to watch their experiment blast off in the rocket in Japan, or take cosmonaut training in Russia when you’re 18 years of age. The winner will also receive a trip to Washington, DC and a ZERO-G flight experience, and a Lenovo IdeaPad U300s Ultrabook. Winners will be selected by a panel of scientists and experts, including Professor Stephen Hawking.

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UK users are waking up to a ton of new content courtesy of Google and, specifically, courtesy of the YouTube rental service previously only available in the U.S. and Canada.

With over 1,000 titles to choose from, the service will offer 48 hour retails ranging from £2.49 to £3.49. It’s of course available via the “Movies” link in the upper right of YouTube, but is also accessible through Google TV, Android tablets and certain smartphones running Honeycomb.

From the Official YouTube blog:

We’ve got some cracking films to keep everyone entertained through the upcoming winter months and beyond. From blockbusters like The Dark Knight and Reservoir Dogs, to new releases such as Hanna, Fast Five, and Red Riding Hood, and even British classics like Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels…

UK customers can head over to youtube.com/movies to check it out. 
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WSJ reports Google is in the midst of finishing negotiations with media companies that would see the YouTube investing $100 million to fund original TV quality content. That content would debut on “dozens of free channels with professional-grade shows” expected to launch sometime in 2012. The report also mentions deals with celebrities such as Tony Hawk.

“YouTube, the world’s largest video site, is putting up more than $100 million in cash advances to get some of the content produced, said the people. YouTube will recoup the funds from advertising revenue it sells against the content, later splitting ad revenue with the partners, these people said. YouTube hopes the new channels, which are expected to roll out sometime next year, will draw in big money from advertisers, they said.” 

Some of the companies said to be in talks with Google include Warner Bros., News Corp.’s ShineReveille (Ugly Betty, The Office), RTL Group’s FremantleMedia Ltd. (The X Factor, The Price is Right), Anthony Zuiker (CSI creator), and a number of other companies that produce programs for channels like HGTV, Discovery, and VH1. Of course Google plans on making its money back in ad revenue.

We’re not sure how this will play into their plans to spend $100-$200 million on premium Hollywood content.

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As noted by The Next Web, Google’s VP of Product Bradley Horowitz, told Wired in an interview that Google+ will soon be Google. “Be Google?”, you’re probably thinking. What he means is that Google+ will soon not be its own product, but rather tied into almost every service offered by Google. You may remember when Google+ was sort-of tied into YouTube, but Horowitz says it will go deeper than that.

“Until now, every single Google property acted like a separate company. Due to the way we grew, through various acquisitions and the fierce independence of each division within Google, each product sort of veered off in its own direction.

… But Google+ is Google itself. We’re extending it across all that we do—search, ads, Chrome, Android, Maps, YouTube—so that each of those services contributes to our understanding of who you are.”

Google+ will soon be tied into ads (which has already happened), Chrome, Android, Maps, and more. This will begin to make a definitive Google product, leaving Google+ no longer acting as a separate company. This should make it easier on the non-technical folk, unlike you or me.

Citing the obligatory “people familiar with the matter”, the Wall Street Journal in a story this morning reports that Google is finalizing contracts for upcoming YouTube channels that will stream premium entertainment content on a regular basis. Google CEO Larry Page apparently wants to give people a good reason to tune into YouTube instead of television. Content owners are being “encouraged” to create schedules of programming much like traditional TV, the paper noted.

YouTube has requested some content for the channels within the next 60 days, according to one of these people, as it considers a launch in early 2012. YouTube, which media companies have long griped is too stingy cutting content deals, is paying from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million to content creators to create and curate videos for a channel, according to these people. Google recoups the original payment through ad revenue, and Google and the partner share ad revenue after that.

This could be viewed as part of Google’s broader push towards providing high-quality Hollywood entertainment on YouTube. The timely strategy ties nicely with the Google TV project, which is also about to be updated with a new software release soon. The Wall Street Journal first reported on Google’s plans to spend a hundred million dollars on premium YouTube content back in April. Google is reportedly in talks with Creative Artists Agency, William Morris Endeavor and International Creative Management over professionally produced programming on broad themes, including arts, fashion and sports.

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As part of Google’s new focus on premium entertainment, the YouTube team announced in a blog post that the video sharing site will stream the Ultimate Fighting Championship events. Viewers in the United States will be able to access this content on the UFC YouTube channel beginning this Saturday, September 24 at 9pm ET/6pm PT. Google said that all of the main card fights from UFC 135 will be available for live streaming for $44.99. The search company will kickstart the UFC streaming deal with the heavyweight title fight between champion Jon “Bones” Jones and challenger Quinton “Rampage” Jackson. If you’re a fan, don’t forget to tune in. You probably have access to UFC fights as part of your cable deal so YouTube will be yet another platform to watch those fights. Besides it is nice seeing Google take premium entertainment seriously.

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