Putting your cute, over-the-top marriage proposal on YouTube is nothing new. Having your girlfriend film her own proposal and presenting the ring with a magic trick? Ok, that’s pretty good – I’ll give you that one.
Let’s just hope their love is no illusion.
Whenever the couple has kids, and they grow up and ask how mommy and daddy got married, they can always point to this:
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First off, I need to apologize for the pun – low hanging fruit and all. With that aside, Hey! Sexy lady! The biggest sensation to hit YouTube all year has finally crossed the impressive one billion view mark. The megahit from South Korean superstar PSY has spawned countless remixes, parodies, and reimaginings – both good and oh so very bad. Hell, it’s killing people. Literally. It’s so popular that people like Bill O’Reilly have had a hard time explaining it. Just how did this song reach the pinnacle of internet stardom?
ICP probably has the best reasoning behind the song’s immense popularity. It’s just so fresh.
Back in September, The Guinness Book of World Records named Gangnam Style the most-liked video in the history of YouTube. It supplanted Justin Bieber’s “Baby” for that honor. And as it approaches one billion views, Gangnam Style is the most-viewed video in the history of YouTube – which obviously means that it will be the first video to ever hit this milestone.
Relive the phenomenon below:
Here it is, in all its glory:
Australia has a reputation for housing some of the strangest and most frightening wildlife that the good Earth has to offer. And apparently, even the cute little crocs in the country are thirsty for your blood.
Ok, “cute little croc” might be a misnomer. Crocodiles are dangerous at any size – especially this fast guy who decided to go after a Swedish tourist’s face as he was swimming inside Litchfield National Park. Although not croc-movie sized, the agitated animal seems to be about as big as a medium-sized dog. Plus, he’s coming at you with a crocodile jaw. Yikes.
Maybe he just didn’t like being on camera. I’ve seen celebs react to paparazzi in a similar fashion. I guess he was just trying to send a message, as everyone escaped unharmed.
People will never see eye to eye on every issue, but Jean-Louis Nguyen has attempted to showcase the events of the year that “brought us together”. Unfortunately, it involves a great deal of heartbreak. Still, it’s a pretty powerful video.
Earlier, YouTube itself put out a year-end video reflecting on the site’s biggest hits of the year. It’s definitely a more light-hearted look back at 2012. I probably don’t have to tell you what to expect with that.
2012 has proven to be a huge year for YouTube. The video sharing site has already looked back on a year of ads, and created a rather brilliant tribute to the biggest viral videos of the year. Now the site is looking back on the big news stories of the year, and the large role that YouTube played in getting that information out.
The stats released by YouTube today show the site is becoming more and more important to the news cycle in America and around the world. To illustrate that, the site boasts that 7,000 hours of news-related content is uploaded to YouTube daily. All of that content provides differing opinions, angles and sources to help viewers form a more educated opinion of world events than if they were to just watch one or two regular news channels.
As for the big news events of the year, YouTube rightfully points to Hurricane Sandy as being the major event of the year. In fact, 39,000 videos were uploaded in the week during the storm and the Weather Channel used YouTube to continuously live stream coverage of the storm for more than 70 hours.
The only thing that could compete with Sandy were the presidential election, and it did not disappoint. YouTube reveals that videos tagged Obama or Romney were viewed over 2.7 billion times during the election cycle. The debates also drew 27 million views on YouTube.
Other notable stories in 2012 that received millions of views included the conflict in Syria, the Red Bull Stratos Jump, the landing of the Mars Rover, and the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.
Google announced that Australian television news program ABC News 24 wil is now streaming its broadcasts live on YouTube, which is a first for news and TV broadcasting in Australia.
Users will not only ge able to watch the broadcast live from YouTube, but they will be able to embed the live broadcasts within their Facebook or Twitter accounts.
“As a result, it’s now much easier to share live events and breaking news coverage as it happens by putting the live link directly into your status update or tweet,” says Kieran Ricketts of ABC News Online, writing on the Google Australia blog.
