Official Blog
What's happening on YouTube
Celebrating Internet Safety Month
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Millions of people view, upload, share, and comment on YouTube videos every day. The vast majority of these people have good intentions, but as with any community, a few don't. This month, we’re celebrating the 3rd Annual
Internet Safety Month
by
spotlighting videos
that educate families on how to stay safe online. From making smart decisions about posting personal information, to dealing with rude comments and cyberbullies, these straightforward tips will enable you to have the best possible experience on YouTube and across the Web. Be sure to check them out and also take a moment to brush up on some of the tools YouTube offers to help you stay safe on our site:
Community Guidelines
: This is our description of what is and isn’t allowed on the site. You should read these Guidelines before you post content, or if you see something that you think maybe shouldn’t be on YouTube.
Flagging
: If you see something that you think violates our Community Guidelines, flag it! The flag icon is located below the video player. When flagging a video be sure to let us know which of our policies you think the video violates and we’ll review it.
Safety Mode
: A setting that you can opt in to that will filter out content that may be inappropriate for sensitive users and teens. This setting reduces your chances of stumbling across content that you may not want to see.
Unlisted Videos
: These videos don’t appear in search results and only people who have the video's link can view them. Unlike private sharing, there’s no limit to the number of people who can view unlisted videos.
Help & Safety Tool
: A tool that allows you to report privacy violations, block users and report harassment and bullying anonymously.
The more our community treats each other with respect, keeps personal information private, and reports inappropriate content, the better the YouTube community experience as a whole will be. Please do your part!
Mandy Albanese, Policy & Communications Associate, recently watched "
Digital Citizenshop - Who Will You Be?
”
New video page launches for all users
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
As you may know, we're in the midst of one of the largest redesigns in YouTube's history: we're simplifying the look and functionality of the video page. That's the page you see whenever a video plays, and this redesign is about going "back to basics," focusing attention on the reason why you came to YouTube in the first place -- the video -- and all the ways you engage with content and creators.
We
first unveiled
the new video page two months ago and checked in four weeks later to tell you about the
latest set of changes
. Truth is, we've been thinking about this for a long time: what you see is the result of eight months' worth of user research, feedback and data analysis. Now, after a few more
additions
based on your latest feedback, we are rolling it out to 100% of YouTube users.
Here's what's new about the page:
Overall look and functionality
- It's cleaner, simpler and easier to use.
- Information about a video is now grouped together in one place and there's a consistent way to get more detail when you need it. This way, unless something's truly useful to you, it doesn't clutter up your page.
- We've cleaned up the actions bar; you'll see a streamlined presentation for sharing, flagging, and embedding controls.
Discovery
- The right-hand side of the page is devoted to the next video to watch. We're smarter about suggesting the next videos to watch based on how you found the video you're watching in the first place.
- The channel name and subscribe button are now both on top of the video. We found that you prefer having a quick peek at more videos uploaders have created before deciding whether to subscribe to their channels.
Playlists
- There's a new playlist interface, with the next video in the list appearing consistently in the top right. You can easily expand that list or skip ahead using a new next button in the player controls.
- Saving to playlists is easier, and we've made Favorites the default option.
Ratings
- We've replaced the
five-star ratings system
with a simpler "likes / dislikes" model and introduced a new "Videos I Liked" list.
Comments
- Comments have a new highlights view which summarizes the best discussions and celebrates when creators communicate with their audiences.
We know this is a big change, but we hope you'll find the new page to be an improvement to your YouTube experience and to be a reflection of what you've told us thus far through your usage of the site and your comments to us. We'll be gathering in a conference room at our San Bruno, CA, headquarters at 6 p.m. PT today and tomorrow, and in London at 9 a.m. GMT tomorrow, to respond in near-real-time to your comments in the
forums
, on this blog and on
Twitter
. Of course, we'll be listening at other times, too, but we wanted to make sure we were available when you might have the most questions about these changes.
Igor Kofman, Software Engineer, recently watched "
Pantyraid - Beba
," and Shiva Rajaraman, Product Manager, recently watched "
Chat Roulette Funny Piano Improv #2
."
New video page adds comments highlight view and ratings improvements
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Over the past couple of weeks, we've been busy iterating on the new video page design based on your feedback, and we're excited to share some new developments before the page is rolled out to everyone soon. Remember to
opt-in here
to get a preview of these new features:
Highlights view on comments
Many of you indicated that comments could use an overhaul and hoped that was a part of the redesign. We're happy to say that it is. Today, we're introducing a "highlights view" of comments which summarizes top rated comments, uploader comments, video responses and recent comments in a single "front-page story" that you can drill into for more detail. You can see an example on
this video
and
this one
. We're continuing to make the highlights better as we learn how people interact with it, so please let us know what you think in the comments below.
Ratings
We've also made some improvements to the new like/dislike ratings system. When you like a video, we let you know how many people liked it and disliked it. To help you remember the best videos you've encountered, there's a new area housing all the videos that you liked, called (surprise, surprise) "Videos I Liked." In addition, we listened to your feedback and no longer tie 'Liking' something to your Favorites, which you use more for personal saving. Favoriting a video is now the first option when you click "save"; you can continue to save videos to your Favorites in this manner or create another playlist just by typing in the name. Finally, throughout the site, you'll occasionally see a video marked 'Most Liked' to give you an indication that this is a video other people loved, that you may want to check out. We surface popular videos in many ways, and we hope Most Liked becomes a reliable signal that helps you find quality videos to watch.
For quick refresher on the overall video page design, check out this video produced by
TheWillofDC
:
And if you've opted in but want to go back to the old page, you can
opt out here
.
UPDATE:
After reading your comments, we'd like to note that some of you are opted in permanently to the new page, which means you are part of our current experiment and are unable to opt out. These kinds of experiments help us learn what works on the page and what doesn't, so that we can build the best possible site for you. We've also heard your feedback on Auto-play interrupting your experience and are working on some improvements.
Peter Bradshaw, Software Engineer, recently liked "
SOIL & "PIMP" SESSIONS 'Summer Goddess'
," and Tyler Morse, Software Engineer, recently liked "
Bottle Bank Arcade - TheFunTheory.com - Rolighetsteorin.se
."
Five Stars Dominate Ratings
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
This graph fascinated us and so we wanted to share. It shows the number of videos that receive specific star ratings: one star for when you loathe something, five for when you love it. Judging from this chart, it looks like some of you are moved to rate videos when you don't like them, but the overwhelming majority of videos on YouTube have a stellar five-star rating:
Seems like when it comes to ratings it's pretty much all or nothing. Great videos prompt action; anything less prompts indifference. Thus, the ratings system is primarily being used as a seal of approval, not as an editorial indicator of what the community thinks about a video. Rating a video joins favoriting and sharing as a way to tell the world that
this
is something you love.
We're glad there are so many awesome videos on YouTube, but all of this begs the question: if the majority of videos are getting five stars, how useful is this system really? Would a thumbs up/thumbs down be more effective, or does favoriting do the trick of declaring your love for a video? These are just some of the questions we ask ourselves as we look at data like this and think about how to build the best, most efficient site for you.
What do you think? How useful are ratings? How do
you
use them? Please leave a comment below.
Shiva
Rajaraman
, Product Manager, recently rated "
Dr Who and the Daleks."
Labels
3D
4k
accessibility
account info
activism
ads
africa
annotations
arts
awards
benefit
betas
bizblog
blogs
bulletins
buzz
captions
celebrity playlists
channels
chrome
citizen journalism
citizen reporting
citizentube
comedy
comments
community
community guidelines
contests
creator's corner
creators
curators
customization
dance
design
discovery
doodle
editor
education
embeds
entertainment
events
facebook
film
flagging
gaming
gmail
google
google tv
government
grants
groups
guidelines
hd
help center
holidays
homepage
howto
inspiration
investment
jobs
journalism
life in a day
live stream
marketing
meetups
mobile
moderator
movies
music
musicians wanted
news
nonprofits
open-source
partners
playlists
policy
politics
privacy
product update
quicklist
ratings
rentals
research
safety
science and technology
screening room
search
sharing
shows
social networks
sports
staff
stats and data
store
subscriptions
tags
test tube
travel
trends
tv
twitter
upload
vevo
video editing
video production
video volunteers
viral video
youtube api
youtube direct
Archive
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2006
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2005
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Feed
YouTube
on
Follow @youtube
Follow
Learn more in the
YouTube Help Center
.
Follow