YouTube Creator Blog

A YouTube experience like nothing you've seen before

Thursday, May 19, 2016

sharksIndy Carworld tourDaydreamannounced

YouTube Space locationsKurt Wilms, Senior Product Manager, YouTube Virtual Reality, recently watched "Insane 360 video of close-range tornado near Wray, CO yesterday!"

Setting the Record Straight

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Top 10 Hot Rock SongsContent IDChristophe Muller, Head of YouTube International Music Partnerships, recently watched carpool karaoke with James Corden and Justin Bieber

Improving Content ID for creators

Thursday, April 28, 2016

At YouTube, one of our core values is a belief in the freedom of opportunity. We believe anyone should have the opportunity to earn money from the videos they create and turn their channels into successful businesses. That’s why we opened up the YouTube Partner Program nine years ago and why we remain the only platform where anyone with an idea and a camera can turn their videos into full time jobs.

We understand just how important revenue is to our creator community, and we’ve been listening closely to concerns about the loss of monetization during the Content ID dispute process. Currently videos that are claimed and disputed don’t earn revenue for anyone, which is an especially frustrating experience for creators if that claim ends up being incorrect while a video racks up views in its first few days.

Today, we’re announcing a major step to help fix that frustrating experience. We’re developing a new solution that will allow videos to earn revenue while a Content ID claim is being disputed. Here’s how it will work: when both a creator and someone making a claim choose to monetize a video, we will continue to run ads on that video and hold the resulting revenue separately. Once the Content ID claim or dispute is resolved, we’ll pay out that revenue to the appropriate party.

We’re working on this new system now and hope to roll it out to all YouTube partners in the coming months. Here’s a closer look at how it’ll work once it’s live:

We strongly believe in fair use and believe that this improvement to Content ID will make a real difference. In addition to our work on the Content ID dispute process, we’re also paying close attention to creators’ concerns about copyright claims on videos they believe may be fair use. We want to help both the YouTube community and copyright owners alike better understand what fair use looks like online, which is why we launched our fair use protection program last year and recently introduced new Help Center pages on this topic.

Even though Content ID claims are disputed less than 1% of the time, we agree that this process could be better. Making sure our Content ID tools are being used properly is deeply important to us, so we’ve built a dedicated team to monitor this. Using a combination of algorithms and manual review, this team has resolved millions of invalid claims in the last year alone, and acted on millions more before they impacted creators. The team also restricts feature access and even terminates a partner’s access to Content ID tools if we find they are repeatedly abusing these tools.

We will continue to invest in both people and technology to make sure that Content ID keeps working for creators and rightsholders. We want to thank everyone who’s shared their concerns about unintended effects from Content ID claims. It’s allowed us to create a better system for everyone and we hope to share more updates soon.

David Rosenstein, Content ID Group Product Manager, recently watched “Coachella VR 360 – Week 1 Sunday Highlights”

Welcome to the 6ix: YouTube Space Toronto opens today

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Canada is a creative powerhouse. From global musical sensations and trailblazing beats, to electric comedy and captivating edutainment, Toronto has long been an epicentre for creative talent.

Today we officially open YouTube Space Toronto to supercharge one of the largest creator communities in North America! YouTube Space Toronto will be a creative industry incubator, offering creators an opportunity to learn from industry experts, connect with fellow YouTubers in a collaborative setting and use the latest latest film equipment to create more ambitious and innovative video content.

Located at at George Brown College’s Centre for Arts, Design & Information Technology, YouTube Space Toronto will offer workshops and programming at no cost to Canadian creators who are looking to build their channels, giving them tools and guidance to remove barriers and enable them to innovate and experiment.

At YouTube Space Toronto, creators can:

Learn: From training programs and workshops to master classes, there are plenty of opportunities to get hands-on experience from industry experts.
Connect: Attend events, collaborate with fellow creators, brainstorm ideas, and share tips and tricks to get the most out of YouTube.
Create: This is your space to make your videos and there are resources to help you from start to finish, including areas for creative collaboration; loaner production equipment such as cameras, lights, boom microphones, and more; rotating sets and enclosed sound stage.

The Canadian creator scene is one of the world’s most vibrant YouTube communities, with many of the world’s top YouTube creators hailing from Canada. We’re thrilled to open our doors to this incredible community, as well as the next generation of YouTube artists, musicians and entertainers, who are looking build their channels and share their content with YouTube’s audience of one billion people.

The entrance to YouTube Space Toronto at George Brown College

Today, YouTube Space Toronto joins a list of eight other cities to have a YouTube Space, all of which are also known for their local creative industries. Since March 2015, creators filming in YouTube Spaces globally have produced over 10,000 videos, which have generated over 1 billion views and 70+ million hours of watchtime.

Play button recipients at the YouTube Space Toronto Opening. Collectively, the creators in attendance
had 70 million subscribers - or twice the population of Canada!

For the latest YouTube Space Toronto news and events, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

We can’t wait to see what happens when Canadian creators have a Space to call their own. One thing we know for sure, the world will be watching!

Posted by Liam Collins, Head of YouTube Spaces America

Drum roll please… the winners of the UK and US YouTube NextUp class of 2016 are in!

Thursday, April 7, 2016

Last month we announced this year’s contest for YouTube NextUp. We’re starting with the UK and US first, and we received hundreds of entries from channels of all kinds – from fashion to science, sports to food and everything in between.

And while deciding on the winners was beyond hard, we’re super excited to announce the final list of 51 winning channels! Let’s get right to it.

The winning UK channels are…
doyouknowellie
Bird Keeper Toby
Adriana Braje
Steven Bridges
Hannah Leigh
Cheap Lazy Vegan
LoseitlikeLauren
Carly Toffle
Laurbubble
Mike Boyd
Anna Johnson
Philosophy Tube
Cameron Sanderson
Maggy Woodley
Thelaserbearguy
Philip Green

The winning US channels are…
Akeem Lawanson
Kriscoart Productions
Retro Weld
iIMAGINEblank
Rikki Poynter
DrumBeatsOnline
Congahead
Beatbox Television
Jessica Flores
Jackson Bird
Origami Tree
Simple English Videos
Tim Bryan
Tracy Campoli
The Art Sherpa
Greg's Garage
Jasmine Rose
Angel Wong’s Kitchen
imSarahSnitch
SammieSpeaks
Painting with Jane
Studio Knit
Vagabrothers
Eddie G!
Cordero Roman
Sarah Croce
SkittLeZMusicTV
Mr. Fix It
Socratica
HouseofHaute
Nic and Pancho
Rayann410
Dahlia & Dia
Kat McDowell
Ali Spagnola

Not only do these channels each get a $2,500 (or £1,750) voucher for production equipment, their creators get a spot at a weeklong creator camp at their nearest YouTube Spaces in London, New York, or Los Angeles.

While there, they’ll team up with production experts to learn new techniques in camera, lighting, and sound, and receive coaching from the YouTube Partnerships team on how to grow their audience like a pro. They’ll also get advice from previous YouTube NextUp grads (like Cassey Ho from Blogilates, Marcus Butler and Jack & Dean) and the opportunity to meet and work with other fast-rising creators in the program.

And for you creators outside of the UK and US, this is just the start for the YouTube NextUp class of 2016. The Tokyo contest is currently accepting submissions for Japan-based creators, and in the next few months we’ll be holding contests in Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Berlin, Paris, Toronto and Mumbai. So keep your eyes peeled for the announcements, enter to win, and you could be NextUp!!!

Bibiana Leite, YouTube NextUp program manager, recently watched VLOG | #YoutubeBlack LOS ANGELES

Keep making history: Celebrating the artists, activists and creators of today

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

It's deeply important to us to make YouTube a great place for diverse creators. We've been excited to shine a light throughout Black History Month on amazing black vloggers, comedians, and beauty gurus like Nathan Zed, Tre Melvin, Akilah Hughes, TPindell and Jackie Aina, who connect with millions of fans on YouTube every day.

These are some of the creators who remind us that celebrating black history doesn't start and end in February. Black history is American history and black voices are making contributions every single day.

We're inspired by how black creators share their stories, art and vision on YouTube. Already this year, people around the world watched Swoozie interview President Obama and tuned in to Marques Brownlee, Chescaleigh and SoldierKnowsBest asking presidential hopefuls tough questions on nationally televised debates. Issa Rae created new opportunities for aspiring black talent to tell their stories online. Amandla Stenberg graced the cover of Teen Vogue following her viral "crash course on black culture" that ignited conversations on identity, music, art and appropriation.

From forging new paths in entertainment and storytelling to shining a light on injustices fueling the #BlackLivesMatter movement, black voices are an engine of creativity, innovation, thought and progress that runs all year long. To all the change makers, educators, entertainers, trendsetters, and storytellers, keep innovating, keep mobilizing, keep creating and most of all--keep making history.

Black history is American history and we are proud to be part of the stories being told.

Danielle Tiedt, Chief Marketing Officer at YouTube, recently watched How to Deal with Being Different by William Haynes

Blur moving objects in your video with the new Custom blurring tool on YouTube

Thursday, February 25, 2016

In 2012, we launched the ability for creators to blur all faces in their video as a first step toward providing visual anonymity tools on YouTube. Even then we knew we still had work to do: you didn’t just want to blur faces -- you wanted to blur literally anything in your video.

Today, we’re launching a Custom Blurring tool on YouTube that lets creators do just that. With this new Enhancements feature, available on desktop versions of YouTube, you can blur any object in your video, even as it moves. Whether you want to blur sensitive information such as a license plate or cover up a wardrobe malfunction without reshooting an entire scene, the new Custom Blurring tool will let you blur objects throughout your video, right within YouTube.

Using the new Custom Blurring feature, simply draw a box around whatever it is you want to blur.

Choose the video that you want to edit and select Custom Blurring within the Blurring Effects tab of our Enhancements tool. Simply draw a box around whatever it is you want to blur. The Custom Blurring tool will automatically blur that object as it moves throughout the video, using our new innovative technology that can analyze the motion of any video on the fly.

The new feature will automatically blur that object as it moves throughout the video

At any time, you can move the blurred area, resize it and choose when the blur starts and stops. There is also a “Lock” option to blur something that doesn’t move at all. When you’re done making edits you can either save the changes as part of the same video or save a new copy, which also gives you the option to delete the original video.

While the use cases for this tool are vast, we built this feature with visual anonymity in mind. We wanted to give you a simple way to blur things like people, contact information or financial data without having to remove and re-upload your content.

YouTube is proud to be a platform where people around the world come to share their stories, whether it’s the first time a loved one learned how to ride a bike, or a first-hand recording of an important human rights issue. We hope this new tool helps you to tell your stories on YouTube, and continue to experiment with your creativity and expression. We have no doubt you will.

Amanda Conway, YouTube Privacy Lead, recently watched INSANE OFFICE SLIDE!

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