“ABC News 24 can now push out updates from its Facebook and Twitter pages with live video attached – the live video content now accompanies the update that points to it,” says Ricketts. “Visitors to ABC News’ flagship YouTube channel have immediate access to live video alongside highlights from ABC News’ broad range of coverage and programs on demand. Aussies will be able to choose to watch the up-to-date live coverage of ABC News 24 or access video-on-demand highlights to review their favourite news moments from the past, all from the same page.”
I’m guessing that we’ll see more and more of this type of live broadcasting from television networks all over the world as time goes on.
YouTube launched a new app called YouTube Capture today for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It uploads video in the background when you stop recording, so it’s “ready to share sooner”.
“YouTube Capture was designed for speed and convenience, so you can film and upload a video in as few as 3 clicks,” a YouTube spokesperson tells WebProNews. “You can post quickly and simultaneously to YouTube, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter, or share videos privately so only family and friends you choose can see it. Enhance new or existing videos with automatic color correction and stabilization, trimming the video length, and adding music soundtracks.”
You can close the app, and uploading will continue in the background for ten minutes, and will resume where it left off when you open it later. It can be used to manage, edit, upload and share any videos on the device regardless of whether it was filled with Capture. It’s linked to the videos from the Camera Roll.
All of the videos are stored on YouTube like normal.
“This is awesome because you can undo edits that you made to your Capture videos at any time,” the spokesperson says.
There is a landscape lock reminder, which the company says is to help users remember to turn their phone horizontal so the videos look better. You can actually set Capture to automatically start recording when you turn the record screen to landscape.
The app is coming to Android in the future.
I can see this evolving into something like we discussed here, where Google is literally seeing through your eyes in Instant Upload-like fashion. Of course, that is assuming that this comes to Google Glass (and any potential contact lenses we might see down the road).
YouTube has just announced a new feature that makes it easier for video creators to share their videos with a message. Starting today, creators can now customize the text that follows your shared videos around – both on YouTube and on other social networks.
“Where will this post appear? In YouTube feeds, the text will be merged into the upload feed item (exactly the same as if you were to upload a video, then make a channel post about the same video, but without the extra effort). This also works with the scheduled publishing feature, offering you even greater convenience,” says YouTube.
Of course, your customized text will also appear when your video is shared across connected social media accounts, like Google+, Facebook, or Twitter. This saves you the trouble of having to go add a special message on every social media site when you share a video.
Yesterday we told you that YouTube and Google+ got even more integrated. Now, video creators have the option to share their uploaded videos to Google+, and Google will display all of your public videos on your public Google+ profile. Just another way Google is integrating Google+ into other Google products – something that you should be unsurprised by at this point.
Google has added a feature to YouTube making it easier to share videos on Google+, continuing its mission to unify its products.
Now, when you go to upload a new public video, you’ll see an option to share to Google+. You can check the box and add a note if you like.
“And for those of you who are aspiring musicians, pundits, comedians, or brands, we’ve now made it even easier for you to connect with your fan base,” said Dom Carr, who announced the features on Google+ (via TechCrunch).
Google will start displaying all your public videos on your Google+ profile. They’ve renamed the “Videos” tab “YouTube,” and it will send people to YouTube when they click.
“This way you can grow your audience even faster with Google+,” he says.
To take advantage of the new features, you’ll need to connect your YouTube and Google+ accounts if you haven’ already. The features are rolling out over the next few days.
In 2009, YouTube announced that it had teamed up with Universal and Sony on a music video site called Vevo. Now, three years later, you’re probably pretty familiar with the brand. Even if you don’t visit Vevo.com, you’re probably used to seeing music videos from Vevo on YouTube if you ever search for music on the world’s most popular video site.
Well, YouTube’s deal with Vevo reportedly expires on Sunday, and Vevo (sometimes referred to as the “Hulu for Music Videos”) and Google (which owns YouTube of course) have not reached an agreement to extend the partnership, according to Peter Kafka at All Things D, citing “people familiar with negotiations”. Kafka writes:
But that doesn’t mean Vevo’s videos will disappear from YouTube, or that Vevo.com will go dark. The existing contract has what amounts to a 120-day extension, which essentially means that the real deadline for Vevo and Google won’t roll around for another four months.
That said, people familiar with the negotiations say the two sides are in “intense” discussions, with the hopes of wrapping something up much sooner than that.
