Google updated the YouTube app for Google TV yesterday, bringing YouTube's channel-based redesign to the living room. It also adds a "Discover" tab for browsing new channels and videos to watch. The update also adds performance and navigation improvements.
Yesterday, Google TV's Facebook page seeded that a big announcement was coming. When Peter Kafka revealed that this YouTube app was it, he concluded that it was no big deal. But as far as Google TV goes, the YouTube app is big. YouTube is the new television. It's smart TV's killer app. But YouTube is not exclusive to Google TV. If Google TV wants to be relevant, it has to offer the best YouTube experience around.
YouTube has come to define the era of online video, so let's take a look at its most popular videos of all time. Our latest update has Justin Bieber still at number 1 with Baby, which was the first video to earn a half a billion views! Currently, Bieber and Eminem between them make almost half of the top 10. Also of note is a music video by Jennifer Lopez called On The Floor ft. Pitbull, which has risen to number 2 with almost 500 million views in only 10 months.
We first did this list in August 2007, at which point Evolution of Dance by comedian Judson Laipply was number 1 with nearly 56 million views (it's now outside the top 10). The next update was September 2008, when Avril Lavigne's Girlfriend pop music video was number 1 with 103 million views. In January 2010, Charlie bit my finger - again ! was number 1, with 148 million views. By the beginning of January 2011, Justin Bieber was at number 1 with over 400 million views for Baby.
Here is the top 10, as of February 2012:
YouTube's statistics continue to boggle the mind. It revealed today that it serves 4 billion videos every day, a 25% increase in the past eight months. YouTube users upload one hour of video every second, which has prompted Google to create an annoyingly cute website to visualize this awesome stat. At the end of 2011, YouTube reported that it served a trillion videos that year, about 140 views for every living human being.
As Reuters notes, Google reported that only about 11% of YouTube views are monetized. That's not all the revenue Google makes from YouTube, since its Universal Search features YouTube video results prominently alongside search ads. But the YouTube business is still under construction, and it's growing fast. As YouTube's reach begins to dwarf even television, the whole landscape of video content changes.
One of Google's earliest YouTube employees is now leading a new charge at the company: Trying to figure out how to make YouTube a better service for social good - focusing on nonprofits, education, and free expression/activism.
YouTube has long worked with nonprofit-types to help them spread their causes and raise money. About 16,000 organizations are currently in its program for nonprofits, which gives them access to special YouTube features and support, Google says. And YouTube, the video service, is already a tremendous mouthpiece for activists.
But a new team, led by former YouTube product head Hunter Walk, is designed to integrate the notion of "doing good" into everything YouTube develops, from product features to support to broader vision. With the extra support, there's no reason YouTube shouldn't have 100,000 organizations in the program, Walk says.
YouTube reflected on its banner year today, announcing that it served over 1 trillion playbacks in 2011. "That's about 140 views for every person on the earth," YouTube's Rewind blog post says. YouTube saw record traffic and mobile growth this year. It gets 3 billion views per day, and video uploads have doubled since last year.
Looking at the trends, it's clear YouTube viewers are looking for quick entertainment, music and humor. The report excluded content from major music labels, and it's still full of songs. The most viewed video was "Friday" by Rebecca Black, of course. For the year of a trillion views, the success of this weird, bad video is reassuringly YouTube-like. But YouTube began some major changes and unprecedented deals this year. What will YouTube's next Rewind be like?
YouTube has launched a new initiative called YouTube for Schools, which will enable educators to open up classrooms to the wide world of educational content on YouTube without all the junk. Open Internet access in schools is tricky, with all the distractions and time-wasters out there, so Google is taking this step to make educators' lives easier.
Network administrators can turn on YouTube for Schools to give school computers access to the vast library of YouTube EDU content from partners such as the Smithsonian and TED. The content is organized into topical and grade-level playlists. You can view the lists at youtube.com/teachers.
In a potential abuse of YouTube's system for reporting copyright infringement, Universal Music succeeded yesterday in having a pro-file-sharing song removed from the site. The kicker? Universal evidently does not have any legal claim to the rights of the song or any of its contents.
The track was commissioned by file-sharing site Megaupload as part of a campaign to generate support for the controversial service. It features several mainstream artists, including Snoop Dogg, Kanye West and P Diddy, praising the service, which happens to be one of many thorns in the sides of major music executives everywhere.
Today Google rolled out the latest of its Google+ integration projects. This time it was YouTube, which at the same time launched a snazzy new design. The redesign is not only visually more colorful and appealing, it also promotes sharing in a big way. YouTube is enabling you to autoshare to four different social networks: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Orkut. But wait... notice anything missing there? That's right, Google+ is not included in the autosharing.
On the face of it, this makes little sense. Now I can 'like' a video on YouTube and it automatically shows up on my Facebook wall and Twitter feed. That's actually very cool. It saves me having to manually share things, yet I still control the autosharing (as I have to click the 'like' button in YouTube). Indeed this is frictionless sharing the way it should be - the user is in control of what gets shared, but it's made much easier for them. So why on earth isn't Google+ part of the autosharing?
The YouTube redesign we got a sneak peak into last month is now going live for all users. It has been reborn as a social and customizable media site, letting users customize their lists of channels right on the front page, as well as share to Google+ and Facebook.
It might be surprising to see Facebook integration so prominently on YouTube, with Google+ is trying to make a name for itself, but think of it this way: Facebook is huge. YouTube is huge. Google+ is not yet huge. What better way for Google to introduce Facebook users to Google+?
A leaked YouTube redesign caught by Business Review USA shows a starkly different layout that emphasizes social sharing. It features Google+ and Facebook sharing tabs on a prominent profile sidebar. The inclusion of Facebook is surprising, but YouTube is a popular destination, which offers a perfect opportunity to introduce Facebook friends to Google+.
YouTube has been testing this design with a small percentage of users for several weeks. YouTube's integration with Google+ actually began in October, when Google enabled users to connect their YouTube and Google+ accounts. This brought a "Posted to Google+" tab of videos to users' YouTube homepages. But the leaked redesign takes the integration further, turning the homepage into a news feed that tracks trending and popular videos. It also emphasizes user profiles, showing Google's intentions to unify users under one Google+ identity.
