Find out if your Internet service provider plays YouTube in HD

Nothing ruins the experience of watching a YouTube video like Magic of Rahat more than seeing the dreaded buffering wheel, which is why we're always working to make videos play smoothly in the best quality possible. And when you can't see what you want, when you want, it’s important you know why.

Starting today, if you’re in the U.S., you can use the Google Video Quality Report to see the level of video quality your Internet service provider can play YouTube. If you’re regularly seeing videos buffer, this report can give you a better idea of why, as well as tips to make YouTube play better. You can also see the video quality other ISPs in your area are delivering, based on these levels:

• HD Verified: If your provider can consistently deliver HD video, a resolution of at least 720p, without buffering or interruptions--it’s HD Verified.
• Standard Definition: If you can watch videos at a resolution of at least 360p, your provider is delivering Standard Definition.
• Lower Definition: If videos load slowly or frequently buffer, even at resolutions lower than 360p, your provider is delivering Lower Definition performance.

Want to see our methodology? Check out the geeky details, and learn how videos get from us to you with this video.

7 ways to improve your video quality

Making sure you can watch YouTube in HD from anywhere, anytime is a shared effort among us, your Internet service provider and even you. So, to make sure you're getting the best video quality possible, check out these seven tips you can use right now:



And for those of you not living in the U.S. or Canada where the report is also available, we’ll be bringing it to more of your countries in the coming months.

Jay Akkad, Product Manager, YouTube, recently watched “Tiny Hamsters Eating Tiny Burritos - Episode 1.”

No wristband? No problem! You can live stream Coachella on YouTube all weekend long.

Just because you can’t make it to the desert this weekend doesn't mean you have to miss out; you can catch Coachella LIVE on YouTube presented by T-Mobile. For the fourth year in a row, the first weekend of the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival will stream live from Indio, Calif. on Coachella's official YouTube channel.


Starting this Friday at 3:30 p.m. PT, you can watch performances from more than 70 acts, including Lorde, Pharrell, The Replacements, Arcade Fire and Beck. And with three-hour late night blocks from EDM superstars like Skrillex, Martin Garrix, Zedd, Dillon Francis, Duck Sauce and more, your party can keep going well into the night. Plus, Jason Bentley, DJ, music director and host of KCRW’s internationally acclaimed “Morning Becomes Eclectic” will host, bringing you artist access and exclusive interviews throughout.

And, this year, we have a special surprise to bring you even closer to Coachella: Chvrches, Zedd and other artists will jump into fans' Google+ Hangouts live from backstage. Check the schedule on the Coachella YouTube channel for artist meet-and-greets. Start a Hangout with friends, and when the time comes, it may bring you face-to-face backstage and directly into the Coachella webcast!

It all begins tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. PT, so stay tuned to Coachella’s YouTube channel for the latest schedule and meet-and-greet updates!

Brian Anderson and Craig McFadden, YouTube Music, recently watched "Little Dragon performing 'Ritual Union' Live at KCRW."

More love for playlists and a new look for YouTube

The way you watch YouTube keeps changing, so we’re making a few tweaks to YouTube to keep up with you. Starting today you’ll see some changes to make it easier to find what you want to watch on YouTube and collect playlists to watch again and again.

Like a playlist, watch it from anywhere

Want to quickly find your playlists or save Aloe Blacc’s favorite music videos playlist? Your guide now has all of the playlists that you created, as well as playlists from other channels you liked. If you make a playlist, you’ll also see a new page that makes editing easier. And if you’re looking for new playlists to check out from your favorite channels, check out the new playlist tab on a channel like this one from YouTube Nation.

We moved!

YouTube now has a center-aligned look, fitting neatly on any screen size, and feeling similar to the mobile apps you’re spending almost half your YouTube time with. You can quickly flip between what’s recommended and popular in “What to Watch” like Postmodern Jukebox’s Timber, and the latest from your subscribed channels like iamOTHER in “My Subscriptions,” with both options now front and center. Click the guide icon to the right of the YouTube logo at any time to see your playlists, subscriptions and more.