Vevo ranked number four on comScore’s top online video sites in the U.S., behind Google Sites, Yahoo Sites, and NDN. The firm counted over 53,000 unique visitors for the month. YouTube had over 182,000, and no doubt, more than a few of those led to Vevo video views.
Google has expressed interest in renewing “relationships with valuable partners,” and one would have to assume that major music labels are considered as such, particularly with the amount of music searching that goes on on YouTube. Without VEVO’s music videos, users are going to have a hard time finding a lot of stuff they’re looking for. This is a pretty important deal for Google, as it seeks to get people staying on site more.
Earlier this year, Nielsen named Vevo YouTube’s top partner at 694,907 total streams in June.
YouTube just launched a redesign and extended its guide feature to all devices. It’s also making deals to have YouTube shows shown on airplanes.
YouTube announced today that it is updating the look of the site, but perhaps more importantly, it’s putting the guide feature on all devices. A spokesperson for the company tells us this is all rolling out in the next few hours.
“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,” the company says in a blog post. “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.”
As for the new look of YouTube.com, the company says, “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.”
YouTube currently has 800 million users per month, watching 4 billion hours of video. Over the last year, the number of users subscribing to channels has more than doubled. The company says experiments show that the new updates add another 30% on top of that. YouTube users are subscribing to 50% more channels overall with the new update, and watch time is up 30%. Subscribing to channels has been around as a feature as far back as 2005.
Jonathan and Ivory are ending their 5-year relationship. Very, very publicly. In fact, they are ending it with an original song posted on YouTube.
The video was posted by YouTube user Jonathan Mann, who is no stranger to posting music on YouTube. Here’s what he had to say about the track:
“Yes, it’s true folks. Ivory and I are splitting up. It’s really sad. I’m really sad. I think you may have been able to tell in some recent songs. It’s going to be a hard road ahead for me, but I know that this is the right decision and that eventually we’ll both be happier in the end. I just want to say, thanks for being out there, watching my stuff and commenting and sending me messages. Your support and love during this time of crisis in my life means so, so much.”
If you’re going to break up and you have a lot of friends that you think deserve to know, there’s probably no better way to do it than with a catchy little song.
[via BuzzFeed]
YouTube announced that it is teaming up with Virgin America to bring a handful of shows to all of the airline’s flights in the U.S. and Mexico.
Those shows would be: H+ The Digital Series, WIGS’ Blue, Geek & Sundry’s Written By a Kid, Crash Course and Barely Political’s The Key of Awesome.
The shows will be on the flights by mid-December, according to YouTube.
“Bringing YouTube aboard Virgin America is part of a larger effort to bring you more of the videos you love, at heights you’ve never seen them before,” said YouTube marketing manager Kate Berland. “Sample these great series on your flight, and then visit YouTube to enjoy the full seasons. New series and shows will become available every two months.”
Here’s what you’re in for:
YouTube has launched an update for its iOS app, which is designed for the iPad, and has some updates for the iPhone 5 and iPod Touch.
“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,” Google software engineer Horia Ciurdar says. “Enjoy Tastemade on iPad in full screen glory, or hours of flipping through Ryan Higa videos on your iPhone 5 or iPod touch.”
Google launched its YouTube app for iPhone and iPod Touch in September. YouTube is now available on 400 million devices. People are watching over 25% of YouTube on mobile devices – over a billion views a day, Google says.
The iOS update is rolling out globally today.
A few days ago, we told you about the jumping spider that YouTube helped send to space. It was part of one of the winning projects from the YouTube Space Lab experiment launched last year. Google announced that the spider had returned safely home from the International Space Station, and was moving into its new home at the Smithsonian.
Now, that spider, named Nefertiti, has reportedly died of natural causes five days after its introduction to the museum.
The LA Times shares a statement form museum spokesperson Kelly Carnes: “The unexpected loss of this special animal who inspired so many imaginations will be felt throughout the museum community….The body of Nefertiti will be added to the museum’s collection of specimens where she will continue to contribute to our understanding of spiders.”
The spider spent 100 days in space, and traveled a reported 42 million miles before returning to Earth. It was 10 months old. Apparently this species typically only lives up until about a year.
Here’s a video that has more about the experiment: