Google Data » Youtube

Podcast to YouTube: an open source story

Open Source Programs Office — Fri, 04 Nov 2016 17:00:00 +0000

Almost a year ago Mark Mandel and I started the Google Cloud Platform Podcast, a weekly podcast that covers topics related to Google Cloud Platform, among other things. It's been a pretty successful podcast, but that’s not what I want to write about today.

After a while we started receiving emails from listeners that wanted to access our podcast on YouTube. Even though this might seem strange for those that love podcasts and have their favorite app on their phones, we decided that the customer is always right: we should post every episode to YouTube.

Specifications

Ok, so … how? Well, to create a video I need to merge the mp3 audio from an episode with a static image. Let's include the title of the episode and the Google Cloud Platform Podcast logo.

But once we post the video to YouTube we're going to need more than that! We need a description, some tags, and probably a link to the episode (SEO FTW!).

Where can we get that information from? Let's think about this for a minute. Where are others getting this information from? The RSS feed! Would it be possible to create a tool to which I could say "post the video for episode 46" and a couple minutes later the video appeared on YouTube? That'd be awesome! Let's do that!

Architecture

The application I wrote parses an RSS feed and given the episodes to publish it downloads the metadata and audio for an episode, generates the corresponding videos, and pushes them to YouTube.

Diagram of the flow of data in podcast-to-youtube

The hardest parts here are the creation of the image and the video. The rest is sending HTTP requests right and left.

Image Maker: rendering images in pure Go

After trying a couple of different tools I decided that the easiest was to create the image from scratch in Go using the image package from the standard library and a freetype library available on GitHub.

Probably the most fun part was to be able to choose a font that would make the title fit the image correctly regardless of the length in characters. I ended up creating a loop that:

chooses a font and measures the width of the resulting text
if it's too wide, decreases the font size by one and repeats.

Surprisingly, for me, this is actually a pretty common practice!

It is also worth mentioning the way I test the package: Using a standard image that I compare to the one generated by the package, then showing a "diff" image where all the pixels that differ are highlighted in red.

Diff image generated when using a wrong DPI.

The code for this package is available here.

Video maker: ffmpeg is awesome

From the beginning I knew I would end up using ffmpeg to create my video. Why? Well, because it is as simple as running this command:

$ ffmpeg -i image.png -i audio.mp3 video.mp4

Easy right? Well, this is once ffmpeg has been installed and correctly configured, which is actually not that simple and would make this tool hard to install on any machine.

That's why the whole tool runs on Docker. Docker is a pretty widespread technology, and thanks to Makefile I'm able to provide a tool that can be run like this:

$ make run

Conclusion

It took me a couple of days to write the tool and get it to a point where I could open source it, but it was totally worth it. I know that others will be able to easily reuse it, or even extend it. Who knows, maybe this should be exposed as a web application so anyone can use it, no Docker or Makefile needed!

I am currently using this tool weekly to upload the Google Cloud Platform Podcast episodes to this playlist, and you can find the whole code on this GitHub repository.

Any questions? I'm @francesc on Twitter.

By Francesc Campoy, Developer Advocate

Announcing YouTube-8M: A Large and Diverse Labeled Video Dataset for Video Understanding Research

Research Blog — Wed, 28 Sep 2016 17:00:00 +0000

Posted by Sudheendra Vijayanarasimhan and Paul Natsev, Software Engineers

Many recent breakthroughs in machine learning and machine perception have come from the availability of large labeled datasets, such as ImageNet, which has millions of images labeled with thousands of classes. Their availability has significantly accelerated research in image understanding, for example on detecting and classifying objects in static images.

Video analysis provides even more information for detecting and recognizing objects, and understanding human actions and interactions with the world. Improving video understanding can lead to better video search and discovery, similarly to how image understanding helped re-imagine the photos experience. However, one of the key bottlenecks for further advancements in this area has been the lack of real-world video datasets with the same scale and diversity as image datasets.

Today, we are excited to announce the release of YouTube-8M, a dataset of 8 million YouTube video URLs (representing over 500,000 hours of video), along with video-level labels from a diverse set of 4800 Knowledge Graph entities. This represents a significant increase in scale and diversity compared to existing video datasets. For example, Sports-1M, the largest existing labeled video dataset we are aware of, has around 1 million YouTube videos and 500 sports-specific classes--YouTube-8M represents nearly an order of magnitude increase in both number of videos and classes.

In order to construct a labeled video dataset of this scale, we needed to address two key challenges: (1) video is much more time-consuming to annotate manually than images, and (2) video is very computationally expensive to process and store. To overcome (1), we turned to YouTube and its video annotation system, which identifies relevant Knowledge Graph topics for all public YouTube videos. While these annotations are machine-generated, they incorporate powerful user engagement signals from millions of users as well as video metadata and content analysis. As a result, the quality of these annotations is sufficiently high to be useful for video understanding research and benchmarking purposes.

To ensure the stability and quality of the labeled video dataset, we used only public videos with more than 1000 views, and we constructed a diverse vocabulary of entities, which are visually observable and sufficiently frequent. The vocabulary construction was a combination of frequency analysis, automated filtering, verification by human raters that the entities are visually observable, and grouping into 24 top-level verticals (more details in our technical report). The figures below depict the dataset browser and the distribution of videos along the top-level verticals, and illustrate the dataset’s scale and diversity.

A dataset explorer allows browsing and searching the full vocabulary of Knowledge Graph entities, grouped in 24 top-level verticals, along with corresponding videos. This screenshot depicts a subset of dataset videos annotated with the entity “Guitar”.

The distribution of videos in the top-level verticals illustrates the scope and diversity of the dataset and reflects the natural distribution of popular YouTube videos.

To address (2), we had to overcome the storage and computational resource bottlenecks that researchers face when working with videos. Pursuing video understanding at YouTube-8M’s scale would normally require a petabyte of video storage and dozens of CPU-years worth of processing. To make the dataset useful to researchers and students with limited computational resources, we pre-processed the videos and extracted frame-level features using a state-of-the-art deep learning model--the publicly available Inception-V3 image annotation model trained on ImageNet. These features are extracted at 1 frame-per-second temporal resolution, from 1.9 billion video frames, and are further compressed to fit on a single commodity hard disk (less than 1.5 TB). This makes it possible to download this dataset and train a baseline TensorFlow model at full scale on a single GPU in less than a day!

We believe this dataset can significantly accelerate research on video understanding as it enables researchers and students without access to big data or big machines to do their research at previously unprecedented scale. We hope this dataset will spur exciting new research on video modeling architectures and representation learning, especially approaches that deal effectively with noisy or incomplete labels, transfer learning and domain adaptation. In fact, we show that pre-training models on this dataset and applying / fine-tuning on other external datasets leads to state of the art performance on them (e.g. ActivityNet, Sports-1M). You can read all about our experiments using this dataset, along with more details on how we constructed it, in our technical report.

6 Online Video Insights from comScore to Inform Your 2017 Media Plan

Rob Newton — Thu, 23 Jun 2016 13:00:00 +0000

As marketers kick off 2017 planning, consumer preference for online video is higher than ever. Today’s study from comScore, commissioned by Google, shows that adults are 30% more likely to prefer online video platforms over TV when given a choice where to watch video content. Does your media plan reflect that kind of preference?

If online video is your audience’s priority, it should be your media plan’s priority, too. We dug into the recent study and came up with six things to keep in mind about this changing audience as you develop your 2017 plan:

1. They Prefer Online Video Platforms to TV

The popularity of online video continues to grow. Today, when given a choice where to watch video, adults prefer online video platforms 30% more than watching on TV. Among millennials, that number jumps to 105%.

2. People Watching Long & Short-Form Video Prefer YouTube

Among viewers that watch both long and short-form content, 81% cite a preference for YouTube, making it the #1 choice. Compare that to the next-highest choice, TV, which earned just 56% of viewer votes.

3. They Choose YouTube Over Other Online Video Providers

YouTube also wins when compared to other online video providers. When asked to pick one online video platform, 48% of adults chose YouTube (vs. 29% for Netflix and 10% for Facebook):

4. Viewers Take Action on Video Ads, Especially on Short-Form Content

Online video has forever changed the media landscape, with more than half of all people regularly watching short-form videos (like branded content or viral videos), and two-thirds of millennials watching short-form weekly.

That’s good news for brands: comScore’s research shows viewers are more likely to take action after watching ads on short-form content compared to traditional content (like movies and tv shows). Taking action could include sharing on social media, looking for more information about the brand advertised, recommending the brand or product, etc.

5. They Prefer YouTube for Branded Content and Videos

Uploaded by Users. We already heard that adults who watch short and long-form content prefer YouTube, but it’s also preferred across multiple content types. For example, 74% of adults prefer YouTube for videos uploaded by users and—critically—69% prefer YouTube for videos uploaded by brands, companies, and institutions.

6. YouTube Super-users May Surprise You

The final part of comScore’s research examined YouTube’s most passionate fans—“die hards”—and they aren’t who you might expect. Many are parents, live in a city, and 49% are women:

Posted by:
Celie O'Neil-Hart, Product Marketing Manager, YouTube B2B
Howard Blumenstein, Product Marketing Manager, Strategy and Insights, YouTube B2B

[VIDEO] Get paid. Learn about AdSense payments

John A.Smith — Tue, 24 May 2016 18:30:00 +0000

A picture is worth a thousand words, even in the digital age. Today, we're excited to announce the first of a series of videos addressing some of our most frequently asked questions:

When Will I Get Paid?
Watch it to learn more about how to get paid, and let us know what you think. #AdSense101

Stay tuned for other #AdSense101 videos throughout the year. Is there something else you’d like to learn more about? Let us know in the comments below.

Posted by Barbara Sarti

Google AdSense Team

More ways for schools & organizations to manage YouTube

Jane Smith — Tue, 26 Apr 2016 19:27:00 +0000

Posted by Matt Ward, Software Engineer

(Cross-posted on Google for Education blog)

In August 2015 we launched YouTube Settings in Google Apps to give schools and other organizations a way to manage the YouTube experience for users logged in to their domains and on networks they manage. Today we’re happy to announce a number of new features to make these more flexible and easier to use.

Channel whitelisting
Administrators and designated approvers can now whitelist entire channels, not just individual videos. For example, if you want to ensure that all current and future videos uploaded to your organization or school’s channel are watchable by your users, you can now simply add the entire channel to your approved list. Learn how to designate approvers.

Using YouTube settings in Google Apps for Education already gives your users access to all the videos on educational YouTube channels like Veritasium, but now your domain’s video approvers can add other channels as well, like your school’s YouTube channel.

More flexible options for administrators
Administrators have new capabilities to help them manage YouTube to meet the needs of their organization.

Administrators can now choose between two levels of Restricted Mode restrictions -- strict or moderate -- for their logged-in users.

Admins can select between a strict and moderate level of restriction for YouTube.

Network managers can now use an HTTP header to enforce either strict or moderate restricted mode on managed devices.
Network managers can also use this new DNS configuration if they want to enforce moderate restricted mode on wifi networks they manage.
Coming soon, logged-out users on YouTube’s mobile apps on restricted networks will also get a restricted experience.
And since we know this can be tricky to set up, network managers can visit this page to ensure their network restrictions have been configured correctly.

YouTube for Schools
In August we announced that we would no longer be maintaining YouTube for Schools (YT4S). As of July 1, 2016, YT4S will no longer be available. View the YouTube Settings in Google Apps Help Center for additional details.

More information
Learn how to enable YouTube settings for your Google Apps domain and join the discussion in the product forum.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1-3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
Admins only

Action:
Admin action suggested/FYI

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

Launch release calendar
Launch detail categories
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Showing how YouTube ads drive sales for CPG brands with Oracle Data Cloud

Rob Newton — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 13:00:00 +0000

Measuring the impact of online video is something of a passion for us at Google. It’s been three years since we unveiled Brand Lift for YouTube and brands have seen great success. But the last piece of the puzzle has been how does online video drive offline sales? This is particularly true for consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, for which the vast majority of sales – over 90% – happen offline. Thanks to our new integration with Oracle Data Cloud – a leader in the emerging Data as a Service (DaaS) industry that measures the sales impact of digital media – we now have a solution to answer that question. Today we’re announcing the availability of sales lift studies in the US, for CPG advertisers using TrueView video ads.

The value of video

We’ve been testing this capability for a while, and have seen promising early results: 78% of TrueView campaigns we studied on YouTube showed an increase in offline sales, with 61% driving a statistically significant lift in sales of the advertised brand.¹

To build this solution we worked with Oracle Data Cloud to develop the first in-depth application of their DLX ROI product on video formats, and we studied a range of CPG video campaigns running TrueView ads across food, health and beauty, beverage and homecare. We built this with privacy at the center, and no personal data is exchanged between the companies.

Early client successes

One campaign we measured, Gatorade’s “We Love Sweat,” earned $13.50 sales in return for every dollar spent on TrueView (return on ad spend, or ROAS). This stunning success was due in part to persistent branding and strong creative geared specifically for driving sales. Gatorade’s campaign was also interesting because it delivered a remarkable 16% lift in sales among new buyers that had seen the video vs. new buyers that had not – according to Oracle Data Cloud a typical lift in this metric hovers around 2.5%.

Similar to Gatorade, parent company PepsiCo also saw sales lift success with their campaign for Doritos. Not only did our DLX ROI solution show that their 30-second creative drove higher lift in sales among exposed households than a 15-second version, but they saw particular targeting techniques – namely topic targeting and remarketing – drove greater sales lift compared to a demographic target.

Mars also participated in our DLX ROI test for their Pedigree pet food brand, and the sales lift studies helped them make key creative decisions. They tested a video that opened with strong branding against one that saved their branding for the end, and learned that the video with strong upfront branding drove nearly 7x greater sales lift. As Laurent Larguinat, Global Director of Mars Consumer and Market Insights said, “With this new offering, YouTube is rounding out a full funnel measurement solution for video. We're excited to continue to see these results for all of our campaigns."

This new sales lift offering drops the last piece into place for full funnel measurement of CPG campaigns on YouTube, and we’re excited to bring you new creative and media strategy insights that drive incremental sales as we scale these studies.

Posted by Mark Thomas, Brand Measurement Product Manager

1. Google/Oracle Data Cloud Sales Lift Meta Analysis, US (TrueView CPG campaigns tested between April 2015 and March 2016)

YouTube and NBC News present Democratic primary debate in South Carolina

Google Blogs — Wed, 16 Dec 2015 18:00:00 +0000

From presidential candidates launching their campaigns, to YouTube creators discussing issues that matter to their communities, to light-hearted moments along the campaign trail, you’ve already been following the 2016 U.S. election from multiple angles on YouTube.

Now you can watch the candidates debate on YouTube, too.

Next month, we’ll join together with NBC News to present the final DNC sanctioned Democratic presidential debate before the first caucus and primary votes are cast—with the action live streamed on YouTube. The NBC News-YouTube Democratic Candidates Debate, hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus Institute and moderated by Lester Holt, will take place on Sunday, January 17, 2016, in Charleston, S.C., airing on NBC from 9-11 p.m. ET and streamed live on the NBC News YouTube channel.

With so many YouTube fans following this election closely, of course there will be an opportunity for you to get involved. Along with Google Trends data, the debate will feature questions from the YouTube community. Look out for more information on how you can engage in the coming weeks.

Since 2005 you’ve made YouTube a home for global politics, and today you watch more than 5 million hours of news on YouTube every day. Over the course of 2016, you’ll be able to find all of the major election moments unfold on YouTube—tune in to the NBC News YouTube channel January 17 to kick off the election year.

Posted by Brandon Feldman, YouTube News, and Steve Grove, Google News Lab

Avoid Post-Turkey Crowds and Shop YouTube’s Awesome Stuff Week Gift Grab

Rob Newton — Mon, 23 Nov 2015 07:59:00 +0000

Watchtime for product review videos on YouTube has grown more than 20% in just the past month as shoppers turn to video to research products before the holidays.¹ In fact, one in every four shoppers say online videos are their go-to source for gift ideas.² This week, one of the biggest shopping weeks of the year, we’re helping consumers discover the best products to grab with our third Awesome Stuff Week, Gift Grab.