To learn more, please visit the Help Center.

Yining Zhao, Web Developer, recently watched “18 Great Books You Probably Haven't Read.”

Surprise! YouTube is now on Roku

Who doesn’t love a good surprise? Probably most of the victims of our most watched Pranks of 2013. But as for the rest of you, we’ve got one more surprise for you in 2013: we’re bringing you the YouTube app (or “channel” in Roku-speak) today on the Roku 3 in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Republic of Ireland.

This surprise is packed with features like:

• HD streaming: Finally see how intense Red Bull’s videos look on your TV.
• “Send to TV”: Control YouTube on Roku from that sick new phone you just got, turning your TV into your personal JumboTron. Just connect your device to the same Wi-Fi as your Roku.
• Your subscriptions on TV: Sign in to YouTube and easily get your subscribed channels on your TV like PTXOfficial.

Check out their video to learn more and download the YouTube channel for Roku today.




Sarah Ali, Product Manager, recently watched, “YouTube Rewind: What Does 2013 Say?”

YouTube creators at NEXT WEEKEND film festival, presented by Sundance Institute

Cinephiles, take note: this weekend will go down in YouTube history as the first time a major film festival has curated and screened a short film program exclusively featuring your videos on YouTube. The Sundance Institute selected some of the most popular videos on YouTube to showcase at the first-ever NEXT WEEKEND summer film festival (August 8-11), and you can watch them all now.

From a whirlwind tour of food culture in India and a rap battle of epic proportions to a touching coming out video and some seriously thought provoking jelly beans, the Sundance Institute-curated YouTube Shorts @ NEXT WEEKEND program highlights the imagination and diversity of the creators on YouTube. You might recognize some familiar channels like VICE, College Humor, Above Average, Machinima, JASH and more.


NEXT WEEKEND extends YouTube and Sundance Institute's shared love of celebrating talented creators, following our "Life in a Day" premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and an exclusive glimpse of short films debuting at the Festival earlier this year.

Congratulations to all the YouTube creators featured at NEXT WEEKEND, and with more than 100 hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute, there’s always new cinematic content to enjoy.

Raymond Braun, YouTube Entertainment Marketing, recently watched "Thought of You - by Ryan Woodward."

The Social Star Awards live on YouTube

Social media has dramatically changed the way we get to interact with our favorite musicians, actors, artists and athletes, so it makes sense that any awards ceremony celebrating social media also needs to flip the standard red carpet affair on its head. Tonight’s first-ever Social Star Awards in Singapore is attempting such a feat—running an awards program for a full 24 hours via social media. Forget a few dozen statues going out to some lucky winners. How about a whopping 288 awards, one awarded every five minutes, recognizing everything from top actors and athletes to favorite songs and sports teams. And all that ends with a splash: a live two-hour show full of musical performances and celebrity drop-ins.

For those who can’t be there live to watch at Singapore’s iconic Marina Bay Sands Hotel, YouTube is partnering with Starcount to exclusively live stream the whole show on www.youtube.com/starcount. The broadcast will kick off on May 23 at 9 p.m. Singapore Time (6 a.m. PST) with a red carpet awards ceremony where Aerosmith, Cee Lo Green, Carly Rae Jepsen and PSY come on stage to play their hit tunes. From there, you can expect appearances and award presentations from some of YouTube’s most famous faces, including Ryan Higa, HIKAKIN, PewDiePie, and Natalie Tran.

With so many awards being handed out, you may be asking, what does it take for me to win a Social Star Award? Check out this video to see some of YouTube’s top talent like Epic Meal Time and DeStorm give a one-of-kind training on how to become a social star.



Whether you’re tuning in for the whole show or just dropping by to check out your personal favorites on stage, we look forward to seeing you soon over at www.youtube.com/starcount.

Benjamin Grubbs, Asia Pacific Head of Partner Marketing, YouTube, recently watched David Choi & HIKAKIN’s "You Were My Friend (Original) Unplugged."

New ways to support great content on YouTube

We’ve been building a YouTube partner program since 2007 that enables content creators to earn revenue for their creativity. We’ve watched them build amazing channels that have made YouTube into a news, education and entertainment destination 1 billion people around the world cannot do without.

Today, there are more than 1 million channels generating revenue on YouTube, and one of the most frequent requests we hear from these creators behind them is for more flexibility in monetizing and distributing content. We’ve been working on that and wanted to fill you in on what to expect.

Starting today, we’re launching a pilot program for a small group of partners that will offer paid channels on YouTube with subscription fees starting at $0.99 per month. Every channel has a 14-day free trial, and many offer discounted yearly rates. For example, Sesame Street will be offering full episodes on their paid channel when it launches. And UFC fans can see classic fights, like a full version of their first event from UFC’s new channel. You might run into more of these channels across YouTube, or look here for a list of pilot channels. Once you subscribe from a computer, you’ll be able to watch paid channels on your computer, phone, tablet and TV, and soon you’ll be able to subscribe to them from more devices.



This is just the beginning. We’ll be rolling paid channels out more broadly in the coming weeks as a self-service feature for qualifying partners. And as new channels appear, we'll be making sure you can discover them, just as we've been helping you find and subscribe to all the channels you love across YouTube. Just as the partner program empowered creators to take their channels to the next level, we look forward to seeing how this great community of creators moves ahead with a new way to reach the fan communities that made their channels a hit. You’ll be hearing more from us, and them, as we get creator and user feedback and build out this exciting offering.

If you’re a YouTube creator interested in building your own paid channel, let us know here. 

The YouTube Team

Follow the audience...

It has been an exciting year of growth for YouTube and its partners.

We recently announced that YouTube hit an incredible milestone of 1 billion unique monthly visitors, connecting 15 percent of the planet to the videos they love. And those global fan communities are watching more than 6 billion hours of video each month on YouTube; almost an hour a month for every person on Earth and 50 percent more this year than last.

In addition, media companies like Time Warner, The Chernin Group, Bertelsman, Discovery Communications and Comcast have all made significant investments in companies that create, aggregate or service content for YouTube in the last 12 months. And tonight at our Brandcast event for advertisers in New York, another major media company continued that momentum. DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg announced that his company acquired AwesomenessTV, one of the most subscribed-to, teen-focused networks on YouTube. This acquisition gives DreamWorks an opportunity to align itself with Brian Robbins’ powerful, next-generation, online video powerhouse. By partnering with more than 55,000 YouTube channels that collectively represent more than 14 million subscribers and almost 800 million video views, Brian successfully created a YouTube network comprised of one of the most valuable consumer groups--Generation C. This audience is defined by its desire to be constantly connected, and at the center of creating and curating content for social communities.

DreamWorks Animation’s major announcement underscores a shift in consumer behavior, and now, Nielsen has further amplified this point by concluding that YouTube reaches more U.S. adults ages 18-34 than any cable network. And history--from the transition to radio, then TV, from network to cable--tells us that advertisers always follow the audience. In line with that trend, we also unveiled this evening that the ANA Alliance for Family Entertainment (AFE)--a group of nearly 40 national advertisers, whose combined ad spend represents 37 percent of all U.S. television advertising dollars--will buy media across 32 channels of family-friendly content on YouTube.

Much like our content creators, we find that brands on YouTube--like T-Mobile, Samsung, Dove and Pepsi--all share a common objective: to cultivate a direct relationship with their consumers--one built on engagement and authenticity. These companies know that on YouTube, it isn’t just about rallying behind one show; it is about reaching the passionate fan communities of Gen C, an audience that influences more than $500 billion in annual consumer spending. As a result, we’re seeing a myriad of brands increasing their media spend, building channels, and discovering first-hand that the interactions they have with their fans on YouTube drive engagement.

Content creators have long recognized the power of YouTube’s platform to connect with an audience. Advertisers are increasingly doing the same. Together we’ll continue to build YouTube as a global destination for the next generation of entertainment.



Robert Kyncl, Vice President, Global Head of Content Partnerships for YouTube recently watched "Brent and Johnson - Equality Street."
To learn more about how brands can reach key audiences on YouTube, please visit our AdWords Agency Blog.

Congress, now live on YouTube

Video plays a powerful role in bringing us closer together, especially when it connects people in real time. By transcending borders, empowering citizens, and increasing transparency, it’s one of the many ways technology allows democracy to thrive. Starting this week, all members of the U.S. Congress will have the opportunity to access enhanced features on their YouTube channels, including the ability to live stream video.

Live video is already allowing elected officials and their constituents to reach one another in innovative ways. Thousands tuned in to YouTube to watch the president’s State of the Union address and the corresponding Republican response this February. Engagement is growing across many types of platforms--Google+ Hangouts, for example, have sparked face-to-face conversations on topics ranging from gun control to the national economy, and have allowed people on the other side of the world to share their stories at Congressional hearings.

If you’re a member of Congress and would like to know more, check out these Dear Colleague letters issued by the House and Senate. Whether it’s to share a look into your daily work, broadcast speeches and meetings, or showcase events in your state or district, we can’t wait to see how you connect with your constituents.

Robert Kyncl, Vice President, Global Head of Content Partnerships for YouTube recently watched "Dove Real Beauty Sketches" & Susan Molinari, Vice President, Public Policy and Government Relations recently watched “If there's one thing you do today, get a business online.”

YouTube wins case against Viacom (again)

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.

Kent Walker, Senior Vice President & General Counsel, Google

Coachella 2013 - Live on YouTube

Every April, tens of thousands of the world’s most avid music fans flock to Southern California to kick off music festival season at Coachella. This year, you don’t even need a ticket to be a part of the show. 

For the third year in a row, you can catch the entire first weekend live from Indio on Coachella's official YouTube channel. Starting this Friday at 3:30 p.m. PT, YouTube's three-channel feed, which is presented by T-Mobile, will live stream performances from five stages (including, for the first time, the Sahara Tent). You'll be able to catch artists' interviews with and live shows from more than 60 bands, including the xx, Passion Pit, Vampire Weekend and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.



So whether you can't stand the desert heat or are just suffering from massive FOMO, be sure to check out the entire Coachella schedule here on YouTube.

Chelsea Maughan, Communications Manager, recently watched "The Postal Service 'Nothing Better.'"

YouTube Contest Submissions Closing Tomorrow at Midnight

To our incredible YouTube community,

When we started out in 2005, we focused on rapidly increasing user engagement. We wanted an inventive way to draw people in and catalyze their creativity. The result? A contest for the best video on our site.

Nearly eight years later, with 72 hours of video being uploaded every minute, we finally have enough content to close the competition. We’ve started the process to select a winner and as of tomorrow at midnight, we will be closing the site to submissions.

Watch the video below to hear from our leadership, the minds behind some of our most famous entries, and the panel of judges who will select our nominees, and ultimately, the winner for "Best Video."



And be sure to tune in for Day 1 of our live ceremony from 9 a.m. PT, April 1, when we will begin announcing the “Best Video” nominees. This announcement will resume for 12 hours every day for the next two years.

Thank you for sharing your creativity, irreverence, ideas and knowledge with us and with viewers around the world.

Tim Liston, Competition Director, recently watched “Charlie bit my finger- again!”

YouTube Hits a Billion Monthly Users

In the last eight years you’ve come to YouTube to watch, share and fall in love with videos from all over the world. Tens of thousands of partners have created channels that have found and built businesses for passionate, engaged audiences. Advertisers have taken notice: all of the Ad Age Top 100 brands are now running campaigns on YouTube. And today, we’re announcing a new milestone: YouTube now has more than a billion unique users every single month.

What does a billion people tuning into YouTube look like?

• Nearly one out of every two people on the Internet visits YouTube.
• Our monthly viewership is the equivalent of roughly ten Super Bowl audiences.
• If YouTube were a country, we’d be the third largest in the world after China and India.
• PSY and Madonna would have to repeat their Madison Square Garden performance in front of a packed house 200,000 more times. That’s a lot of Gangnam Style!

From the aspiring filmmaker in his basement and the next great pop musician, to the fans all around the world who tune in, subscribe and share their favorite videos with the planet, thank you for making YouTube what it is today. You have truly created something special.

The YouTube Team

P.S.: To learn more about what’s powering this growth, check out our blog post about Gen C and mobile devices.

TED’s Ads Worth Spreading 2013 Winners

Today’s guest blog post comes from Ronda Carnegie, Head of Global Partnerships from TED.

For the third year, TED and YouTube teamed up on Ads Worth Spreading, an initiative to recognize ads that inspire, educate and engage. Today at the TED2013 conference in Long Beach, Calif., this year’s ten winners were announced.

Ads were nominated in six categories: Talk, Social Good, Cultural Compass, Creative Wonder, Brand Bravery, and Education. Six nomination teams made up of one TED speaker and one rising thinker in advertising searched for ads in each category, while 25 leading figures in the ad industry searched for ads across categories.

Each of these ten ads go beyond the creative brief to spark imagination and create moments of emotional connection with audiences. The winning work will be showcased at TED2013 as well as on TED.com and you can watch them all here on YouTube. Combined, they have been viewed more than 100 million times on YouTube.

 

TED 2013 Ads Worth Spreading:

1. Expedia - “Find Yours”
2. Coke - “Security Cameras”
3. Melbourne Metro Rail - “Dumb Ways to Die”
4. Dell - “Meet Annie: The Girl Who Could Fly”
5. TNT - “Your Daily Dose of Drama”
6. Rainforest Alliance - “Follow the Frog”
7. Channel 4 (UK) - “Meet the Superhumans”
8. GlaxoSmithKline - “The Crowd”
9. Dodge - “The Farmer”
10. The Guardian - “Three Little Pigs”

Guest to the YouTube Blog Ronda Carnegie, Head of Global Partnerships from TED, recently watched “Young-Ha Kim: Be an artist, right now!”

Context Is King: Share Your Story

From artists to activists, teachers to students, kids to grandparents, YouTube is a place for people all over the globe to share their stories. YouTube’s Community Guidelines represent the rules of the road for all of them. They state that, in general, YouTube is not a place for shocking or violent content. When material of this nature is flagged by our community, our teams work around the clock to remove anything that breaks the rules.

That said, YouTube is an important global platform for news and information, and we realize that sometimes graphic material is vital to our understanding of the world. It can be posted to document wars or revolutions, to expose an injustice, or to ensure local events are seen globally. Because of this, we take great care when reviewing flagged videos, and allow graphic videos that are intended to have news or documentary value. This is where we need your help.

Why adding context to your video is so important

For all types of content you share on YouTube, but particularly with graphic content, adding context is very important. The information you add in the title and description is what helps other people find and understand your video. It will also help the YouTube team review your video if it does get flagged. 

Take a look at the following examples.

Example 1:

Example 2:

 



















While the content of these videos is similar, the experience of viewing them is quite different. In the first example, the user provides very little information. In the second, we understand what we see, and see that the user’s intent is to educate and tell a story.

How to contextualize your videos: some tips to follow

• Provide an informative and relevant title--you can pack in a lot of information here, even if you’re on the move on a mobile device
• Fill your description with information: who, what, when, where and why did it occur?
• Think about narrating what you see as you film, or add detail later using our annotations tool
• Feel free to link to relevant websites, such as a related news story or artist statement
• Organizations such as Witness and Small World News also produce great tip sheets
• Remember YouTube’s tools--if your footage is sensitive and requires visual anonymity, check out YouTube’s blurring tool. If you feel your content was removed in error, you can appeal the decision.

Our goal at YouTube is to allow as much content as possible on the site, and still ensure that our Community Guidelines are followed. It is a delicate balancing act, and we depend on our uploaders to help. So whether you’re a performance artist, a citizen journalist or a human rights activist, remember: context is king. The information you add to your video helps tell your story, find an audience, and make an impact--it could even help your video be an important part of history.

Ali Glenesk, Policy Associate, recently watched “Grandma’s Advice.”

A new look to help you to subscribe and watch channels on YouTube

Update 12/12: The team that designed and built the recent YouTube update will answer your questions in a Hangout on Air Thursday 12/13 at 4pm PT on the YouTube channel. To ask a question, submit it here before Noon PT on Thursday 12/13. If you can’t make that, we’ll also hold a Reddit “Ask me Anything” on Tuesday 12/17 starting at 10am PT to answer your questions.

Those of you who use YouTube most have learned the secret to making it even better—find the channels you love and subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. Last year we began to make it easier to subscribe to the channels you care about by introducing a Guide on the home page. When you add subscriptions to your Guide, you organize YouTube around what you like, available whenever you watch YouTube. Today, we’re taking the next step by bringing your subscription-filled Guide with you across both the site and all devices, as your best source of what to watch on YouTube.

Your Guide to YouTube

Just subscribe to your favorite channels and the Guide lets you know when there are new videos waiting for you to enjoy, suggests the latest and greatest channels you might like, and shows you what your friends are sharing across the web. You’ll also find the Guide and your subscriptions on apps across hundreds of millions of devices including Android, iPhone, Playstation 3, Google TV and more.

A cleaner, simpler look

You come to YouTube to watch the videos you care about, so it’s important that the videos stand out. In this new layout, you’ll find the most crucial elements are front and center when you watch a video: the video is right at the top of the page and the subscribe button, social actions and video information are all combined directly below the player. Playlists are now available to the right of the video so you can browse through while you watch. You’ll also see this cleaner and simpler design across the entire site.

Your feedback matters

We’d love to get your feedback on these updates, so we’ll be hosting a Google+ Hangout on Air and a Reddit IAmA in the coming weeks--stay tuned here for details. If you’re a YouTube creator, you can learn more about these updates on our YouTube Creator Blog.

Josh Sassoon, Senior Unicorn eXperience Designer, recently watched “Hipster Thanksgiving” and
Alex Nicksay, Staff Engineer, recently watched “Crystalfilm.”

YouTube on iPad, and sweet updates for iPhone 5 and iPod touch

You love watching YouTube on the go—in fact—more than 25 percent of all YouTube watching happens on mobile. This past September you got the YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch to make it easier to find and share the videos and channels you love on YouTube, and you made us the #1 free app in the App Store for two months. Since then, we’ve been hard at work to improve the app based on your feedback.

Just in time for the holidays, now you can download or update the YouTube app with a look designed for the iPad and iPhone 5, enhanced AirPlay support, videos that start faster and play more smoothly, and improved accessibility with VoiceOver. Enjoy Tastemade on iPad in full screen glory, or hours of flipping through Ryan Higa videos on your iPhone 5 or iPod touch.

Please keep giving us feedback on features you’d like to see so we can keep making it better. In the meantime, we’ll be kicking back with some egg nog and a holiday favorite on our iPad.

Horia Ciurdar, Software Engineer, recently watched “GoPro: Matthias Giraud - Double Back Flip Drop.”

Improving Content ID

*Updated on 10/4: In the third paragraph we've clarified that potentially invalid claims are manually reviewed by the content owner.*

In the nearly five years since we launched Content ID, it has helped everyone from large media companies to up-and-coming creators manage their content when it appears on YouTube. More than 3,000 content owners have supplied more than 500,000 hours of reference files to the system. Content ID hasn’t stood still over the last five years. We’ve been rolling out regular updates and we want to highlight three particular efforts that we think improve Content ID for everyone.

A New Appeals Process
Users have always had the ability to dispute Content ID claims on their videos if they believe those claims are invalid. Prior to today, if a content owner rejected that dispute, the user was left with no recourse for certain types of Content ID claims (e.g., monetize claims). Based upon feedback from our community, today we’re introducing an appeals process that gives eligible users a new choice when dealing with a rejected dispute. When the user files an appeal, a content owner has two options: release the claim or file a formal DMCA notification.

Smarter Detection of Unintentional Claims
Content owners have uploaded more than ten million reference files to the Content ID system. At that scale, mistakes can and do happen. To address this, we’ve improved the algorithms that identify potentially invalid claims. We stop these claims from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed by the content owner. This process prevents disputes that arise when content not owned by a partner inadvertently turns up in a reference file.

Smarter claim detection minimizes unintentional mistakes. Of course, we take action in rare cases of intentional misuse, up to and including terminating Content ID access.

Improved Matching Quality
At the heart of Content ID is the matching technology that identifies partners’ content among all the videos on YouTube. Earlier this year we introduced a significant improvement to how the matching happens. We continue to work on ways to make the matching more precise through better algorithms and a more comprehensive reference library.

There is still a lot of work ahead of us, but we believe that these are significant steps forward in our efforts to keep YouTube a vibrant place where the rights of both content owners and users are protected and everyone can control their original content and make money from it - money which can be put towards the production of more great content.

For now, keep on watching, upload a video or two and please, please keep the feedback coming.

Thabet Alfishawi, Rights Management Product Manager, recently watched/danced to "Psy - Gangnam Style"

Introducing a new YouTube app for your iPhone and iPod touch

For all you diehard YouTube fans out there who can’t get enough YouTube on your mobile, we’ve got some great news: starting today, you can download the official YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch from the App Store, bringing you more of the videos you love and more ways to share them with the people you care about.

The new app is built by YouTube engineers, to give our iPhone and iPod touch users the best mobile experience. Here’s what you’ll find:

Tens of thousands more videos: Watch official music videos like Taylor’s latest hit.

New YouTube channel guide: Swipe your finger from the left edge of the screen to reveal a guide with your subscribed channels on YouTube, giving you instant access to everything from Alli Sports to YOMYOMF.

Find awesome videos faster: Get to videos like “Gangnam Style” faster with new search tools that give suggestions while you type, and let you sort through videos or channels. Flip through related videos, comments and more info, all while watching a video.

More ways to share with the people you love: Share that incredible video you found on YouTube on Google+, Facebook or text message in the app, as well as from Twitter and email.

There’s even more to explore with the new YouTube app for iPhone and iPod touch, available for download from the App Store today. We’re working on an optimized version of the YouTube app for iPad in the coming months, and stay tuned for more details.

You’ve already shown us you love YouTube on mobile—to the tune of 1 billion mobile views a day—so we can’t wait to see what you think about this new experience.

Andrey Doronichev, head of YouTube mobile, recently watched “One-Shot // Goodbye, beloved sister.”

How November Will Be Won: By the Numbers

Did you know that 1/3 of people who see a campaign ad on YouTube have not seen it on TV? We recently shared this on our Politics & Elections Blog. You can read an example of the types of things we talk about on that blog below. For more information about marketing a campaign on YouTube visit our YouTube for politicians website.


Earlier this year, we introduced “Four Screens to Victory”, a framework for political campaigns that outlined how Google can help make the web work for candidates and issues groups up and down the ballot. With these digital platforms, campaigns can build their organizations, define the issues, persuade the electorate and - importantly - get the vote out and win the moment that matters in November on Election Day.

Access to political information no longer comes from one place - or one screen. In just the four years since the last presidential election, the continued growth of the web and the proliferation of mobile devices has radically transformed when, where, and how voters access political information.

The numbers are in, and savvy political campaigns need to take notice. The rules of reaching voters have changed and new approaches are warranted because:

• More than 80% of eligible voters are online
• Similarly, 83% of mobile phone owners are registered voters
• 1 out of every 3 likely voters in November say that they didn’t watch tv in the past week
• Voters are spending more media time on their mobile devices than newspapers & magazines combined

(Click the infographic below to get a larger version)

If you’re as inspired as we are by some of the data and the implications on your own political campaign, check out the “Four Screens to Victory” site to spark some ideas of your own and see how you can make the web work for your campaign.

David Kaufman, Google Politics & Elections Team, recently watched "i like ike"