Creators such as Lamarr Wilson, Unbox Therapy, Feast of Fiction, Erica Griffin and Hot Pepper Gaming, will share their take on the top trending toys, video games, consumer electronics and housewares to help shoppers prepare for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Best of all, they can avoid the post-turkey crowds and cross items off their holiday gift lists by shopping the products in each video.

Lamarr Wilson shares his take on this week's top trending toys

For AdWords advertisers running Shopping campaigns, Awesome Stuff Week provides a new opportunity to showcase products alongside contextually relevant creator content. Show your products on these videos by making sure your Shopping campaigns are opted into search partners within your campaign settings.

Lastly, discover the latest shoppable videos by subscribing to the Awesome Stuff Week YouTube channel and tune in next week when creators reveal the best beauty tips, recipes and last minute holiday gifts, with Awesome Stuff Week Unwrapped.

Vikram Tank, Product Marketing Manager, Art Copy & Code

¹Google Data Oct 17-Nov 16 vs. Sept 17 - Oct 16, 2015. United States. Classification as a "product review," was based on public data such as headlines, tags, etc., and may not account for every such video available on YouTube.
²Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015

A Step Toward Protecting Fair Use on YouTube

Google Public Policy Blog — Thu, 19 Nov 2015 14:00:00 +0000

Posted by Fred von Lohmann, Copyright Legal Director

More than 400 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. Some of those uploads make use of existing content, like music or TV clips, in new and transformative ways that have social value beyond the original (such as a parody or critique). In the U.S. this activity is often protected by fair use, a crucial exception to copyright law which can help discussion and creativity across different mediums to continue flourishing.

YouTube will now protect some of the best examples of fair use on YouTube by agreeing to defend them in court if necessary.

We are offering legal support to a handful of videos that we believe represent clear fair uses which have been subject to DMCA takedowns. With approval of the video creators, we’ll keep the videos live on YouTube in the U.S., feature them in the YouTube Copyright Center as strong examples of fair use, and cover the cost of any copyright lawsuits brought against them.

We’re doing this because we recognize that creators can be intimidated by the DMCA’s counter notification process, and the potential for litigation that comes with it (for more background on the DMCA and copyright law see check out this Copyright Basics video). In addition to protecting the individual creator, this program could, over time, create a “demo reel” that will help the YouTube community and copyright owners alike better understand what fair use looks like online and develop best practices as a community.

While we can’t offer legal protection to every video creator—or even every video that has a strong fair use defense—we’ll continue to resist legally unsupported DMCA takedowns as part of our normal processes. We believe even the small number of videos we are able to protect will make a positive impact on the entire YouTube ecosystem, ensuring YouTube remains a place where creativity and expression can be rewarded.

Drive sales and app downloads with video this holiday season

Rob Newton — Mon, 16 Nov 2015 17:02:00 +0000

The holiday shopping season is upon us once again, and advertisers are at the ready to make sure it’s their products that fly off the shelves. And this holiday, video will play a bigger role than ever in how those products fly off the shelves. Across a wide range of brands and categories, we’re seeing the power of TrueView video for driving consumer intent in addition to driving awareness. In a recent analysis of TrueView campaigns, 57% of campaigns saw lift in consideration and 24% saw a lift in favorability. Plus, 35% of campaigns saw a lift in purchase intent.¹

Video can be an incredibly powerful tool in creating demand for your products. So over the past year, we’ve focused on creating tools on YouTube to help you connect the dots between inspiration and purchase. Today, we’re making these tools readily available to advertisers through AdWords. Here is a rundown of the features we’re launching.

New campaign set-up tailored to your marketing objectives
Setting up a video campaign should be as simple as telling us what action you want consumers to take – and today we’re announcing a way to do that right at the start of the campaign creation process. Whether your end goal is to drive sales, app downloads or to generally build your brand, you can now declare these goals right up front. Further, we’ll tailor the rest of your campaign set-up and optimization for your chosen marketing objective.

Shopping campaign option

App promotion campaign option

Drive app downloads at your set price with target cost-per-acquisition bidding
The holiday season is incredibly important for app promotion, as consumers outfit their new devices with apps. To start an app promotion campaign with video, select the new “app promotion” option to access settings specifically tailored for promoting apps. You can now use target cost-per-acquisition (CPA) bidding, which lets you define the amount you're willing to pay for a conversion, and then automatically sets your bids to give you as many conversions as possible at that price.

Clients participating in our beta have seen great results, including Com2us, the maker of the game Summoners War, whose Marketing Manager Eric Cho had this to say:

“At Com2us, we use TrueView for app promotion to acquire new app customers at scale across Europe, the Americas and Southeast Asia. Our campaigns are exceeding expectations around volume while maintaining our ROI goals. Target CPA bidding has allowed us to achieve our goals on Android and we look forward to expanding in the future.”

Target CPA bidding

New shopping formats now available in AdWords
And today, two powerful performance-oriented formats are available to all advertisers – both TrueView for Shopping and Shopping ads on YouTube are now available in AdWords.

TrueView for Shopping campaigns create interactive video ads that highlight the value of your products and drive consideration. These TrueView video ads have actionable shopping cards embedded in them which provide an easy bridge to purchase for viewers. They are also a powerful audience solution, enabling you to remarket to viewers who may have visited your site or viewed your other videos.

TrueView for shopping

Shopping ads on YouTube work even lower in the funnel, by enabling shopping cards on creator videos that feature your products. This is a great way to capture demand when viewers are most interested in exploring and researching products. These also allow you to extend the reach of your Shopping campaigns beyond www.google.com.

Shopping ads on YouTube

To extend your Shopping ads to YouTube, make sure your Shopping campaigns in AdWords are opted into search partners.

These new TrueView features are made possible thanks to our recent migration of TrueView video ads into the core AdWords front end, and represents only the first first step towards a simpler, goal-oriented video ad experience. Now get out there and drive some sales and app downloads with video!

Posted by Diya Jolly, Director, Video Ads Product Management

¹TrueView Brand Lift Meta Analysis of US Q3 2015 campaigns
Consideration n=708 studies
Favorability n=118 studies
Purchase intent n=211 studies

2015 Holiday Trends – Shopping Moments Are Replacing Shopping Marathons

Rob Newton — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 13:00:00 +0000

If the idea of shopping on your phone while waiting for your morning coffee sounds familiar, you’re not alone. This holiday season, shopping moments will replace shopping marathons. Rather than rely on day-long mall marathons Black Friday weekend, shoppers are now turning to their mobile phones at hundreds of micro-moments throughout the day, all season long. In fact, more than half (54%) of holiday shoppers say that they plan to shop on their smartphones in spare moments throughout the day like walking or commuting.¹

As we head into this year’s holiday shopping season, we looked at how the rise of these shopping moments will impact retail trends. After analyzing Google data and working with Ipsos MediaCT to survey consumers on their holiday shopping intentions, today we’re sharing our predictions for the digital trends impacting this year’s biggest shopping season.

Big shopping days are becoming smaller
It used to be that people would plan their shopping marathons for days like Black Friday or Cyber Monday. Now, shopping happens in the moments between everything else in our lives. Last year, for example, we saw steady consumer shopping interest in “gifts and presents” all season long.²

Source: Google Data, Q4 2014, US

This type of shopping has led to shorter, more purposeful mobile shopping sessions. In fact, while shoppers now spend 7% less time in each mobile session, smartphones’ share of online shopping purchases have gone up 64% over the last year, and 30% of all online shopping purchases now happen on mobile phones.³

The time to start reaching these holiday shoppers is now. We found that 61% of shoppers will have already started researching their purchases before Thanksgiving weekend, up 17% from last year.⁴ While research starts early, the majority of purchasing will take place later into the holiday season.⁵ Why? There is no longer a sense of urgency since everyday is a shopping day.

Mobile will influence more purchases than ever before
Consumers are using their smartphones in all parts of the shopping process - from inspiration to research to purchasing. In fact, shopping-related searches on mobile have grown more than 120% year over year and are fast approaching those on desktop.⁶

In addition to a rise in mobile commerce, we’re also seeing a rise in mobile’s influence on local commerce. People are increasingly using their phones to research and buy products in stores. More than half (52%) of shoppers plan to use a smartphone for holiday shopping this year before they visit a store, and a whopping 82% of smartphone users will consult their phone while in a store.⁷ People are searching 37% more inside department stores than they were last year.⁸

And more people have the opportunity to tap and pay with their phones in stores this season, with new mobile payments platforms available. In fact, in a Google Consumer Survey we found that 40% of people say they are likely to use their smartphones to pay in stores this holiday season.⁹

While big sale days are becoming smaller, one day still stands out in shopping popularity for mobile. Sunday is consistently the most popular day for shopping on smartphones - on average, mobile shopping searches are 18% higher on Sundays than the rest of the week.¹⁰

Source: Google Data, Q3 2015, Global Shopping searches on mobile
as defined by clicks on Shopping Ads

The YouTube Gift Guide
People are also increasingly turning to YouTube to help them shop, looking for advice, inspiration, or product reviews. One in four shoppers (26%) say online videos are their go-to source for gift ideas, and 32% of shoppers say they plan to use online video more this year for holiday purchases.¹¹ Additionally, people in the U.S. are spending nearly twice as much time watching fashion and apparel shopping videos this year over last.¹²

Unboxing videos have become a growing phenomenon, as people turn to YouTube to inform their purchase decisions. In 2015 alone, people in the U.S. have watched 60M hours of unboxing videos on YouTube, totalling 1.1B views.¹³ Our research shows YouTube has become an important part of the purchase process for consumer electronics - a surprising 64% of consumer electronics shoppers watch consumer electronics videos on YouTube one week before they purchase and 65% do so the week after they purchase.¹⁴

To help shoppers discover more of the latest and greatest products, we’ve partnered with popular YouTube creators to bring you Awesome Stuff Week: a series of week-long celebrations highlighting shoppable videos on YouTube. Tune in on Monday to watch our next set of shoppable videos focusing on “gadgets.”

As shopping decisions are being made quicker and consumers’ expectations are higher, marketers today need to think carefully about where customers are discovering, researching and ultimately purchasing their products. By understanding these patterns and by focusing on moments of intent - on both mobile and video - marketers will win customers this holiday season.

Posted by Matt Lawson, Director, Performance Ads Marketing

¹Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015; Shoppers defined as people who intend to shop this holiday season with smartphones. n=778
²Google Data, October 2014–January 2015, United States.
³Google Analytics data, United States. Sept 2014 v. Sept 2015
⁴Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015 Base: Holiday shoppers n=2004
⁵Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015. Base: Holiday shoppers n=2004
⁶Google Global search data Nov 2014-Oct 2015, as defined by searches that trigger Shopping ads
⁷Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015
⁸Aggregated anonymized internal Google data from a sample of US users that have turned on Location History. Queries were considered as being "from" a location if they occurred within one hour of a user visit to the department store. September 2015 vs. September 2014.
⁹Google Consumer Survey, October 2015, n=500
¹⁰Google search data, Global, Q3 2015, mobile shopping searches as defined by clicks on Shopping ads
¹¹Google / Ipsos MediaCT, Consumer Holiday Intentions Study 2015
¹²YouTube data, Sep 2014 vs. Sep 2015, United States. Classification as a shopping video was based on public data such as headlines, titles, tags, etc and may not represent all apparel shopping videos on YouTube.
¹³YouTube data, January–October 2015, U.S. Classification as a "haul" video was based on public data such as headlines, tags, etc., and may not account for every "haul” video available on YouTube.
¹⁴Google Millward Brown CE Study, YouTube video analytics, Dec. 2014

Improving YouTube video thumbnails with deep neural nets

Research Blog — Thu, 08 Oct 2015 16:00:00 +0000

Posted by Weilong Yang and Min-hsuan Tsai, Video Content Analysis team and the YouTube Creator team

Video thumbnails are often the first things viewers see when they look for something interesting to watch. A strong, vibrant, and relevant thumbnail draws attention, giving viewers a quick preview of the content of the video, and helps them to find content more easily. Better thumbnails lead to more clicks and views for video creators.

Inspired by the recent remarkable advances of deep neural networks (DNNs) in computer vision, such as image and video classification, our team has recently launched an improved automatic YouTube "thumbnailer" in order to help creators showcase their video content. Here is how it works.

The Thumbnailer Pipeline

While a video is being uploaded to YouTube, we first sample frames from the video at one frame per second. Each sampled frame is evaluated by a quality model and assigned a single quality score. The frames with the highest scores are selected, enhanced and rendered as thumbnails with different sizes and aspect ratios. Among all the components, the quality model is the most critical and turned out to be the most challenging to develop. In the latest version of the thumbnailer algorithm, we used a DNN for the quality model. So, what is the quality model measuring, and how is the score calculated?

The main processing pipeline of the thumbnailer.

(Training) The Quality Model

Unlike the task of identifying if a video contains your favorite animal, judging the visual quality of a video frame can be very subjective - people often have very different opinions and preferences when selecting frames as video thumbnails. One of the main challenges we faced was how to collect a large set of well-annotated training examples to feed into our neural network. Fortunately, on YouTube, in addition to having algorithmically generated thumbnails, many YouTube videos also come with carefully designed custom thumbnails uploaded by creators. Those thumbnails are typically well framed, in-focus, and center on a specific subject (e.g. the main character in the video). We consider these custom thumbnails from popular videos as positive (high-quality) examples, and randomly selected video frames as negative (low-quality) examples. Some examples of the training images are shown below.

Example training images.

The visual quality model essentially solves a problem we call "binary classification": given a frame, is it of high quality or not? We trained a DNN on this set using a similar architecture to the Inception network in GoogLeNet that achieved the top performance in the ImageNet 2014 competition.

Results

Compared to the previous automatically generated thumbnails, the DNN-powered model is able to select frames with much better quality. In a human evaluation, the thumbnails produced by our new models are preferred to those from the previous thumbnailer in more than 65% of side-by-side ratings. Here are some examples of how the new quality model performs on YouTube videos:

Example frames with low and high quality score from the DNN quality model, from video “Grand Canyon Rock Squirrel”.

Thumbnails generated by old vs. new thumbnailer algorithm.

We recently launched this new thumbnailer across YouTube, which means creators can start to choose from higher quality thumbnails generated by our new thumbnailer. Next time you see an awesome YouTube thumbnail, don’t hesitate to give it a thumbs up. ;)

Today at IAB Mixx: a preview of new capabilities coming to YouTube advertising

Rob Newton — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 19:14:00 +0000

Over the past 10 years of YouTube, video viewership has come a long way. In fact, according to new commissioned custom research conducted by Nielsen, the time 18-49 year olds spend on YouTube grew by 44 percent, while the time they spend watching traditional TV fell by nearly 10 percent over that same time period.

YouTube has become the place the world comes to watch, share and engage with video. And we want to keep creating even better experiences for the viewers, advertisers and creators who turn to YouTube every day. So today at IAB Mixx, we announced new products that point toward the future of our video ad platform, specifically around interactivity, mobile, and measurement.

Turn YouTube into your virtual showroom
Over the course of the year, we’ve been working hard to make videos more interactive, shortening the distance between the time a viewer sees an ad and their actual purchase. First we launched Cards, which let you share product information directly within your videos across all screens. We took this feature further with TrueView for shopping, which is a bit like “automatic” Cards – simply connect your Google Merchant Center feed to your TrueView campaign to dynamically insert product cards within your in-stream ads, based on the products that are most likely to lead to a conversion.

To help advertisers reach all the other product-focused content on YouTube – from unboxings, hauls, product reviews and how-to videos – today we’re announcing Shopping ads for YouTube. These will let you show a click-to-buy ad within partner videos on YouTube, going beyond your own videos to transform any relevant video into your digital storefront. Similar to Shopping ads on Google, you only pay when a user clicks on your ad.

We’ve kept the format similar to Cards and TrueView for shopping, so users can easily recognize and click on the “i” icon at the top right of a video to view the Shopping ads. Shopping ads on YouTube are built off of your existing product feed in Merchant Center. They will enter an auction similar to Shopping ads on Google search and are selected based on a variety of contextual signals.

Shopping ads on YouTube

Shopping ads on YouTube provide an entirely new revenue stream for creators, providing another way to monetize product-focused videos. They also provide a more interactive experience for viewers, letting them shop directly from videos. Stay tuned as we roll this new capability in the coming months.

Driving long term success for mobile apps with TrueView for app promotion
Mobile viewership on YouTube continues to grow. In fact, the average viewing session on mobile is now more than 40 minutes, up more than 50% year over year. We’re focused on creating ad formats that help you reach viewers across all screens, and today we’re making YouTube an even better place to promote your mobile apps.

Building off the success advertisers are seeing with app promotion in in-stream ads on YouTube, we’re introducing TrueView for app promotion for our in-display format as well. This format reaches potential users when they’re exploring content on YouTube. Early results from brands promoting their apps with in-display point to strong performance both in cost per install and lifetime value.

TrueView in-display for app promotion

We’re also enabling app promotion ads in our dedicated Gaming app, because what better place to promote gaming apps than in YouTube gaming content? And in the coming months, we’ll bring the ability to bid by cost per install. You tell us what you want to pay for a download, and we’ll optimize for that price. In an early beta, Smule used target CPA bidding to increase installs by 85%.

Expanding Brand Interest to YouTube Search
We’re also focused on providing better measurement, helping you understand whether your investments are driving results. Our Brand Lift solution, for example, helps you measure interest by monitoring lift in organic keyword searches related to your brand on Google.com.

Starting today, Brand Lift will look not only at searches on Google.com, but will take YouTube searches into account as well. With this update, you’ll be able to see if your ad is driving searches for organic video content related to your brand on YouTube. Measuring interest is an important part of determining impact, and is a unique benefit of advertising on Google and YouTube.

Reach the right audience on YouTube with Customer Match
Finally, I’d like to call out our new targeting product, called Customer Match. Announced yesterday, Customer Match helps you reach your existing customer base with the right message across three of Google’s largest properties: Google Search, YouTube, and Gmail.

Advertisers looking to grow their brand can also use Similar Audiences with Customer Match to reach prospective customers across YouTube and Gmail based on the interests and characteristics of their existing customer base. With Similar Audiences, you can leverage your customer email lists to discover new audiences that are most like the customers you already have. These new targeting features enable advertisers to connect with – or exclude – customers to drive the best results for their brand.

Here’s to the next 10 years
As we head into our second decade as the place the world comes to engage with video, I’m excited to see us continuing to move fast, to build new things and to help marketers build brands. We can’t wait to see what you’ll do with these new tools.

Posted by Diya Jolly, Director, Video Ads Product Management

What makes us Human?

Google Blogs — Fri, 11 Sep 2015 22:00:00 +0000

Over the past three years, filmmaker and artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand travelled to 60 countries, interviewing more than 2,000 people in dozens of languages, in an attempt to answer the question: What is it that makes us human? The result is HUMAN, a documentary film that weaves together a rich collection of stories from freedom fighters in Ukraine, farmers in Mali, death row inmates in the United States, and more—on topics that unite us all: love, justice, family, and the future of our planet.

Now we’re partnering with Arthus-Bertrand, the Goodplanet Foundation and Bettencourt Schueller Foundation, to bring HUMAN to you on Google Play, YouTube and the Google Cultural Institute so we can share this project with the widest audience throughout the world.

Watch an extended version of the film on YouTube and Google Play
We’re making HUMAN available on YouTube starting September 12, and later on Google Play. This “director’s cut”of three 90-minute films will be available in Arabic, English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. On YouTube, you can also watch extra footage including interviews with figures like United Nations Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon, animal rights activist Jane Goodall and actress Cameron Diaz, all of whom participated in the film.

Explore HUMAN with the Google Cultural Institute
Over at the Google Cultural Institute, you can learn about the origin of the film and listen to anecdotes from the people who brought it to life. You can also meet the characters in and around the movie in their daily lives, with six exhibits of behind the scenes photos and videos that let you explore how HUMAN was made over three years. This includes a collection highlighting how the director shot the aerial views that are a signature of Arthus-Bertrand’s filmmaking.

Exhibitions on Google the Cultural Institute platform

Learn more about this project at g.co/humanthemovie or on the HUMAN Behind The Scenes mobile app, available on Google Play. With HUMAN, we want to help citizens around the world connect together. So we’d like to hear your answer to the question of what makes us human. Add your voice to the conversation with #WhatMakesUsHUMAN.

Posted by Raphael Goumain, Head of Consumer Marketing, France

See the future of video by looking behind you: Introducing 360 degree video ads

Rob Newton — Wed, 22 Jul 2015 13:00:00 +0000

Video is already the most effective medium for connecting with consumers thanks to the power of sight, sound and motion. But what if there were a way to let people become even more immersed in your video ads? To help advertisers deliver richer experiences, we’re introducing 360 degree video ads on YouTube.

360 degree video ads let you engage your audience in an entirely new way. Available today in Chrome and the YouTube app on Android and iOS, viewers can explore every angle of your videos by dragging their mouse or moving their phone to shift their POV 360 degrees – up, down, left or right. Thanks to the ability simply to move your phone to see different parts of the video, 360 video ads are a truly mobile-first video ad product.

We’re thrilled that as soon as the ability to create 360 video became available to YouTube creators, brands immediately began experimenting with this new tool to deliver engrossing consumer experiences. Since then, we’ve seen stunning videos from Coca-Cola, Stella Artois and Nike, among others (check them out on Cardboard!). And for those videos that were run as ads, campaign results have been impressive: for instance, Coca-Cola’s 360 video celebrating the 100th anniversary of their iconic bottle design outperformed standard in-stream video ad view-through rates by 36%.

And today, Bud Light becomes the first advertiser in the US to launch 360 video running in TrueView ads. The series of ads feature three different events from Whatever, USA – Bud Light’s takeover of Catalina Island. The immersive ads drop you right in the middle of the action, including a performance by Diplo, the welcome parade, and the “Turn of An Era” 1920’s themed party.

As with the recent launches of cards in TrueView in-stream ads and TrueView for shopping, 360 video ads offer you another way to deepen consumer engagement with your ads on YouTube. Compatible with YouTube HTML5 Rich Media Mastheads and now TrueView in-stream and in-display units, you can maximize the reach of your 360 degree video ads with the power and scale of YouTube’s most popular ad format.

To create 360 degree video ads, you will need access to one of the following 360 degree cameras: Ricoh Theta, Kodak SP360, Giroptic 360cam, or IC Real Tech Allie. All of these cameras are already available or coming soon. Once your video is ready, follow these steps to upload the video to desktop Chrome. Campaigns for 360 degree videos running as TrueView ads can be set up in AdWords and your Google sales representative can help you with YouTube Mastheads.

Whether you’re skydiving or experiencing what it’s like to stand in the front row of a Wimbledon match, 360 degree video ads unlock new opportunities for your brands to engage with consumers on YouTube.

Posted by JR Futrell, Product Manager, YouTube Ads

YouTube A to Z: #HappyBirthdayYouTube

Google Blogs — Fri, 29 May 2015 14:00:00 +0000

Every adventure starts somewhere, and YouTube’s began on Saturday, April 23, 2005, when "Me at the Zoo" became the first video uploaded to a new site no one had ever heard of. Captured at California's San Diego Zoo, the clip is a 19-second description of what exactly makes elephants so cool. Its brief runtime and casual setup suggest little of the online video craziness that would follow over the subsequent decade.

But it turns out “Me at the Zoo” proved to be a simple distillation of the premise of the new platform, where anyone could just turn on a camera and broadcast themselves with ease. Who could have predicted that, in that same environment, new genres, new forms of expression, and new paths to stardom would evolve? That engaging and unique personalities borne of this place could be more influential than Hollywood's biggest names? Or that more than a billion people from all corners of the globe would come together in that space to experience what the world creates, broadcasts, and shares?

Yeah. We were surprised, too.

For our 10th birthday this month, we've gone from A to Z celebrating the adorable, empowering, awesome, weird and wonderful moments that represent the many sides of YouTube. But, of course, if we're really going to capture 10 years of YouTube, we're going to need to do it in … a video:

Thanks for a wild and inspiring 10 years. Now, you've got 300 hours of video to capture and share in the next minute. So get back to it!

**Bonus Points: How well do you know YouTube, A to Z? Play the YouTube trivia game to find out at YouTube.com/10.

Posted by the YouTube Team

Introducing TrueView for shopping – a new way to promote your products with video

Rob Newton — Thu, 21 May 2015 16:01:00 +0000

Whether it’s watching a product review or learning how to bake a soufflé, we look to video in countless moments throughout to the day to help us get things done. We call these micro-moments – when we reflexively turn to our devices to learn more, make a decision, or purchase a product. To connect the dots between the moment a person watches a video and the moment they decide to make a purchase, today we’re introducing a new feature called TrueView for shopping that makes it easy for viewers to get more information on your products and click to buy.

TrueView for shopping allows you to showcase product details and images – along with the ability to click to purchase from a brand or retail site – all within your video ad. It’s available for TrueView in-stream video ads on YouTube. And since we know that 50% of views on YouTube come from mobile devices, we’ve made sure that it works seamlessly across mobile phones, desktops, and tablets.

Built on the cards platform we announced last month, TrueView for shopping enables advertisers to scale the manual process of connecting individual products with individual videos. Thanks to the first-ever integration of the Google Merchant Center into video ads, advertisers need only connect their campaign with a Merchant Center feed to dynamically add products to their in-stream videos, customized for each user through contextual and audience signals like geography and demographic info.

Brands that have participated in our early tests of TrueView for shopping have seen strong results for driving interest and sales. Online home goods retailer Wayfair, for instance, saw a 3X revenue increase per impression served when compared to previous campaigns. And beauty retailer Sephora took advantage of this new ad format to drive +80% lift in consideration and +54% lift in ad recall, and an average view time of nearly two minutes.

We’re excited to bring TrueView for shopping into our buying front end in the coming months. If you’d like to get started with TrueView for shopping today, please contact your Google account manager.

Posted by
Avi Fein, Product Manager, YouTube Ads
Pete Lidwell, Product Manager, YouTube Ads
Jean-Yves Delort, Technical Lead, YouTube Ads

A new vision for interactivity with TrueView in-stream

Rob Newton — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 01:47:00 +0000

In today's constantly connected world, there are billions of moments throughout the day when people are looking for answers, discovering new things, making a decision or looking for entertainment. In these moments, consumers' expectations are very high – they want things right, and right away. Successful brands are those that deliver a great experience at the exact moment a consumer is looking for it.

It was with this belief in the importance of intent and relevance that 5 years ago we launched TrueView ads, which gave users the choice to watch or skip ads. It was a leap of faith based on the belief that viewers would choose to watch ads on YouTube if these ads were interesting, relevant, and engaging. Since then TrueView has come a long way, expanding to mobile, becoming more measurable with Brand Lift, and enabling more interactivity with features like app downloads seamlessly within your ad.

Today, we’re making TrueView an even better creative canvas for brands with greater interactivity and more accurate accounting of audience engagement.

Greater interactivity through cards
One of the top requests from brands has been to make videos more interactive, particularly on mobile. So we’re introducing cards for TrueView in-stream ads, a new feature which will make video ads a more engaging, interactive experience for viewers across all screens.

An evolution of our annotations feature, cards launched to videos on YouTube last month providing a more beautiful and seamless way to inform viewers about other videos, playlists, and more. Now with cards coming to TrueView in-stream ads, you can share more information about your brand, related videos and playlists, and soon link to your website directly from your TrueView video ad. For information about how to enable cards in your campaigns, visit our Help Center.

Cards panel on mobile in portrait

Expanded card panel on desktop

Unlike free-form annotations on ads, cards work on mobile and will come to connected TVs, so you can create one ad and run it across all screens. This means viewers will always know how to get more info about video ads, regardless of how they’re watching YouTube.

Cards also provide a platform to bring you additional features that make TrueView a more actionable format. Throughout this year, we’ll roll out specialized cards that cater to specific use cases, a process we started with TrueView for app promotion last year.

Optimizing for viewer actions
TrueView is built on the notion that when someone chooses to watch your video, they have stronger intent and interest for your brand. For that reason, we only count a view when someone shows an intent to watch. Now, with greater interactivity signals, we can go a step further and enable you to to optimize for viewer actions. In addition to counting a view when someone watches an ad, we will also count a view when viewers click on a card or other elements of your in-stream creative, as we believe this is a strong indication that they are interested and engaged. We’ll bill for these click interactions, similar to what we currently do for TrueView for app promotion campaigns. As always, we’ll only charge when a view is counted and will bill for either the full view or click (but not both). This change will roll out to all TrueView in-stream ads in May.

New click behavior for in-stream
To ensure you only pay for deliberate clicks on your video ads, we’re also changing where you can click on in-stream ads. Formerly clicking anywhere on the player would register a click; now only clicks to cards or CTAs, the video header, companion banner or a link at the bottom of the player will count as a click.

Phew! That was a lot of info. TrueView has always been focused on user choice – and we believe these new features will make video ads even more engaging. We’re excited to continue to evolve our TrueView platform in 2015 and beyond.

To take a stroll down memory lane for TrueView’s fifth anniversary, check out our Agency blog post.

Posted by
Avi Fein, Product Manager, AdWords for video
JR Futrell, Product Manager, YouTube Ads
Jim Habig, Product Marketing Manager, YouTube Ads

Android Developer Story: Outfit7 — Building an entertainment company with Google

Android Developers — Wed, 18 Mar 2015 19:13:00 +0000

Posted by Leticia Lago, Google Play team

Outfit7, creators of My Talking Tom and My Talking Angela, recently announced they’ve achieved 2.5 billion app downloads across their portfolio. The company now offers a complete entertainment experience to users spanning mobile apps, user generated and original YouTube content, and a range of toys, clothing, and accessories. They even have a silver screen project underway.

We caught up with Iza Login, Rok Zorko and Marko Štamcar - some of the co-founders- in Ljubljana, Slovenia, to learn best practices that helped them in reaching this milestone.

To learn about some of the Google and Google Play features used by Outfit7 to create their successful business, check out these resources:

Monetization — explore the options available for generating revenue from your apps and games.
Monetization with AdMob — learn how you can maximize your ad revenue.
YouTube for Developers — Whether you’re building a business on YouTube or want to enhance your app with video, a rich set of YouTube APIs can bring your products to life.

Join the discussion on

+Android Developers

Our first building block in tech for tykes: YouTube Kids

Google Blogs — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 14:33:00 +0000

When we were kids, if we wanted to learn more about gorillas or how to make friendship bracelets, our parents pointed us to an encyclopedia, or took us to the library. When we wanted to watch cartoons, we eagerly awaited Saturday morning. Today’s kids have it even better—they have all of these options, plus a world of knowledge and information at their fingertips via the Internet. That opens up wonderful opportunities, but also can cause some worry for those of us who are parents.

So over the past year, teams across Google—including many passionate parents—have been looking at how families are using our products, and how we can make it easier for children and parents to explore and play together. We decided to start with YouTube.

For years, families have come to YouTube, watching countless hours of videos on a variety of topics. And today, we’re launching YouTube Kids, a new family-friendly app that makes it easy for kids to explore a vast selection of videos on any topic.

In the new YouTube Kids app, available on Android and iOS in the U.S., videos are narrowed to focus on content that is appropriate for the whole family. You might explore DIY arts and crafts, learn how to find the circumference of a circle, or watch favorites from Mother Goose Club to Minecraft, as well as new series from National Geographic Kids and Reading Rainbow. And there are more train videos than even you can count.

We’ve designed the app to be easier for kids to use, with a brighter and bigger interface that’s perfect for small thumbs and pudgy fingers. For parents, we’ve built in options that let you decide how your family uses the app, including the ability to set viewing limits with a timer.

Head over to YouTube’s blog to learn more. This is just our first step—we’ll keep tinkering and hope to have more great products for your family soon.

Posted by Pavni Diwanji, VP of Engineering, and Shimrit Ben-Yair, Product Manager, both moms of two

Shooting stars and puppy ads: How the world watched the big game

Emily Wood — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 16:02:00 +0000

From a “super brawl” to a giant lion, yesterday’s big game was filled with many notable moments. That’s true on YouTube and Google too—people watched more game-day ads and teaser videos on YouTube than ever before, YouTube hosted its first-ever halftime show, and a throwback PSA became a top trending search term. Here’s a look at the top trending searches, videos and more across Google and YouTube:

Battle of the brands
As the battle for football supremacy was taking place on the field, a very different one was raging across the country: Which ad would reign supreme? Whether via smartphone, tablet or laptop, people spent nearly 4 million hours watching game-day ads and teaser videos on YouTube—up from 2.2 million hours from this time last year.

This year’s most popular ads came from a wide range of advertisers—newcomers and veterans alike. But one thing’s for certain—puppies, pranks, and Kim Kardashian continue to “break the Internet.” Here are some of the ads that scored big on YouTube so far:

Tom Brady and Missy Elliott dominate on search
While people turned to YouTube to watch the ads, people turned to Google to search for everything from “how old is Tom Brady” to “buffalo chicken dip recipes” to “Katy Perry Halftime performance.” Before kickoff, people asked Google “Why did John Travolta call Idina ‘Adele'?”—a throwback to John Travolta’s infamous mispronunciation of National Anthem performer Idina Menzel's name at the 2014 Oscars. Searchers were also interested in Menzel’s performance, asking “How long will it take Idina to sing the National Anthem?”

Tom Brady, Marshawn Lynch and Russell Wilson were the top three searched players before, during and after the game. Thanks to some standout in-game performances, by the end they were sharing the spotlight with Rob Gronkowski and Chris Matthews (replacing Richard Sherman and Kam Chancellor). And MVP Tom Brady wasn’t just a winner on the field—he captured the title of “Most Searched Quarterback” in every state except for the Seahawks’ home Washington.

Of course, for many people the halftime show is the highlight of the night, and Katy Perry’s performance delivered. She came in on a lion, danced with sharks and went out on a star—one that was, for some, reminiscent of NBC’s old “The More You Know” PSAs. The phrase "the more you know" spiked 190x in search for the 10 minutes after Katy’s starry flight. And although Missy Elliott was a late addition to the halftime lineup, she was a popular topic in search. Top questions related to Missy Elliott included “When was Missy Elliott popular?” and “How does Katy Perry know Missy Elliott?”

A very YouTube halftime show
For the first time ever, this year YouTube hosted a halftime show produced by Collective Digital Studio, with the help of more than 25 YouTube creators including Epic Meal Time's Harley Morenstein as host, Rhett & Link, Toby Turner, Freddie Wong and Tyler Ward. From Kurt Hugo Schneider’s "Epic Patty Cake Song" to the “Elephant’s Toothpaste” science experiment with Science Bob, the show delivered a one-of-a-kind experience for YouTube fans.

With the last touchdown scored, we’re taking votes for your favorite ad, so visit our AdBlitz channel to cast your ballot before voting ends on February 9 at 11:59pm ET.

Whether you’re a loyal 12th man or a Boston fan for life, chances are you turned to YouTube and Google to watch your favorite ads, answer your questions or witness a new generation of halftime entertainment. We’re happy we could be a part of your game.

Posted by Riki Nakasuji, Sports & Gaming Sponsorships Manager, YouTube

YouTube Creators interview President Obama following the State of the Union

Emily Wood — Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:00:00 +0000

Every year since 2010, President Obama has turned to YouTube and Google after his State of the Union speech to answer questions that are top of mind for the American people. Asked through YouTube video submissions or live via Google+ Hangouts, these questions always bring an interesting perspective to the issues the president addresses in his speech. This year we’re doing something we’ve never done before: bringing a handful of YouTube creators directly to the White House to talk with the president in person in a live broadcast on Thursday, January 22.

YouTube creators Bethany Mota, GloZell Green and Hank Green will interview President Obama about the top concerns facing them and their audiences. Over the next few days, the creators will ask you to share the questions you have for the president, some of which may be asked during the interview. In years past, people across the United States have used this interview to ask important questions about jobs, immigration and even Valentine’s Day. Use #YouTubeAsksObama on social media to suggest issues that are important to you or any questions that are on your mind.

Finally, don’t forget to tune in on January 20 at 9 p.m. EST to watch the State of the Union address, as well as the Republican response, live on YouTube.

Posted by Steve Grove, Director, News Lab

“The Interview” now available on Google Play and YouTube Movies

Emily Wood — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 17:10:00 +0000

Last Wednesday Sony began contacting a number of companies, including Google, to ask if we’d be able to make their movie, "The Interview," available online. We'd had a similar thought and were eager to help—though given everything that’s happened, the security implications were very much at the front of our minds.

Of course it was tempting to hope that something else would happen to ensure this movie saw the light of day. But after discussing all the issues, Sony and Google agreed that we could not sit on the sidelines and allow a handful of people to determine the limits of free speech in another country (however silly the content might be).

So starting at 10 a.m. PST in the U.S., you can rent or buy "The Interview" on Google Play and YouTube Movies. It will also be available to Xbox Video customers and via www.seetheinterview.com.

Update 3:44p.m. PST: "The Interview" is now also available in Canada.

Posted by David Drummond, SVP Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

Video Analytics Page in AdWords for Video launches today, helping marketers make ads people choose to watch

Rob Newton — Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:08:00 +0000

In AdWords for video, you add targeting and budgets to YouTube videos to make video ad campaigns. Until now, advertisers looking for info on how their videos performed outside of when they appeared as ads would need to jump over to YouTube Analytics for that data. Today we’re excited to announce a revamp of Videos reporting to offer more YouTube Analytics-style performance metrics right in AWV, bringing a greater focus on video creative to campaign management and optimization.

As you can see in the above chart, the new Video Analytics page prominently features a visualization of your video’s views, split by paid and non-paid to give a holistic sense of how your video is doing. The page also brings the powerful audience retention graph to AWV (formerly only available in YouTube Analytics) – with this you can fine-tune your creative by visualizing when audience interest waxes and wanes. For example, are you seeing a steep viewer drop-off at a certain point? This alerts you to an opportunity to re-cut your video to hold their interest longer.

This new reporting page also offers a panel that provides a sense of a video’s contribution to overall account performance, letting you see which videos are over or underperforming across all your campaigns, and more fully depicts how your video creative is helping to build your audience on YouTube.

For more information please check out the Help Center article here. We hope this new feature provides more context for your video ad creative, and helps you make ads people choose to watch.

Posted by Avi Fein, Product Manager, AdWords for video

#YouTubeRewind 2014: Celebrating what you created, watched and shared

Emily Wood — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 18:00:00 +0000

2014 was chock full of YouTube moments that vaulted into pop culture. We got pranked by a spider dog in Poland, learned what it’s like to walk the street for 10 hours as a woman in NYC, and watched total strangers share a first kiss. We laughed, we cried, and yes, we sang along to “Let It Go” roughly a bajillion times.

In celebration of the people, memes and moments that made up an epic year, more than 100 YouTube creators gathered together for our annual Rewind video: a giant, global mashup looking back at the best of 2014 on YouTube. With creators from Japan, Germany, Israel, Mexico, France and beyond, it’s the biggest and most international Rewind video yet.

And here are the top trending videos for 2014, based on views, shares, comments, likes and more. This year, the list represents the amazing variety of creativity brought to YouTube each day, which can include social commentaries, pranks, advertisements, and thrilling moments from traditional media and big names on YouTube. Collectively these 10 videos have hundreds of millions of views from creators, with more than 21 million cumulative subscribers.

1. Mutant Giant Spider Dog (SA Wardega) by SA Wardega
2. Nike Football: Winner Stays. ft. Ronaldo, Neymar Jr., Rooney, Ibrahimović, Iniesta & more by Nike Football
3. FIRST KISS by Tatia PIlieva
4. The Voice IT | Serie 2 | Blind 2 | Suor Cristina Scuccia - #TEAMJ-AX by TheVoiceOf Italy
5. iPhone 6 Plus Bend Test by Unbox Therapy
6. Bars & Melody - Simon Cowell's Golden Buzzer act | Britain's Got Talent 2014 by Britain's Got Talent
7. Budweiser Super Bowl XLVIII Commercial -- "Puppy Love" by Budweiser
8. Devil Baby Attack by DevilsDueNYC
9. Goku vs Superman. Epic Rap Battles of History Season 3. by ERB
10. 10 Hours of Walking in NYC as a Woman by Street HarassmentVideo

When it comes to music, it was a year of powerful female artists, as you can see from our list of top music videos: Women artists took eight of the top 10 spots (Shakira took two!). 2014's top 10 music videos were collectively played billions of times from channels with 55+ million subscribers.

1. Katy Perry - Dark Horse (Official) ft. Juicy J
2. Enrique Iglesias - Bailando (Español) ft. Descemer Bueno, Gente De Zona
3. Shakira - Can't Remember to Forget You ft. Rihanna
4. Shakira - La La La (Brazil 2014) ft. Carlinhos Brown
5. Jason Derulo - "Wiggle" feat. Snoop Dogg (Official HD Music Video)
6. Iggy Azalea - Fancy (Explicit) ft. Charli XCX
7. Sia - Chandelier (Official Video)
8. Taylor Swift - Shake It Off
9. Meghan Trainor - All About That Bass
10. Nicki Minaj - Anaconda
...and check out even more top music videos.

Check out our YouTube Rewind channel for more top videos of the year from around the world, and our YouTube Brand channel to see a mashup of the top branded videos of the year and a list of the top ads on YouTube for the year. You can also visit google.com/2014 next week for Google's annual look at the people, places and events that captured the world's attention.

Posted by Kevin Allocca, Head of Culture & Trends

Launching YouTube for Government

Google Public Policy Blog — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 14:06:00 +0000

Cross-posted from the Google Politics & Elections Blog

Posted by Brandon Feldman, YouTube News & Politics

From live streams of the State of the Union and legislative hearings, to explainer videos on important issues and Hangouts with constituents, YouTube has become an important platform where citizens engage with their governments and elected officials.

In order to help government officials get a better idea of what YouTube can do, we are launching youtube.com/government101, a one-stop shop where government officials can learn how to get the most out of YouTube as a communication tool.

The site offers a broad range of YouTube advice, from the basics of creating a channel to in-depth guidance on features like live streaming, annotations, playlists and more. We’ve also featured case studies from government offices around the world that are using YouTube in innovative ways.

If you're a government official, whether you are looking for an answer to a quick question or need a full training on YouTube best practices, we hope this resource will help you engage in a rich dialogue with your constituents and increase transparency within your community.

Using Google Search and YouTube to Promote Your App

Rob Newton — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 15:58:00 +0000

Earlier this year, we announced our next generation of app promotion ads across Google Search, the Google Display Network and YouTube. The features on the Display Network launched in June as part of Google I/O. Today, I’m excited to announce the global availability of the search ads and YouTube offerings.

Google Search for App Install and Re-Engagement

There are over 100 billion searches per month on Google.com. People search here for places to visit, movies to watch or music to listen to. Sometimes this content lives on a website, sometimes it’s in an app. Now with just 3 easy steps, you can get your app into an ad by using a new, simplified campaign set-up flow that promotes your app on Google.com. Search ads created with this new flow are only shown to people who don’t already have your app -- so every click is from a potential new user, saving you time and money.

Retale, an app for finding great deals in your city, is already seeing strong performance. Christoph Hoyer, Retale’s head of mobile marketing shared that “The results have exceeded our expectations, Google search ads provide high-volume quality traffic for Retale’s app with a cost per install around $2.”

Click here to get started.

How do you select the best keywords so your ad shows to consumers most likely to download your app? Use the keyword suggestion tool for app ads on search. This tool suggests keywords to include in your campaign based on top queries used for finding your app on Google Play and Google Search. FarFaria, a leading children’s e-book app, expanded their Google search ads keyword lists by using this tool and was able to unlock 30% more app downloads while maintaining a click through rate of 3% and a cost per install that was 50% below other mobile networks.

Once you have a large base of users who’ve installed your app, how do you keep them engaged? Since 80% of downloaded apps are downloaded and used only once,¹ it’s more important than ever to help users remember your app when searching for relevant content that you can provide. Starting today, you can deep link users directly from Google Search into specific pages of apps they’ve already installed by signing up for the beta here. Customers like LINE, Zoopla and Booking.com are already testing deep-linking with their apps. Here’s how it works: let’s say someone has the Booking.com app installed on their phone and searches for “San Francisco Hotels” on Google.com; now they can go directly to the specific page in the Booking.com app that shows listings for hotels in San Francisco.

YouTube for App Promotion

The power of sight, sound and motion makes YouTube users more than 2X more likely to download apps.² Starting today, you can showcase your app when people are watching their favorite videos using a new enhancement to TrueView ads. With TrueView, advertisers can reach potential customers based on their interests, previously-watched videos and demographics. Deepak Gupta, chief revenue officer at MachineZone, a leading mobile game developer, noted that by "Using YouTube we didn't just find more customers, we found more of the ‘right’ customers. We know video platforms in general deliver valuable users, but we found that users who download our app from YouTube are 15% more valuable than those from any other video platform."

Start promoting your app on YouTube by simply linking your app’s ID to your TrueView campaigns. Learn more

Better Measurement = Better Campaigns

To attract the right customers and keep them engaged, it's important to have robust insights into how people interact with your app and tools to fine-tune your bids for app ads. Check out these 3 new search ads offerings that help you do just that:

Measure app download conversions: App installs show up as conversions automatically in AdWords without any additional setup, for Android apps on Google Play. Learn more
Integrate your analytics data: If you’re using third party tracking systems, import information about your apps, directly into AdWords. Learn more
Automate your bids: Use Target CPA when creating your app campaign to automatically find the optimal bid for your ad each time its eligible for an auction, without waiting for conversion history to accumulate. This lets you immediately maximize the total number of installs at your target CPA. Learn more

Over the coming weeks we’ll dive into these new features with tips and best practices on the Inside AdWords blog and on our Google+ page. We also invite you to register for our “Promoting Your App on Search” Google Hangout On Air on 9/18.

Posted by Jerry Dischler, VP of Product Management, AdWords

¹Source: Digital Trends, 2013

²Source: YouTube Global Audience Study, IPSOS 2013

Unlocking the Brand Opportunity

Anish Kattukaran — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 16:00:00 +0000

Video is how brands tell stories, how they surprise us, make us laugh or make us cry. No other medium brings together sight, sound and motion, and now with digital, interaction. As I’ve said for a while, our goal is to make digital work for brands. To do that, we have to make online video work for brands and their publisher partners, a topic I’ll be addressing this morning at our annual DoubleClick customer event.

Introducing Google Partner Select, A Programmatic Premium Video Marketplace

Publishers are investing like never before in compelling, high quality video experiences. Brand marketers are eager to buy against this content -- in fact eMarketer projects video ad spending to grow from $4 billion last year to nearly $6 billion in 2014. One big hurdle to growth remains, though: much of this content is hard to access.

Our brands and agencies want to buy this premium content programmatically, but have difficulty finding the high quality inventory they want. Our publisher partners also want to take advantage of the ease and efficiency of programmatic to connect with top brands, but with transparency and control over how that happens. In order to grow the marketplace for everyone, we need to invest in the systems that will make it easier for brands and premium publishers to transact at scale.

As a step towards that goal, today we are introducing Google Partner Select, bringing together the best of brand with the best of programmatic. This new premium programmatic marketplace will connect a select set of publishers investing in top-quality video with the brands that want to buy against it.

What we’re most pleased about is the reaction to Partner Select that we’re getting from clients:

“As a longtime Google partner, we are excited about what this marketplace has to offer. Video is the fuel for effective brand marketing and having more top quality video content available programmatically is going to open up all sorts of new possibilities for brand clients,” said Josh Jacobs, Global CEO, Accuen & President, Platforms and Partnerships, Omnicom Media Group. “That’s what Google is looking to accomplish with this marketplace and we look forward to working with them as it evolves.”

“Video has become central to our strategy, and being able to sell premium video programmatically to top brand partners is a requirement in this dynamic marketplace,” said J.R. McCabe SVP, Video, Time Inc. “We are looking forward to working with Google to enable this technology and to develop this premium marketplace.”

Partner Select helping marketers and publishers also requires having the right buying technologies in place. Along with Google Partner Select, we’re introducing a way for marketers and publishers to execute direct, reservation-based sales through the DoubleClick platform. This new option is meant to help streamline what today can be a cumbersome process, involving days of back-and-forth negotiations, dozens of phone calls and sometimes, yes, a fax machine. We hope brands and publishers will be able to spend less time on logistics and more time building partnerships and winning creative and content.

I’m inspired every day by the rich experiences that brands and publishers are creating. Together with our partners, we can make digital a medium where brands, agencies and publishers can flourish.

To hear more of our thoughts on this, join us for our livestream here.

-- Posted by, Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display and Video Advertising Products, Google

Unlocking the Brand Opportunity

Anish Kattukaran — Wed, 04 Jun 2014 16:00:00 +0000

Introducing Google Partner Select, A Programmatic Premium Video Marketplace

What we’re most pleased about is the reaction to Partner Select that we’re getting from clients:

Partner Select helping marketers and publishers also requires having the right buying technologies in place. Along with Google Partners Select, we’re introducing a way for marketers and publishers to execute direct, reservation-based sales through the DoubleClick platform. This new option is meant to help streamline what today can be a cumbersome process, involving days of back-and-forth negotiations, dozens of phone calls and sometimes, yes, a fax machine. We hope brands and publishers will be able to spend less time on logistics and more time building partnerships and winning creative and content.

I’m inspired every day by the rich experiences that brands and publishers are creating. Together with our partners, we can make digital a medium where brands, agencies and publishers can flourish.

To hear more of our thoughts on this, join us for our livestream here.

-- Posted by, Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display and Video Advertising Products, Google

Improving Call-to-Action overlays and video reporting in AdWords for video

Rob Newton — Thu, 22 May 2014 23:00:00 +0000

Starting May 14, Call-to-Action overlays on promoted YouTube videos will have a new look and feel across both desktop and mobile. The two lines of accompanying text will be gone leaving a single line call-to-action, giving more real estate to video content. We’ll make this change automatically so you won’t need to make any changes to existing CTAs.

Here’s the expanded CTA for desktop and mobile:

And here is the collapsed CTA for desktop and mobile:

In addition to this visual makeover, CTA clicks will now be included within the “Clicks” and “CTR” reporting metrics in AdWords for video, enabling you to better quantify the total impact of this video interactivity feature.

We are also rolling out new reporting improvements in AdWords for video that many advertisers, large and small told us would be helpful, namely:

Improved Column Sets: We’re adding View Rate by default for all sets and are grouping sets of metrics by insight topic (like Views, Audience, Branding or Conversions). This lets you see a snapshot of your campaign based on key objectives, as well as evaluate your overall campaign performance based on View Rate before diving deeper into individual targeting groups.
Added Conversion Segmentations: You can now segment by conversion name and category, showing how your video campaigns are driving key conversion types.
All metrics now visible in the Videos tab: now you can more easily optimize across your videos by seeing the entire set of metrics available in other tabs.

Head over to AdWords for video to take advantage of these new features today.

Posted by Avi Fein, Product Manager, YouTube

Introducing a simpler, more capable TrueView in AdWords for video

Rob Newton — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 16:00:00 +0000

Since its debut in 2010, the TrueView format has enabled advertisers to break free of time constraints, grow view count with opted-in views and only pay when people choose to watch their video ads. Thanks to these benefits, TrueView advertising connects users with relevant ads, and empowers creators to monetize their content. In our ongoing quest to help advertisers unlock the power of online video, today we’re announcing a forthcoming improvement to make TrueView both simpler and more capable.

On April 15, we will go from three TrueView formats to two: TrueView in-stream and TrueView in-display. This will effectively combine the in-search and in-display formats into one format called TrueView in-display.

In addition to simplifying campaign creation and management, this change offers the following:

Organizes TrueView around how a user interacts with the ad (either by viewing as a pre-roll video or clicking on a thumbnail) rather than where the ad appears.
Tell us where you want your ads to appear at the campaign level – YouTube videos, YouTube search and the Google Display Network – and all ads within that campaign will run on your selected networks.
Deliver more relevant ads on the YouTube search page. Just as you can use in-stream ads to reach different demographics or audiences, now you can tailor in-display ads running on YouTube search pages to these same parameters, in addition to keywords.

What do you need to do?
Starting April 15, all new video campaigns will use new campaign settings and simplified ad formats. At the same time, you'll have access to an upgrade center where you can upgrade any or all of your existing campaigns to the new functionality. Starting May 15, all campaigns will be automatically upgraded.

We believe this change will make TrueView an even more effective tool to help you build your brand with videos. For further reading, please visit our Help Center article.

Posted by Ryo Akasaka, Product Manager, AdWords for Video

Understanding Impact with Earned Actions in AdWords for video

Rob Newton — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 17:04:00 +0000

For many video advertisers, the benefit of TrueView only begins with the first view. Just as an Honest Trailers link pinged to a friend can lead to several other video views, we see this viewership pattern with paid ad views as well – the initial view can catalyze a long chain of engagement with a brand.

Since these earned views are a major benefit of advertising on YouTube and the Google Display Network, we’re bringing new capabilities to AdWords for video to help you better measure viewer actions following your video ads. Formerly known as Follow-on Actions, these new reporting columns will show your Earned views, Earned view rate, Earned subscribers, Earned playlist additions, Earned likes and Earned shares, with additional columns rolling out over the next few weeks. So if you're an advertiser, you can see how many people stayed on your channel to watch more videos, subscribed to your channel, added your video to a playlist, or shared your video with a friend after watching a TrueView ad.

From looking at the last six months, we’ve seen over 6,000 campaigns generate at least one earned view as a result of every two paid views. And we know the YouTube audience isn’t shy about sharing brand content: 3 in 4 YouTube users agree “If there is a brand I love, I tend to tell everyone about it.” (Source: YouTube Insights Oct 2013)

Check out this video to see how Earned Action reporting helps you better understand the impact of your video advertising:

We have also simplified the Account Linking flow to make it easier to join an AdWords for video account with a YouTube channel and see the effect of TrueView advertising on growing your audience, through Earned subscribers and Earned shares.

So link your AdWords for video account with your YouTube channel, and take advantage of these new reporting columns today.

Posted by Luke Segars, Associate Product Manager, AdWords for video

Released Data Set: Features Extracted From YouTube Videos for Multiview Learning

Research @ Google — Tue, 26 Nov 2013 17:00:00 +0000

Posted by Omid Madani, Senior Software Engineer

“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

The “duck test”.

Performance of machine learning algorithms, supervised or unsupervised, is often significantly enhanced when a variety of feature families, or multiple views of the data, are available. For example, in the case of web pages, one feature family can be based on the words appearing on the page, and another can be based on the URLs and related connectivity properties. Similarly, videos contain both audio and visual signals where in turn each modality is analyzed in a variety of ways. For instance, the visual stream can be analyzed based on the color and edge distribution, texture, motion, object types, and so on. YouTube videos are also associated with textual information (title, tags, comments, etc.). Each feature family complements others in providing predictive signals to accomplish a prediction or classification task, for example, in automatically classifying videos into subject areas such as sports, music, comedy, games, and so on.

We have released a dataset of over 100k feature vectors extracted from public YouTube videos. These videos are labeled by one of 30 classes, each class corresponding to a video game (with some amount of class noise): each video shows a gameplay of a video game, for teaching purposes for example. Each instance (video) is described by three feature families (textual, visual, and auditory), and each family is broken into subfamilies yielding up to 13 feature types per instance. Neither video identities nor class identities are released.

We hope that this dataset will be valuable for research on a variety of multiview related machine learning topics, including multiview clustering, co-training, active learning, classifier fusion and ensembles.

The data and more information can be obtained from the UCI machine learning repository (multiview video dataset), or from here.

YouTube wins case against Viacom (again)

Google Public Policy Blog — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:00:00 +0000

Posted by Kent Walker, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Google

Cross-posted from the Official YouTube Blog

Today is an important day for the Internet. For the second time, a federal court correctly rejected Viacom’s lawsuit against YouTube. This is a win not just for YouTube, but for the billions of people worldwide who depend on the web to freely exchange ideas and information.

In enacting the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Congress effectively balanced the public interest in free expression with the rights of copyright holders. The court today reaffirmed an established judicial consensus that the DMCA protects web platforms like YouTube that work with rightsholders and take appropriate steps to remove user-generated content that rightsholders notify them is infringing.

The growing YouTube community includes not only a billion individual users, but tens of thousands of partners who earn revenue from the platform -- from independent musicians and creators to some of the world’s biggest record labels, movie studios, and news organizations. Today’s decision recognizes YouTube as a thriving and vibrant forum for all these users, creators and consumers alike. Today is an important day for the Internet.

We’re simplifying earnings reporting for YouTube partners

Inside AdSense Team — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:00:00 +0000

One of the most exciting things about YouTube is all the partners building businesses around doing what they love. We now have thousands of partners who are making video creation a full-time endeavor. And, we’re listening to feedback and working to improve the process of earning money on YouTube.

So, in an effort to ensure we deliver our partners the most accurate and consistent financial performance data for their videos, we are making some changes in how YouTube interacts with AdSense. Starting April 1, 2013, AdSense will no longer calculate and report AdSense for Content Host earnings for YouTube partners. Instead, AdSense earnings from YouTube videos will only be calculated by YouTube and displayed in YouTube Analytics.

What does this mean for you as a YouTube partner?
First, expect no change in how you are paid. The payments tab in AdSense will show your monthly YouTube payments as one total amount as you will continue to be paid via AdSense. Rather, this change means that if you want to view your YouTube financial performance, you should go to YouTube Analytics where you can continue to find a comprehensive view of all your sources of earnings for your YouTube videos. YouTube Analytics has improved the timeliness of earnings reporting to within 24 hours after the end of the day, Pacific Time. You can still view page views and clicks and also manage ad blocking in the AdSense interface for your YouTube videos. If you use other AdSense products, their calculation and reports will be unchanged in the AdSense reporting interface.

Have you ever wondered what the difference between AdSense earnings and YouTube earnings was? As a bit of background, many YouTube partners have ad earnings from two sources: auction-sold ads (AdSense earnings) and reserve-sold ads (YouTube earnings). YouTube serves the optimal ads when a viewer watches the video. Previously, AdSense calculated and reported the auction-sold AdSense earnings. YouTube calculated reserve-sold and miscellaneous earnings and reported both AdSense and YouTube earnings. Now, having only the YouTube system calculate all your earnings will simplify and streamline your video reporting.

We take accurate financial calculation and reporting very seriously, and believe this change will reduce reporting confusion and prepare all our partners for new ways to grow their earnings.

Andy Stack, YouTube Product Manager
Was this blog post useful? Share your feedback with us.

Cool YouTube apps from Google I/O 2012

Jeremy W — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:17:00 +0000

We're constantly amazed at the innovative ways that developers incorporate YouTube into their applications. At Google I/O this year, 12 partners (over 30% from outside the U.S.) demonstrated their apps in the YouTube section of the Developer Sandbox, a demo area highlighting applications based on technologies and products featured at I/O.

Google's own Daniel Sieberg, an Emmy-nominated journalist, interviewed some of our partners about their use of the YouTube APIs.

With Daniel’s hectic schedule, he only had time to interview a handful of our great partners. With that in mind, we highlighted all the awesome apps showcased by our partners at the YouTube API Developer Sandbox.

Business.me (YouTube Data API and YouTube Player API)

Overview	Business.me, headquartered in Singapore, is the place to share and discover videos about business. They have created a video-sharing site to help producers of business videos reach their audience. The site also helps business professionals discover relevant business information in video format.
Fun Fact	Oscar Moreno, CEO, not only holds Business and Law degrees, he helped launch several startups (Business.me, Netjuice, Keldoo, and Tuenti).

Code Hero (YouTube Data API)

Overview	Code Hero teaches you to code through a fun, 3D game. Become a code hero and shape the future!
Fun Fact	The Code Hero Team implemented the recording mechanism in the game that exports to YouTube at a 3 day hackathon! Bonus: The game has sharks with lasers attached to their heads!

Flipboard (YouTube Data API and YouTube Player API)

Overview	See everything on Flipboard, all your news and life’s great moments in one place. Using the YouTube Data API, Flipboard lets users discover, rate, share, and comment on top videos from YouTube. In addition, users can access their own videos and subscriptions, and subscribe to other YouTube users.
Fun Fact	Flipboard launched an Android app one week before I/O with a YouTube and Google+ integration!

LOOT Entertainment by Sony DADC (YouTube Data API)
Overview Gather your friends and set up your own production crew inside PlayStation®Home! What will you be? Director? Actor? Cinematographer? Extra? Try them all! Check out the amazing Machinima tools to help you record, light and build your film or television sets! What will you make?
Fun Fact LOOT gives you tons of sets to make your own movies (machinima) on the PS3, including a Ghostbusters Firehouse Stage Set!

Moviecom.tv (YouTube Data API and YouTube Player API)
Overview A simple and easy online video platform for businesses. Record, centralize and share instantly. Moviecom.tv also allows you to link directly to your YouTube account through the YouTube APIs.
Fun Fact The founders flew all the way from Glasgow to attend Google I/O!

Parrot (YouTube Data API and YouTube Player API)
Overview The Parrot AR.Drone is a quadricopter that can be controlled by a smartphone or tablet. Get more out of your AR.Drone with the AR.Drone Academy. Keep track of all your flights on the Academy map. Watch your best videos with added statistical feedback and directly share online with pilots from all over the world!
Fun Fact Parrot makes remote controlled flying devices that can record and track their flights!

PicoTube - Vettl, Inc. (YouTube Data API and YouTube Player API)
Overview Picotube uses content from YouTube and allows users to create avatars, watch clips together, create playlists, and rate videos selected by other video jockeys.
Fun Fact Picotube was the Grand Prix winner of TechCrunch Tokyo 2011!

Skimble (YouTube Data API and YouTube Player API, and new Android Player API)
Overview Here to power the mobile fitness movement, Skimble offers fun, dynamic and social applications for everyone. Available now are Skimble's Workout Trainer and GPS Sports Tracker apps that help motivate people to get and stay active. Skimble uses the YouTube Player API to display fitness videos.
Fun Fact Co-founder Maria Ly got the crowd moving at one of YouTube’s Google I/O Sessions!

Squrl (YouTube Data API and YouTube Player API)
Overview Squrl is a great place to watch and discover video. Know what videos are trending, receive recommendations on what to watch and see what your friends are watching.
Fun Fact Co-founders Mark Gray and Michael Hoydich also founded the successful software development company IndustryNext together in 2004!

Telestream (YouTube Data API and YouTube Player API)
Overview Telestream demonstrated Wirecast for YouTube, a live video production and streaming product, which was developed specifically for Google YouTube partners. Telestream specializes in products that make it possible to get video content to any audience regardless of how the content is created, distributed or viewed (entire process).
Fun Fact Telestream’s NASCAR Project won the IBC2012 Innovation Award!

Vidcaster (YouTube Data API and YouTube Player API)
Overview VidCaster is a video site creation platform that allows you to create a video portal instantly from your existing video library on YouTube or other video hosts. Choose from a beautiful set of designer themes and customize to your heart's content using VidCaster's powerful template language.
Fun Fact Kieran Farr, CEO and co-founder, used to drive a taxi full-time in San Francisco before becoming a successful entrepreneur!

WeVideo (YouTube Data API)
Overview WeVideo is a cloud-based video editing suite that allows easy, full-featured, collaborative HD video editing across Google Drive, Chromebooks, and Android devices.
Fun Fact WeVideo partnered with Marvel and YouTube to allow fans to create their own trailers!

YouTube Channels: Get with the Program!

Jeremy W — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 19:57:00 +0000

It's never been easier to create compelling videos and build a social presence on YouTube. At this year's Google I/O, YouTube product managers and channel gurus Dror and A.J. presented tips and tricks for making great content centered around raising brand awareness, raising money, and obtaining feedback about your products and services.

Don't worry if you missed their talk, we recorded it! So, sit back, grab some popcorn, and get ready to learn how to showcase your brand in front of YouTube's 800 million unique visitors per month!

Click here to view the slides from the video above.

Not sold yet? Well, have a sneak peek at some of the great material they cover below, and remember Dror and A.J.’s number one recommendation: make content, not commercials!

Sneak Peek

Tips and Tricks

Hook the user in the first 15 seconds (or they'll leave)
Brand your channel!
Make the most of your budget

Review YouTube’s Trends for ideas
Camera shy? Consider animation. (It might actually be cheaper than video.)
Several successful channels focus on curating videos from their community
Enhance your videos without fancy software/hardware using the YouTube Editor or other integrated web editors

Many, many more...

What's your goal?

Raising awareness

Master your PR via video (include all your features and make bloggers’ lives easier)
Provide product/service demo videos to promote your company
Tell backstories about clients using your products/services

Raising money

Add video to your crowdfunding pitch to increase funds raised by 114% (source: Indiegogo)

Researching and supporting users

Record tutorials to promote and educate (see which features are the most popular using YouTube’s Analytics... you might be surprised)
Use Google Hangouts for scalable office hours and virtual focus groups
Figure out what features customers like/dislike via the world’s largest focus group

Resources to learn more

Creator Hub
Creator Playbook (what you wish you knew about YouTube)
Trends Dashboard
YouTube for Developers (that’s us)

Wow, you made it this far without watching the video? Did we tell you they fill the presentation with awesome videos that showcase their points (including Chuck Testa)? Nope!? Well, now you know, and you will definitely want to watch the whole thing!

-Jeremy Walker, YouTube API Team

Learn with Google Webinar: Great Content Discovery on YouTube

Allison Sommer — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 16:07:00 +0000

What great content does YouTube have to offer? How can you easily find it? Please join us for this installment of the Just Add YouTube webinar series. We will share the masses of quality content YouTube has and will show how you can advertise against it. Hosted by the UK Webinar team, but anyone can register!

See the upcoming webinars, as well as previous recordings, at google.co.uk/ads/webinars

Register Now!

What: Learn with Google Webinar: Great Content Discovery on YouTube
When: Tuesday July 31st, 3PM GMT (UK time)

Posted by Allison Sommer, Google Ads Team

New Challenges in Computer Science Research

Unknown — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 22:43:00 +0000

Posted by Jeff Walz, Head of University Relations

Yesterday afternoon at the 2012 Computer Science Faculty Summit, there was a round of lightning talks addressing some of the research problems faced by Google across several domains. The talks pointed out some of the biggest challenges emerging from increasing digital interaction, which is this year’s Faculty Summit theme.

Research Scientist Vivek Kwatra kicked things off with a talk about video stabilization on YouTube. The popularity of mobile devices with cameras has led to an explosion in the amount of video people capture, which can often be shaky. Vivek and his team have found algorithmic approaches to make casual videos look more professional by simulating professional camera moves. Their stabilization technology vastly improves the quality of amateur footage.

Next, Ed Chi (Research Scientist) talked about social media focusing on the experimental circle model that characterizes Google+. Ed is particularly interested in how social interaction on the web can be designed to mimic live communication. Circles on Google+ allow a user to manage their audience and share content in a targeted fashion, which reflects face-to-face interaction. Ed discussed how, from an HCI perspective, the challenge going forward is the need to consider the trinity of social media: context, audience, content.

John Wilkes, Principal Software Engineer, talked about cluster management at Google and the challenges of building a new cluster manager-- that is, an operating system for a fleet of machines. Everything at Google is big and a consequence of operating at such tremendous scale is that machines are bound to fail. John’s team is working to make things easier for internal users enabling our ability to respond to more system requests. There are several hard problems in this domain, such as issues with configuration, making it as easy as possible to run a binary, increasing failure tolerance, and helping internal users understand their own needs as well as the behavior and performance of their system in our complicated distributed environment.

Research Scientist and coffee connoisseur Alon Halevy took to the podium to confirm that he did indeed author an empirical book on coffee, and also talked with attendees about structured data on the web. Structured data is comprised of hundreds of millions of (relatively small) tables of data, and Alon’s work is focused on enabling data enthusiasts to discover and visualize those data sets. Great possibilities open up when people start combining data sets in meaningful ways, which inspired the creation of Fusion Tables. An example is a map made in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, that shows natural disaster data alongside the locations of the world’s nuclear plants. Moving forward, Alon’s team will continue to think about interesting things that can be done with data, and the techniques needed to distinguish good data from bad data.

To wrap up the session, Praveen Paritosh did a brief, but deep dive into the Knowledge Graph, an intelligent model that understands real-world entities and their relationships to one another-- things, not strings-- which launched earlier this year.

The Google Faculty Summit continued today with more talks, and breakout sessions centered on our theme of digital interaction. Check back for additional blog posts in the coming days.

Learn with Google Webinar: VOD on YouTube

Allison Sommer — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 19:29:00 +0000

78% of online video viewing in the UK is on YouTube, which makes it an excellent platform for VOD. But what are the best ways to maximize it and make it work for your business?

We will cover how to run your TV ad on YouTube in two easy ways - running it on YouTube Homepage to deliver incremental reach and using TrueView InStream formats to deliver scale and engagement. We will also explain how to effectively add YouTube to your TV schedule. This webinar is specifically designed for a TV savvy audience who values the importance of reach and frequency to ensure maximum impact of VOD campaigns.

You can also view the upcoming webinars, as well as previous recordings, on google.co.uk/ads/webinars

We hope you can join us!

Register Now
https://googleemea.connectsolutions.com/vodonyoutube/event/registration.html

What	Learn with Google Webinar: VOD on YouTube

Where

Tuesday 17th July, 3 pm GMT

Posted by Allison Sommer

Build awesome YouTube experiences with new APIs and tools

Amanda Surya — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 21:13:00 +0000

When we introduced the first YouTube API in 2005, we knew that it would be developers who would help us grow YouTube as a platform for connecting the world through video. At this year’s Google I/O, we’re continuing on with that mission through an entire track dedicated to YouTube, where we’re announcing new APIs and developer tools, as
well as a showcase of some of the most innovative apps built with YouTube.

Make mobile video shine
With mobile video now making up as much as half of all mobile traffic, your mobile experience needs video that’s high quality, fast and sleek. We want to give you the best tools to build these experiences, so we’re previewing the new YouTube Android Player API for high-quality and fluid video playback.

Engage with your communities through video
The next generation of YouTube Direct allows you to engage with your community by having them submit videos which you can then feature in playlists. YouTube Direct Lite is implemented in client-side JavaScript using CORS, and does not require any server-side deployments—adding it to your site is as simple as adding an

MMMmmm...data!Retrieving analytics data for your videos used to mean downloading an archive of CSV files that you then had to process. Now, you can use our new YouTube Analytics API to build custom tools for your data. It's a RESTful web service that gives you the freedom to request customized reports containing only the data you care about. We’re also giving the YouTube Data API a facelift with new features like universal search and updated client libraries in 8 different languages.

Play, watch and learn from developers like you at Google I/O

We’ll be talking about these new features and other developer tools at Google I/O this week, so check out our sessions and codelabs, download the official Google I/O app, and follow online at developers.google.com/io. At I/O you can also visit with Developer Sandbox companies like Flipboard, Dude Perfect and SONY PlayStation @ Home who are building awesome experiences with YouTube APIs. We’ll also share our sessions on the Google Developers YouTube Channel, and you can always find us on Google+ and our developer forum.

Cheers,
—Amanda Surya, YouTube API Team

Video Stabilization on YouTube

Research @ Google — Fri, 04 May 2012 20:44:00 +0000

Posted by Matthias Grundmann, Vivek Kwatra, and Irfan Essa, Research at Google

One thing we have been working on within Research at Google is developing methods for making casual videos look more professional, thereby providing users with a better viewing experience. Professional videos have several characteristics that differentiate them from casually shot videos. For example, in order to tell a story, cinematographers carefully control lighting and exposure and use specialized equipment to plan camera movement.

We have developed a technique that mimics professional camera moves and applies them to videos recorded by hand-held devices. Cinematographers use specialized equipment such as tripods and dollies to plan their camera paths and hold them steady. In contrast, think of a video you shot using a mobile phone camera. How steady was your hand and were you able to anticipate an interesting moment and smoothly pan the camera to capture that moment? To bridge these differences, we propose an algorithm that automatically determines the best camera path and recasts the video as if it were filmed using stabilization equipment. Specifically, we divide the original, shaky camera path into a set of segments, each approximated by either a constant, linear or parabolic motion of the camera. Our optimization finds the best of all possible partitions using a computationally efficient and stable algorithm. For details, check out our earlier blog post or read our paper, Auto-Directed Video Stabilization with Robust L1 Optimal Camera Paths, published in IEEE CVPR 2011.

The next time you upload your videos to YouTube, try stabilizing them by going to the YouTube editor or directly from the video manager by clicking on Edit->Enhancements. For even more convenience, YouTube will automatically detect if your video needs stabilization and offer to do it for you. Many videos on YouTube have already been enhanced using this technology.

More recently, we have been working on a related problem common in videos shot from mobile phones. The camera sensors in these phones contain what is known as an electronic rolling shutter. When taking a picture with a rolling shutter camera, the image is not captured instantaneously. Instead, the camera captures the image one row of pixels at a time, with a small delay when going from one row to the next. Consequently, if the camera moves during capture, it will cause image distortions ranging from shear in the case of low-frequency motions (for instance an image captured from a driving car) to wobbly distortions in the case of high-frequency perturbations (think of a person walking while recording video). These distortions are especially noticeable in videos where the camera shake is independent across frames. For example, take a look at the video below.

Original video with rolling shutter distortions

In our recent paper titled Calibration-Free Rolling Shutter Removal, which was awarded the best paper at IEEE ICCP 2012, we demonstrate a solution to correct these rolling shutter distortions in videos. A significant feature of our approach is that it does not require any knowledge of the camera used to shoot the video. The time delay in capturing two consecutive rows that we mention above is in fact different for every camera and affects the extent of distortions. Having knowledge of this delay parameter can be useful, but difficult to obtain or estimate via calibration. Imagine a video that is already uploaded to YouTube -- it will be challenging to obtain this parameter! Instead, we show that just the visual data in the video has enough information to appropriately describe and compensate for the distortions caused by the camera motion, even in the presence of a rolling shutter. For more information, see the narrated video description of our paper.

This technique is already integrated with the YouTube stabilizer. Starting today, if you stabilize a video from a mobile phone or other rolling shutter cameras, we will also automatically compensate for rolling shutter distortions. To see our technique in action, check out the video below, obtained after applying rolling shutter compensation and stabilization to the one above.

After stabilization and rolling shutter removal

Gamification for Improved Search Ranking for YouTube Topics

Research @ Google — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 22:00:00 +0000

Posted by Charles DuHadway and Sanketh Shetty, Google Research

In earlier posts we discussed automatic ways to find the most talented emerging singers and the funniest videos using the YouTube Slam experiment. We created five “house” slams -- music, dance, comedy, bizarre, and cute -- which produce a weekly leaderboard not just of videos but also of YouTubers who are great at predicting what the masses will like. For example, last week’s cute slam winning video claims to be the cutest kitten in the world, beating out four other kittens, two puppies, three toddlers and an amazing duck who feeds the fish. With a whopping 620 slam points, YouTube user emoatali99 was our best connoisseur of cute this week. On the music side, it is no surprise that many of music slam’s top 10 videos were Adele covers. A Whitney Houston cover came out at the top this week, and music slam’s resident expert on talent had more than a thousand slam points. Well done! Check out the rest of the leaderboards for cute slam and music slam.

Can slam-style game mechanics incentivize our users to help improve the ranking of videos -- not just for these five house slams -- but for millions of other search queries and topics on YouTube? Gamification has previously been used to incentivize users to participate in non-game tasks such as image labeling and music tagging. How many votes and voters would we need for slam to do better than the existing ranking algorithm for topic search on YouTube?

As an experiment, we created new slams for a small number of YouTube topics (such as Latte Art Slam and Speed Painting Slam) using existing top 20 videos for these topics as the candidate pool. As we accumulated user votes, we evaluated the resulting YouTube Slam leaderboard for that topic vs the existing ranking on youtube.com/topics (baseline). Note that both the slam leaderboard and the baseline had the same set of videos, just in a different order.

What did we discover? It was no surprise that slam ranking performance had a high variance in the beginning and gradually improved as votes accumulated. We are happy to report that four of five topic slams converged within 1000 votes with a better leaderboard ranking than the existing YouTube topic search. In spite of small number of voters, Slam achieves better ranking partly because of gamification incentives and partly because it is based on machine learning, using:

Preference judgement over a pair, not absolute judgement on a single video, and,

Active solicitation of user opinion as opposed to passive observation. Due to what is called a “cold start” problem in data modeling, conventional (passive observation) techniques don’t work well on new items with little prior information. For any given topic, Slam’s improvement over the baseline in ranking of the “recent 20” set of videos was in fact better than the improvement in ranking of the “top 20” set.

Demographics and interests of the voters do affect slam leaderboard ranking, especially when the voter pool is small. An example is a Romantic Proposals Slam we featured on Valentine’s day last month. Men thought this proposal during a Kansas City Royals game was the most romantic, although this one where the man pretends to fall off a building came close. On the other hand, women rated this meme proposal in a restaurant as the best, followed by this movie theater proposal.

Encouraged by these results, we will soon be exploring slams for a few thousand topics to evaluate the utility of gamification techniques to YouTube topic search. Here are some of them: Chocolate Brownie, Paper Plane, Bush Flying, Stealth Technology, Stencil Graffiti, Yosemite National Park, and Stealth Technology.

Have fun slamming!

Quantifying comedy on YouTube: why the number of o’s in your LOL matter

Research @ Google — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:30:00 +0000

Posted by Sanketh Shetty, YouTube Slam Team, Google Research

In a previous post, we talked about quantification of musical talent using machine learning on acoustic features for YouTube Music Slam. We wondered if we could do the same for funny videos, i.e. answer questions such as: is a video funny, how funny do viewers think it is, and why is it funny? We noticed a few audiovisual patterns across comedy videos on YouTube, such as shaky camera motion or audible laughter, which we can automatically detect. While content-based features worked well for music, identifying humor based on just such features is AI-Complete. Humor preference is subjective, perhaps even more so than musical taste.

Fortunately, at YouTube, we have more to work with. We focused on videos uploaded in the comedy category. We captured the uploader’s belief in the funniness of their video via features based on title, description and tags. Viewers’ reactions, in the form of comments, further validate a video’s comedic value. To this end we computed more text features based on words associated with amusement in comments. These included (a) sounds associated with laughter such as hahaha, with culture-dependent variants such as hehehe, jajaja, kekeke, (b) web acronyms such as lol, lmao, rofl, (c) funny and synonyms of funny, and (d) emoticons such as :), ;-), xP. We then trained classifiers to identify funny videos and then tell us why they are funny by categorizing them into genres such as “funny pets”, “spoofs or parodies”, “standup”, “pranks”, and “funny commercials”.

Next we needed an algorithm to rank these funny videos by comedic potential, e.g. is “Charlie bit my finger” funnier than “David after dentist”? Raw viewcount on its own is insufficient as a ranking metric since it is biased by video age and exposure. We noticed that viewers emphasize their reaction to funny videos in several ways: e.g. capitalization (LOL), elongation (loooooool), repetition (lolololol), exclamation (lolllll!!!!!), and combinations thereof. If a user uses an “loooooool” vs an “loool”, does it mean they were more amused? We designed features to quantify the degree of emphasis on words associated with amusement in viewer comments. We then trained a passive-aggressive ranking algorithm using human-annotated pairwise ground truth and a combination of text and audiovisual features. Similar to Music Slam, we used this ranker to populate candidates for human voting for our Comedy Slam.

So far, more than 75,000 people have cast more than 700,000 votes, making comedy our most popular slam category. Give it a try!

Further reading:

“Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis,” by Bo Pang and Lillian Lee.
“A Great Catchy Name: Semi-Supervised Recognition of Sarcastic Sentences in Online Product Reviews,” by Oren Tsur, Dmitry Davidov, and Ari Rappoport.
“That’s What She Said: Double Entendre Identiﬁcation,” by Chloe Kiddon and Yuriy Brun.

Opening up a world of educational content with YouTube for Schools

Google Students — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 04:47:00 +0000

Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog

When I was in school during the 90s, watching videos in the classroom was a highlight of any week. The teacher would roll in a television on a cart, pop in a VHS tape, and then we’d enjoy whatever scratchy science video my teacher had checked out from the school video library that week. Sight, sound and motion have always had the power to engage students and complement classroom instruction by bringing educational topics to life.

We’ve been hearing from teachers that they want to use the vast array of educational videos on YouTube in their classrooms, but are concerned that students will be distracted by the latest music video or cute cat, or a video that wasn’t appropriate for students. While schools that restrict access to YouTube may solve this distraction concern, they also limit access to hundreds of thousands of educational videos on YouTube that could help bring photosynthesis to life, or show what life was like in ancient Greece.

To address this issue, we’ve developed YouTube for Schools, a network setting that school administrators can turn on to grant access only to the educational content from YouTube EDU. Teachers can choose from the hundreds of thousands of videos on YouTube EDU created by more than 600 partners like the Smithsonian, TED, Steve Spangler Science, and Numberphile.

We know how busy teachers are, and that searching through thousands of videos sounds like a daunting visit to the world’s largest library, so we’ve also worked with teachers to put together more than 300 playlists broken out by subject -- Math, Science, Social Studies, and English Language Arts -- and by grade level. Teachers can find them listed out at youtube.com/teachers. Of course, this list wouldn’t be complete without your input -- teachers, what videos do you use in your classroom? Suggest your own education playlist here.

YouTube for Schools is just the latest initiative in our ongoing attempts to make YouTube a truly valuable educational resource, and to inspire learners around the world with programs like YouTube Space Lab. So how do you get started? To join YouTube for Schools or learn more about the program, head on over to www.youtube.com/schools.

Brian Truong, Product Manager, recently watched “The Challenges of Getting to Mars: Transporting a Mars Rover.”

YouTube and TV: better together

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 18:37:00 +0000

Each day, people watch more than 3 billion videos on YouTube - the equivalent of every American watching about 9 videos a day. U.S. online consumers now spend as much time online as they spend watching TV. With the consumer shift to online media consumption, many of our advertisers wonder how online video ads measure against traditional TV ads. Do traditional and new media ads complement each other? Which format drives recall most effectively?

To get answers, we partnered with Ipsos to measure the relative and combined effects of YouTube in-stream ads and TV ads on ad recall and brand metrics across six advertiser campaigns.

After conducting tests of 15- and 30-second spots on YouTube pre-roll instream ads and TV ads, the results revealed that YouTube and TV ads work better together. People who watched both YouTube and TV ads showed a 2X increase in brand recall than people who only saw TV ads. Those that only watched a YouTube ad had a brand recall rate 1.5X those who only watched a TV ad.

Hotels.com, one of the advertisers that participated in the study, uses YouTube video ads to drive incremental reach for TV campaigns. "Our customers are online today, so it only makes sense for e-commerce brands like Hotels.com to find entertaining and engaging online formats to interact with our audience," says Vic Walia, senior director of brand marketing for Hotels.com. "YouTube video ads is a great distribution vehicle for us to efficiently maximize our reach, but the fact that is has the added impact of improving our overall ad recall metrics is a tremendous win."

This study comes on the heels of our multi-screen research, which found that brand recall jumps dramatically for consumers shown ads across all screens - TV, PC, smartphone and tablet devices. As more people consume media across multiple devices, having a multi-channel campaign strategy helps reach consumers at different points throughout the day.

To learn more about our study, download the infographic and slides from Think Insights or check out our video. And, when planning your media buys, consider using a combination of YouTube ads and TV ads to help you achieve higher ad recall than TV ads alone. You can find out more information about YouTube video ads here.

Posted by Lizzy Van Alstine & Christina Park, Google Research and Marketing

More ways to reach your audience with YouTube mobile ads

Inside AdWords crew — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 20:00:00 +0000

There’s no debate that the world is going mobile. Mobile web searches have grown five times over the past two years. YouTube mobile now gets more than 400 million views a day, representing 13 percent of our total daily views.

For advertisers, this opens up more opportunities to reach customers. And in some cases, it can amplify existing campaigns. In a recent study conducted with Nielsen research, we found that promotions perform better together when displayed across multiple screens. In fact, brand recall jumps dramatically to 74 percent for people who saw ads across TV, PC, smartphone and tablets, up from 50 percent for those who saw ads only on TV.

Here are a few ways you can extend your mobile reach with YouTube:

YouTube’s Promoted Video ads on mobile

Do you use Promoted Video ads to reach viewers searching for relevant products and potential customers browsing videos on YouTube.com? You can also use Promoted Videos to reach viewers on the go. Promoted Videos are featured at the top of the video search results on m.youtube.com, YouTube’s mobile platform.

Advertisers pay only when the viewer chooses to watch the video, and all mobile and desktop view counts are summarized into one complete view count on your channel page. Mobile Promoted Video ads are auction-based campaigns that can be managed in your Google AdWords account. All Google AdWords campaigns are opted into “all devices” by default, but creating separate mobile campaigns helps optimize your mobile advertising efforts and the performance of your brand channel.

A Promoted Video ad on m.youtube.com includes an ad thumbnail, title and channel name; similar to the organic video results.

Promoted Video ads have recently joined YouTube’s family of TrueView ad formats. Soon, your Promoted Video ads will become TrueView in-search ads and TrueView in-display ads. TrueView in-search ads show up in display ad units against search results on YouTube, whereas TrueView in-display ads show up in display ad units against suggested videos on YouTube and across website content on the Google Display Network. These TrueView video ads can be set up and managed in any Google AdWords for video account and purchased on a cost-per-view basis.

YouTube mobile in-stream ads

YouTube mobile in-stream ads are 15-second pre-roll ads that appear before the video begins to play. Similar to your desktop experience, mobile in-stream ads may show before videos produced by YouTube partners. In addition to the Android YouTube app, in-stream ads are also available to viewers accessing m.youtube.com from their iPhone.

You can optimize your mobile in-stream ads to reach specific audiences, locations and content. In-stream ads are priced on a CPM basis and can be arranged via ad reservation through your Google sales representative.

Animal Planet used mobile in-stream ads to promote the new season of River Monsters.

YouTube mobile roadblocks

YouTube Mobile roadblocks give brands 100% share of voice on the YouTube home, browse and search pages on m.youtube.com. According to recent Nielsen data, these roadblocks add 17 percent incremental impressions for advertisers.

adidas used mobile roadblocks to complement their homepage masthead ad. Using multiple mobile tactics in addition to roadblocks, channel views jumped 26x over the span of their “adidas is all in” brand campaign.

Mobile brand channels extend your online presence

Many advertisers use banners, background images and gadgets to customize their YouTube brand channels. Extend your brand presence to mobile users by creating a customized mobile brand channel. Accessed through m.youtube.com, mobile channels offer the same high level of customization, including the use of gadgets. You can drive traffic to your YouTube mobile brand channel by running ads on the AdMob network or on m.youtube.com.

YouTube’s AdBlitz brand channel features custom-designed elements which engage our growing mobile audience.

For more information about YouTube mobile ads, connect with your Google sales representative or visit www.youtube.com/advertise/mobile.html.

Posted by Nicky Crane, Product Manager

Discovering Talented Musicians with Acoustic Analysis

Research Admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Posted by Charles DuHadway, YouTube Slam Team, Google Research

In an earlier post we talked about the technology behind Instant Mix for Music Beta by Google. Instant Mix uses machine hearing to characterize music attributes such as its timbre, mood and tempo. Today we would like to talk about acoustic and visual analysis -- this time on YouTube. A fundamental part of YouTube's mission is to allow anyone anywhere to showcase their talents -- occasionally leading to life-changing success -- but many talented performers are never discovered. Part of the problem is the sheer volume of videos: forty eight hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute (that’s eight years of content every day). We wondered if we could use acoustic analysis and machine learning to pore over these videos and automatically identify talented musicians.

First we analyzed audio and visual features of videos being uploaded. We wanted to find “singing at home” videos -- often correlated with features such as ambient indoor lighting, head-and-shoulders view of a person singing in front of a fixed camera, few instruments and often a single dominant voice. Here’s a sample set of videos we found.

Then we estimated the quality of singing in each video. Our approach is based on acoustic analysis similar to that used by Instant Mix, coupled with a small set of singing quality annotations from human raters. Given these data we used machine learning to build a ranker that predicts if an average listener would like a performance.

While machines are useful for weeding through thousands of not-so-great videos to find potential stars, we know they alone can't pick the next great star. So we turn to YouTube users to help us identify the real hidden gems by playing a voting game called YouTube Slam. We're putting an equal amount of effort into the game itself -- how do people vote? What makes it fun? How do we know when we have a true hit? We're looking forward to your feedback to help us refine this process: give it a try*. You can also check out singer and voter leaderboards. Toggle “All time” to “Last week” to find emerging talent in fresh videos or all-time favorites.

Our “Music Slam” has only been running for a few weeks and we have already found some very talented musicians. Many of the videos have less than 100 views when we find them.

And while we're excited about what we've done with music, there's as much undiscovered potential in almost any subject you can think of. Try our other slams: cute, bizarre, comedy, and dance*. Enjoy!

Related work by Google Researchers:
“Video2Text: Learning to Annotate Video Content”, Hrishikesh Aradhye, George Toderici, Jay Yagnik, ICDM Workshop on Internet Multimedia Mining, 2009.

* Music and dance slams are currently available only in the US.

Meet the family: TrueView video ads deliver on cost-per-view pricing model

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:15:00 +0000

If you use TrueView video ads or interested in video advertising, we invite you to check out the Agency blog where we just posted some news and recent stats on this new suite of cost-per-view video ads. To learn more about the TrueView family of ad formats, visit the website here.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Studying with YouTube and Google+

Google Students — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 23:55:00 +0000

Introduction: Taylor is a Google Student Ambassador at Boise State University. He is currently pursuing a double major in Communication and Computer Science, and loves exploring new study methods, one of which he shares with you here.

Fall is in full swing, and for many students (like me), that means midterms. Luckily for us, Google provides tools that make studying a breeze!

One subject I spend lots of time studying is math. Sometimes it’s hard to catch everything in class, so I started looking up each topic we cover on YouTube. Being able to see lots of different people explain how different problems are solved really helps me understand the material. In order to keep track of the videos that help me the most, I create playlists that correspond to the chapters in our textbook. With the midterm coming up, I merged each video in my playlists into one mega midterm playlist. When I study now, I shuffle the playlist, pause the video to work out the problem, then hit play to see the process used to solve. After the video is done, another topic is chosen randomly, and I repeat the process!

To take this study technique to the next level, I organized a Hangout on Google+ with friends from math class. In order to make sure I would stay on task, I made a Circle for my math class friends, and set my availability to hang out to just them. We weren’t all on at the same time, but that’s what’s cool about Hangouts-- people can mingle, just like at school. Being able to watch YouTube videos together and talk about our interpretations of problem solving processes along with that of the video’s creator was awesome (and it will be even better when we aren’t working on homework!). I’m looking forward to trying out Hangouts with Extras when we move into more topics that have to do with graphing. Having a shared sketchpad with a full revision history will be a great study tool!

Being able to use Google+ Hangouts instead of making time to head to campus is awesome! I can’t wait to see how this will change the face of online classes and office hours, as well as providing more ways to interact with fellow students!

Posted by Taylor Bell, Google Student Ambassador, Boise State University

YouTube’s Promoted Videos hits one billion video views

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:01:00 +0000

YouTube’s Promoted Videos recently passed the one billion mark in the number of video views delivered to advertisers. Promoted Videos allow you to promote your video against search results on YouTube, against related videos on YouTube, or across the Google Display Network. Promoted Videos help you bring your business to life—letting your customers see you, hear you, and connect with you online.

You can set up Promoted Video campaigns using your Google AdWords account. Similar to pay-per-click search ads, with Promoted Videos you can specify how much you would be willing to pay for a video view and set a maximum budget. Thousands of advertisers have promoted their videos against branded keywords and against videos that their customers are watching to increase brand awareness and drive sales.

We would like to highlight a few changes to Promoted Videos:

Placement on Google Video search results. We're expanding Promoted Video ads to show up on the Google.com Video search results page in the US only. This change gives you more opportunity to connect with potential viewers when they're actively seeking out video content. If you also have search ads set up in your account, we'll serve either your Promoted Video ad or your Google AdWords search ad, not both, based on a range of factors including your bid and Quality Score. To make sure you can take advantage of this increase in your potential audience, please opt into "Search partners" in your campaign.

(click for full-size image)

When users enter your search terms (A) on video.google.com (B), they could see your Promoted Video ad above or to the right (C) of the organic search results (D).

Introduction on YouTube Mobile. Soon, your Promoted Video ads will be able to show up on our mobile destination, m.youtube.com, which can be easily viewed on web browsers across any mobile and tablet devices. New Google AdWords campaigns are opted into "All devices" by default, but you can opt your ads out of showing on mobile devices by navigating to "Settings" on the Campaigns tab. For existing campaigns, you may wish to verify that your device settings include or exclude mobile.

(click for full-size image)

The mobile Promoted Video ad on m.youtube.com will include your ad thumbnail, title, and channel name, similar to organic video results.

Inclusion in TrueView video ads. We recently moved Promoted Videos from a cost-per-click to cost-per-view pricing model, focusing on the value of video views. In the coming months, Promoted Videos will join our TrueView family of ad formats, which provide viewers with choice and advertisers with engaged, opted-in views. Stay tuned for more updates!

We hope these changes give you more and better resources to grow your business with online video ads.

Posted by Jonathan Goldman, YouTube Software Engineer

Animal Planet leverages rich media and video advertising across platforms to engage viewers for River Monsters premiere

Inside AdWords crew — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 18:59:00 +0000

Mobile, video and rich media advertising are changing the way that businesses capture user attention by bringing together the power of sight, sound, and motion to engage audiences like never before. For example, to build awareness for the new season of their popular River Monsters series, Animal Planet, the "Surprisingly Human" TV network, launched an integrated media campaign across platforms to bring the show to life with the broadest audience possible - driving more than 900k YouTube video views in the weeks leading up to the premiere.

The River Monsters campaign ran across both the YouTube and AdMob networks, delivering users a sneak peak of the upcoming season whether they were on their desktop computers or their mobile phones. Rich media display ads on YouTube enabled the star of the show to pop out of the YouTube Channel to introduce new creatures to potential viewers, while video advertising offered a glimpse at upcoming episodes of the new season.

On the YouTube desktop website, users were able to interact with the River Monsters whether they were searching for their favorite video, watching partner content, or browsing the homepage. Ads led visitors to a custom mimicry gadget on the Animal Planet Brand Channel, where the host of the show jumped out of the ad to highlight the most exciting portions of the featured video.

(click for full size image)

In-Stream Ads on YouTube are also available in the YouTube Android app, enabling Animal Planet to extend this engagement opportunity to mobile users. Including Interactive Video Ads on the AdMob network further expanded the mobile campaign, giving users the opportunity to watch a preview of the River Monsters show, share the video through social media, learn more on the show’s mobile website, and watch additional videos - all from within the mobile ad.

(click for full size image)

To stir up even more excitement on the day of the premiere, a Rich Media Masthead on the YouTube homepage revealed clips from the upcoming episode and reminded users to tune in.

(click for full size image)

The River Monsters campaign was hugely successful:

YouTube advertising generated more than 930,000 video views on the River Monster clips
Nearly 2,000 users subscribed to the River Monsters Brand Channel
Mobile In-Stream Overlay Ads received more than 3 million impressions, with 84% of mobile users completing the video
Interactive Video Ads on AdMob generated another 6 million impressions, with 75,000 users engaging with one of the interactive elements in the ad creative

The combination of compelling rich media and video advertising on both desktop and mobile created an engaging experience that increased social buzz around the show and led to a premiere that exceeded expectations.

Posted by Vicky Homan, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Learn about the latest in Video Ads on Ad Innovations

Inside AdWords crew — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:36:00 +0000

Google offers the world's largest online video audience, based on users of Google.com search, our partnerships with top video publishers across the Google Display Network, and the reach of YouTube, the world's largest video property. On YouTube alone, users generate 3 billion video views daily and upload 48 new hours of video per minute. The online video market is huge for users, and we believe this means it also holds a lot of potential for online advertisers.

For those of you who are already passionate about this large and growing market, we’ve just launched a Video page on Ad Innovations -- your destination for exploring our latest advertising developments.

On this page, you can learn about new video innovations that can help you prepare your campaigns and promote your business.

Prepare your campaign

Ad Creation Marketplace - Hire a professional to create a TV or video ad that fits your needs, budget, and deadlines.
YouTube Video Targeting Tool - Search by keyword or audience to find YouTube videos where you might want to advertise.
YouTube Insight - Learn about the video likes and dislikes of audiences you define.

Promote your business

TrueView video ads by YouTube - Give users choice and control over which advertisers' messages they want to see and when. Pay only when a user chooses to view your ad, increasing your view count on YouTube.
Video extensions - Include click-to-play videos for trailers, previews, and product demonstrations that play right below your ads on Google.com.
Media Ads - Discover new ways to target, pay for, and experience video ads on Google.com.

Check out our new Video innovations page and send us feedback on these new features. We’ll add more items to this page as we bring new video advertising features to you.

If you're new to video advertising, start with the basics. We have online resources available where you can learn about all our video advertising solutions including YouTube advertising.

Posted by Lauren Barbato, Inside AdWords crew

Auto-Directed Video Stabilization with Robust L1 Optimal Camera Paths

Research Admin — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Posted by Matthias Grundmann, Vivek Kwatra, and Irfan Essa, Research Team

Earlier this year, we announced the launch of new features on the YouTube Video Editor, including stabilization for shaky videos, with the ability to preview them in real-time. The core technology behind this feature is detailed in this paper, which will be presented at the IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR 2011).

Casually shot videos captured by handheld or mobile cameras suffer from significant amount of shake. Existing in-camera stabilization methods dampen high-frequency jitter but do not suppress low-frequency movements and bounces, such as those observed in videos captured by a walking person. On the other hand, most professionally shot videos usually consist of carefully designed camera configurations, using specialized equipment such as tripods or camera dollies, and employ ease-in and ease-out for transitions. Our goal was to devise a completely automatic method for converting casual shaky footage into more pleasant and professional looking videos.

Our technique mimics the cinematographic principles outlined above by automatically determining the best camera path using a robust optimization technique. The original, shaky camera path is divided into a set of segments, each approximated by either a constant, linear or parabolic motion. Our optimization finds the best of all possible partitions using a computationally efficient and stable algorithm.

To achieve real-time performance on the web, we distribute the computation across multiple machines in the cloud. This enables us to provide users with a real-time preview and interactive control of the stabilized result. Above we provide a video demonstration of how to use this feature on the YouTube Editor. We will also demo this live at Google’s exhibition booth in CVPR 2011.

For further details, please read our paper.

YouTube and Creative Commons: raising the bar on user creativity

Stephanie Taylor — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 23:45:00 +0000

Have you ever been in the process of creating a video and just needed that one perfect clip to make it pop? Maybe you were creating your own music video and needed an aerial video of Los Angeles at night to spice it up. Unless you had a helicopter, a pretty powerful camera and some fierce editing skills, this would have been a big challenge. Now, look no further than the Creative Commons library accessible through YouTube Video Editor to make this happen. Creative Commons provides a simple way to license and use creative works.

You can now access an ever-expanding library of Creative Commons videos to edit and incorporate into your own projects. To find a video, just search in the YouTube search bar or from within the YouTube Video Editor. We’re working with organizations like C-SPAN, Public.Resource.org, Voice of America, Al Jazeera and others, so that over 10,000 Creative Commons videos are available for your creative use.

To get started, visit youtube.com/editor and select the CC tab:

Any video you create using Creative Commons content will automatically show the source videos’ titles underneath the video player:

As part of the launch of Creative Commons licensing on YouTube, you’ll also be able to mark any or all of your videos with the Creative Commons CC-BY license that lets others share and remix your work, so long as they give you credit. To mark your video with the Creative Commons license, select ‘Creative Commons Attribution license’ on the upload page or on the Video Description page:

You can learn more about Creative Commons on YouTube at our help center, and remember that all content must still follow the rules in our Copyright Center.

We’re excited to see what you come up with!

Stace Peterson, Software Engineer

(This is a cross post from the Official YouTube Blog)

This Week’s Trends: The President, Egypt, and 90s Hip Hop

Kevin Allocca — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 22:58:00 +0000

Each weekday, we at YouTube Trends take a look at the most interesting videos and cultural phenomena on YouTube as they develop. We want take a moment to highlight some of what we've come across recently:

We used the questions you asked of the President of the United States to create some unique word art.
We tracked the biggest trends the week before the big game .
We curated powerful footage from the protests in Egypt.
We saw how a music video from 1995 still sees a bump in views every single month.
We looked at on-the-scene weather footage from a snowstorm across the United States and a category 5 cyclone on the coast of Australia.
We tried to figure out how a group of young dance students near Portland got popular all the way in South Korea.
And we continued to highlight each day's top videos including this one of a University of Iowa student whose speech to the State House of Representatives became one of the week's Most Shared clips:

Check back every day for the latest about what's trending on YouTube at www.YouTube.com/Trends

Kevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager, recently watched "Taxista canta igual que Michael Jackson"

Showtime’s “SHORT stories” recruits YouTube finest to make short films

Mia — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 18:00:00 +0000

For “SHORT stories,” Showtime contacted cutting-edge creators from across the Web and asked them to tell a tale in an innovative way. The series sports the work of some of YouTube’s top creators, so naturally we’re interested in learning a whole lot more about how “SHORT stories” came to be. Showtime's Trevor Noren tells us more.

1) What gave you the idea to use YouTube stars in this way?
YouTube has become a venue for animators and filmmakers to explore new ways to communicate a narrative. Whether it’s an established artist like Don Hertzfeldt or a talent the community has discovered, like Cyriak or Levni Yilmaz, YouTube has offered an opportunity for artists to experiment and find out what people respond to. That spirit of innovation seemed like a natural fit for our brand. Unique storytelling is the hallmark of what we do as a network: our shows challenge viewers with characters they haven’t seen before. “SHORT stories” is a way for us to bring our brand to a new audience while at the same time showing the work of these amazing artists to our subscribers.

2) What was the process of working with them?
Our mission statement to the artists was pretty simple: “Tell a story in a way people haven’t seen before.” We figured a directive that open-ended would create a huge range of results. They didn’t disappoint. Don Hertzfeldt made up a language. Michael Langan employed thousands of still images to show a run around his block. Cyriak used his hands to tell the story of evolution. Whether acquiring a film already in the works or commissioning something entirely new, we did not interfere with the artists’ creative process. The filmmaker explained what they planned to do and we let them run with it. As a result, we ended up with an incredibly diverse collection of films.

3) What have you learned about the YouTube community over the course of this project?
How much they embrace the bizarre. It doesn’t matter if they know exactly what the filmmaker is trying to say with their video. They recognize the dedication that goes into creating the piece and they recognize the personality and vision behind it. It’s really amazing and inspiring how open-minded the community is to new ideas.

4) Will you pursue more of these and if so, how are you finding the filmmakers?
“SHORT stories” will be ongoing. We’ve identified a few potential candidates. We’d like to keep who they are a surprise. That said, the YouTube community is already helping us identify potential filmmakers. Names pop up all the time in comments on the videos. Everyone from Czech great Jan Svankmajer to Mystery Guitar Man. The best way for us to find new talent is to watch and listen to the YouTube community.

5) What’s something no one would know about these videos by looking at them?
The sheer amount of time that went into the creation of some of the films. Inspired by a vintage nutcracker that looked like a fish, it took PES five years to find all of the objects that went into “The Deep.” For Michael Langan, stitching together all of the still images for “Dahlia” took one month for every minute of the film. “Pretty, Dead” by Jeff Scher consists of more than 3,000 individual drawings. The final products themselves are incredible, but when you really start to understand what went into creating them, it’s remarkable.

Trevor Noren, Creative Director, Digital Content, Showtime, recently watched “Shameless Trailer and Behind the Scenes.”

Super Bowl XLV: fun facts about food, football, and ads

Kate Rose — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 17:39:00 +0000

You may notice the streets will be exceptionally quiet this superb 'ol Sunday afternoon, with perhaps only a few pizza delivery vehicles passing by, as Americans gather en masse around the big screen to watch our annual football, food and advertising spectacular: Super Bowl XLV. Two storied teams from the heartland - the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers - will take the field to conclude an exciting and, at times, controversial NFL season. We can only hope the quality of the game will live up to the stage and hype.

A few fun facts to keep in mind for this Sunday's big game (6:30pm ET on FOX, btw):

The Steelers have played in seven Super Bowls, winning six of them, while the Packers have been four times, winning three. (It should be noted that the Packers have won 12 total "World Championships" of professional football, eight coming before the modern NFL's playoff system)
The Super Bowl attracts a ginormous television audience that, according to Nielsen Co. peaked last year at 106.5 million viewers, topping the 1983 finale of "M-A-S-H" to become the most-watched show in U.S. television history
Nine out of 10 of the most-watched television shows of all-time were Super Bowls, but according to The Wall Street Journal, of the several hours of Super Bowl programming including the game itself, only about 11 minutes will have game action, when the ball is actually in-play
According to the Hass Avocado Board, an estimated 69.6 million pounds of avocados are expected to be consumed during the Super Bowl, and in general, Americans will eat more on Super Bowl Sunday than on any other day besides Thanksgiving, spending over $55 million dollars on food
Sunday will be among the top five pizza-ordering days of the year, with some chains accepting pre-orders for pies. Papa John's is estimating they'll travel 300,000 miles in total for deliveries.
This will also be the first Super Bowl with no cheerleaders (!), as neither the Packers nor Steelers have squads

And of course, the Super Bowl is an advertising bonanza, with many people tuning in to see the celebrity-laden ads with absurdly high production values as much as to see the game. Besides paying to produce the ads themselves, advertisers are buying airtime from FOX at a rate of around a whopping $3 million for every 30 seconds, according to MSNBC.

Is it worth it? This is a question that you can help settle, by going to our Ad Blitz channel on Super Bowl Sunday to watch and vote on Super Bowl commercials. We'll be adding commercials from participating in-game advertisers to the channel as-close-as-possible after they air, so you can watch, compare, and vote on ads to your heart's content. Your voting will help determine the champion ad, which will be rewarded with a placement in our homepage masthead ad unit, along with the four runners-up, on February 19.

If you're looking for last-minute, Super Bowl party planning tips or recipes, you can check out the channel now for a variety of Super Bowl coverage, including this awesome recipe for Clams Casino Dip, from Foodwishes:

You can also access the channel and commercials from your web-enabled mobile device: go to m.youtube.com/adblitz from your mobile browser (or enter "youtube.com/adblitz" and you should be redirected).

Enjoy the game!

Andrew Bangs, Sports Manager, recently watched “Queensryche - Silent Lucidity.”

Enjoy videos about some of the greatest artworks in the world

A Googler — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:34:00 +0000

Earlier this week, Google unveiled the Google Art Project—a new site that lets you explore hundreds of artworks from 17 of the world’s most acclaimed art museums in extraordinary levels of detail, as well as take 360 degree tours of the museums using Street View technology.

With this project comes the launch of many of the museums’ very own YouTube channels -- along with an array of new videos about the artworks featured in the project. On the Google Art Project site you can explore 1000+ pieces of artwork at an amazingly high resolution levels. While zooming into a work of art you can also watch YouTube videos about it, as well as reading more about a particular artwork and its artist. More than 170 works of art in the project have accompanying videos; learn about a professional snowboarder’s perspective on an alpine landscape, the 20+ locations of Rembrandt’s ‘Night Watch’ , the preservation process for Van Gogh’s ‘The Bedroom’ or even the live reaction of a pair of identical twins to a 17th century painting of twins.

You can browse a selection of the featured artwork videos on the Art Project’s YouTube channel, where you can also see behind the scenes footage of the project.

This project began as a 20% project for a group of Googlers who are passionate about making art more accessible online. We hope you enjoy these videos and maybe deepen your understanding of some of the world’s most famous works of art.

Anna de Paula Hanika, Project Manager, Google Art Project, recently watched “Art Project preview.”

Egyptian protest footage on YouTube

Olivia Ma — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 01:48:00 +0000

It’s been hard to open a laptop or turn on the television over the last week without hearing news of the unrest in Egypt. On YouTube, thousands of videos of the protests have poured in, whether as unfiltered footage from the demonstrations themselves, or as news reports from our media partners around the globe.

We understand how closely the world is following these events, and want to help people access and share this information quickly and easily on YouTube. We’re helping people do this in three ways:

Highlighting the latest footage on CitizenTube, our news and politics channel, and inviting people to submit video they’ve come across.
Pointing our users directly to these videos through banners at the top of YouTube pages, and through links alongside YouTube videos.
Streaming live coverage of Al Jazeera’s broadcasts about the unfolding events, on both their Arabic and English YouTube channels.

And our Google colleagues have also turned on a speak-to-tweet service to help people in Egypt stay connected at this difficult time.

Here’s a playlist of videos that have come in:

YouTube has used similar tools and live streaming technologies in the past to give our users access to information on major world news events, such as the Haiti earthquake and the protests in Iran. We hope this footage provides a unique window into the events unfolding in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and many other cities across Egypt.

Olivia Ma, YouTube News and Politics, recently watched “28th Jan. 2011 - Storyful - Kasr Al Nile Bridge clashes.”

Overview	Gather your friends and set up your own production crew inside PlayStation®Home! What will you be? Director? Actor? Cinematographer? Extra? Try them all! Check out the amazing Machinima tools to help you record, light and build your film or television sets! What will you make?
Fun Fact	LOOT gives you tons of sets to make your own movies (machinima) on the PS3, including a Ghostbusters Firehouse Stage Set!

Overview	A simple and easy online video platform for businesses. Record, centralize and share instantly. Moviecom.tv also allows you to link directly to your YouTube account through the YouTube APIs.
Fun Fact	The founders flew all the way from Glasgow to attend Google I/O!

Overview	The Parrot AR.Drone is a quadricopter that can be controlled by a smartphone or tablet. Get more out of your AR.Drone with the AR.Drone Academy. Keep track of all your flights on the Academy map. Watch your best videos with added statistical feedback and directly share online with pilots from all over the world!
Fun Fact	Parrot makes remote controlled flying devices that can record and track their flights!

Overview	Picotube uses content from YouTube and allows users to create avatars, watch clips together, create playlists, and rate videos selected by other video jockeys.
Fun Fact	Picotube was the Grand Prix winner of TechCrunch Tokyo 2011!

Overview	Here to power the mobile fitness movement, Skimble offers fun, dynamic and social applications for everyone. Available now are Skimble's Workout Trainer and GPS Sports Tracker apps that help motivate people to get and stay active. Skimble uses the YouTube Player API to display fitness videos.
Fun Fact	Co-founder Maria Ly got the crowd moving at one of YouTube’s Google I/O Sessions!

Overview	Squrl is a great place to watch and discover video. Know what videos are trending, receive recommendations on what to watch and see what your friends are watching.
Fun Fact	Co-founders Mark Gray and Michael Hoydich also founded the successful software development company IndustryNext together in 2004!

Overview	Telestream demonstrated Wirecast for YouTube, a live video production and streaming product, which was developed specifically for Google YouTube partners. Telestream specializes in products that make it possible to get video content to any audience regardless of how the content is created, distributed or viewed (entire process).
Fun Fact	Telestream’s NASCAR Project won the IBC2012 Innovation Award!

Overview	VidCaster is a video site creation platform that allows you to create a video portal instantly from your existing video library on YouTube or other video hosts. Choose from a beautiful set of designer themes and customize to your heart's content using VidCaster's powerful template language.
Fun Fact	Kieran Farr, CEO and co-founder, used to drive a taxi full-time in San Francisco before becoming a successful entrepreneur!

Overview	WeVideo is a cloud-based video editing suite that allows easy, full-featured, collaborative HD video editing across Google Drive, Chromebooks, and Android devices.
Fun Fact	WeVideo partnered with Marvel and YouTube to allow fans to create their own trailers!