YouTube Creator Blog

CaliforniaTravelTips is January’s rising YouTube partner

2012-01-29T12:00:00.000-08:00

If you’ve been to the YouTube homepage today, you may have noticed CaliforniaTravelTips featured in the Spotlight. Veronica Hill, the woman behind CaliforniaTravelTips, is our featured “On The Rise” partner for January.

Born and raised in California, Veronica has 30+ years of travel experience that she’s translated into an informative YouTube series about all the Golden State has to offer. Ever wondered what the best strategy is for tackling Disneyland? Planning a trip to San Diego and want advice about must-do sites and activities? Think you want to visit Yosemite but want a preview of the best wilderness hiking trails? Answer any of these questions and more with Veronica’s detailed and digestible travel videos, with more than 150 video reviews to watch.

Here are a few words from Veronica:

California is one of the most diverse and wonderful places in the world! We have sandy beaches, snow-capped mountains, breathtaking national forests, and vast stretches of lonely desert. After 20 years as an editor and writer for magazines, books and newspapers, I decided to try something new. In 2007, Tim Carter of AsktheBuilder.com suggested that we start a YouTube channel. That weekend, my husband, Jason, and I went to the local camera store and bought a cheap digital video camera, tripod and Radio Shack mic. We began filming our favorite vacation spots and attractions throughout California... We want to thank the YouTube community and everyone who voted. You guys are awesome, and we couldn't have done it without your support!

If you’ve enjoyed this monthly On The Rise blog series and want to see more rising YouTube partners, check out our On The Rise Channel. Keep an eye out for next month’s blog post, as your channel may be the next one On The Rise!

Christine Wang and Devon Storbeck, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “driving on mountain top ORIGINAL!”

YouTube Release Notes: Updates to Browse page, Video Editor and Video Manager

2012-01-26T12:12:00.000-08:00

This week we’re kicking off our recurring Release Notes post for 2012, highlighting some of the most recent updates to YouTube. Our scrappy engineers have been hard at work to make your experience even better, and here’s what’s new.

New look for Browse

Today we're giving the Browse page a fresh look-and-feel, to help you find even more great Channels on YouTube. Alongside the top lists like Most Viewed Today, you can now discover and subscribe to more YouTube Channels on browse pages, which will then regularly update on your homepage. You can also discover more content under categories including Entertainment, People & Blogs, Science & Technology and more. You’ll find it all on YouTube.com/browse.

Video Editor with new features

We first announced the YouTube Video Editor back in June of 2010 and since then we’ve added dozens of features that we hope you’ve enjoyed. With the recent YouTube homepage update we felt it was time to give the Video Editor a visual overhaul, as well as adding a cool new timeline, easier clip trimming and a moving playhead. Head over to YouTube.com/editor to see the changes. Here’s a shot of what it looks like:

Video Manager with oldies and new goodies

We’ve listened to your feedback from the Video Manager update in December, and have a bunch of new features and improvements. Along with a visual update, the Video Manager includes search history, and an improved display of scheduled uploads and claimed videos. You also wanted us to add back in the likes and dislikes statistics as well as sorting videos by popularity, so those features have returned. This will be rolling out over the next few days, and here’s a screenshot of what it looks like:

David Wang, product specialist, recently watched “Somebody That I Used to Know - Walk off the Earth (Gotye - Cover),” Alan deLespinasse, software engineer, recently watched “Extreme Sheep LED Art [HQ],” and Jung Kim, User Experience Designer, recently watched “[M/V] ITAEWON FREEDOM (with J.Y. Park).”

Upcoming improvements to accuracy of subscriber counts

2012-01-10T17:00:00.000-08:00

UPDATE (1/11/12):

We will be holding off on the single day adjustment (the January 12th date is being postponed) until we can address some discrepancies we found in synchronizing the public counts with YouTube Analytics. Everyone involved in this project is determined to ensure that this change is clearly understood by users, so we will postpone the single day adjustment until we can ensure that both the public count and YouTube Analytics data are consistent and unambiguous. We will let everyone know once we have a firm date in mind.
However, the enhanced techniques for despamming new subscriptions will be implemented as scheduled (tomorrow), as there are no such complications. We will continue to keep everyone up to date on how this develops.

-----------------------------------------
1/10/12

At YouTube, we take the accuracy of subscriber counts seriously. Subscriber counts are a reflection of a creator’s level of engagement with viewers, and a serious source of pride in the community. Many creators also use subscriber counts to measure their expectations for how many views their new videos should receive, by comparing total subscriber counts to number of views received from subscription sources in YouTube Analytics.

As a result, we are enhancing our efforts to ensure that all subscriber counts are as accurate as possible. On January 12th, we will take the following steps to improve the quality and integrity of subscriber counts across the site:

Remove inactive and closed accounts from total subscriber counts. We will remove all such accounts from subscriber numbers on January 12th, and continually update subscriber counts as subscribers become inactive or close their accounts.

Improve techniques for preventing artificial inflation of subscriber counts. Recently, we’ve seen a rise in creative agencies and vendors that claim to increase subscribers while complying with the YouTube Terms of Service. In most cases, those claims are false; the purchase or gaming of subscribers is a violation of our Terms of Service. Accordingly, we are taking the following steps to prevent some users from artificially inflating their subscriber counts:

Effective January 12th, we will implement a more rigorous system that will prevent new subscriptions generated from these malicious sources from being added to subscriber counts.

Beginning January 12th, we will retroactively adjust subscriber counts to not include subscriptions generated by artificial sources on an ongoing basis.

Please note: While we are updating subscriber counts to remove such subscriptions from the totals, we will not stop delivering videos to these subscribers, even if they are artificially created accounts. This means that even if we mistakenly remove a subscriber from a subscription account as invalid, this will in no way affect your views.

By ensuring the quality of subscriber counts, we hope that this metric will be a more valuable data point for creators. Creators who have not attempted to inflate their subscriber counts should only see a limited drop--resulting from the removal of inactive and closed accounts--while users who have benefitted from abuse will get a reality check.

David Boyle, YouTube Staff, recently watched "2012 Taipei 101 New Year Fireworks HD complete 台北101煙火 Taiwan 2011 / 2012 (UFO ?)."

Partner Support talks with.... GloZell1 on January 17

2012-01-10T09:30:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, January 17th, the YouTube Partner Support team will be hosting a partner meet-up at YouTube Headquarters. During the meet-up, we'll be live streaming the latest episode of Partner Support Talks with.... featuring a YouTube partner answering questions submitted by YouTube users like you!

In this episode, Partner Support Talks with...GloZell1, we'll sit down with the one and only GloZell to talk about how she's achieved success on YouTube. We'll also ask her YOUR questions, live, on the air.

Is there something you'd like to ask GloZell about her YouTube history? Want her advice on best practices? You have until next Monday to submit your questions (and vote for others) here to be answered live: http://goo.gl/udXvj

Tune in to www.youtube.com/youtube at 4:30pm PST on January 17th to watch the show live! We'll also post the show on www.youtube.com/ytcreators after the show.

Lindsay Hampton, YouTube Partner Team, recently watched "NFL Wild Card Playoff Recap with the FootballWife."

Help January’s “On The Rise” nominees reach the homepage!

2012-01-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012! The new year brings with it a new batch of talented YouTube partners for the January edition of our monthly On The Rise program.

For those new to the series, here’s how it works: we identify four YouTube Partners who are steadily growing but haven’t yet hit the 100,000 subscriber mark. You watch their videos, then vote for your favorite in the top right corner of this blog. The channel with the most votes at the end of the week will be featured on the YouTube homepage and videos page. In past months, winners like evmoneyTV and ThePortraitArt have seen growth in their audience and video engagement thanks to your support.

This month we’re featuring four promising partners whose content is geared toward getting you moving - whether that means action sport stunts, gardening, fitness, or travel. You have until January 16th at 5pm PT to vote for your favorite channel, and the one with the most votes at the end of the week will secure the homepage feature on January 30th.

AlliSports
If you’re into action sports, you’ve probably heard of Alli: they promote various sports and tours for skateboarding, BMX, motocross, and snowboarding. Their channel features professional interviews as well as stunt tips and analysis.

growingyourgreens
Ever considered - or attempted - growing your produce in your own backyard? Don’t let inexperience or an urban environment discourage you! John’s channel is full of tips for how to grow your own food at home.

yogatoday
Based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, yogatoday produces instructional yoga videos set in pristine mountain locations. Whether or not you’ve tried yoga before, these informative video classes foster relaxation and a healthy lifestyle.

CaliforniaTravelTips
California native Veronica Hill has made a career of promoting her home state, publishing reviews for restaurants, vacation spots, and more, all over the state. Her YouTube channel features videos of various locations, attractions, and travel tips to help locals and tourists alike navigate all California has to offer.

If you’re interested in checking out more rising YouTube Partners, visit our On The Rise channel, which features nominees, trending partners and monthly blog winners.

Devon Storbeck, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “never a dull moment on the nyc subway.”

Views and 3rd party services

2012-01-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

Viewcounts are incredibly important to us here at YouTube. They serve as a way to recognize and surface great content, and are one of the most scrutinized measures of popularity on YouTube. Careers have been made because of viewcounts - whether you’re simply making a music video with friends or on the way back from the dentist, views matter.

Since views are so important, it’s no surprise that there are companies whose entire business model is built on converting your cash into views. We understand that promotion can be a highly effective way to grow your audience, and we encourage you to promote your content on and off of YouTube. However, we want to be clear that paying for views obtained through some of these companies could very well be a violation of our terms, and one that we take very seriously.

So what do we mean exactly? Let’s get specific.

What is a view?
We consider a view to be an action users want to do. Generally, this means that they initiate the view; for example, they click on something they want to watch or decide not to skip something, and they watch it. Pretty straightforward, right?

A view should be a metric that reflects genuine user interest. In other words, a viewer has a choice, and that choice determines whether or not we count something as a view. It shouldn’t be a gauge of how many people accidentally or unintentionally ended up watching your video.

What isn’t ok?
Services that attempt to gain views through automated means or that force or trick viewers into watching videos are not ok. This could be through a variety of means, including, among other things, deceptive layouts on third party websites that trick viewers into playing a video when they click unrelated elements on the page. It might also be serving up embedded videos instead of intended content, serving pop-unders, re-directing and/or a variety of other methods people use to try to inflate viewership.

At the end of the day, anything that artificially increases the number of views, either through the use of automatic systems or by serving up videos to unsuspecting viewers, is against our terms. Videos and accounts that are found to be in violation of our terms may be closed down and removed from YouTube.

Buyer beware
If you are going to contract someone to help promote your content, it should be someone you absolutely trust, as you may be putting the fate of your channel (and your business on YouTube) in their hands. If they are using methods that aren’t within our terms, you will be the one to pay the price, as it will be your videos and your channel that get taken down. And don’t just take their word for it - ask the tough questions, find out how they promote your content and do your due diligence. Ultimately, you are responsible for knowing and abiding by our terms - this means understanding the nature of the traffic on your channel and making sure you are in compliance with our terms. Ignorance of bad traffic or other actions taken on your behalf may lead to your account being removed from YouTube.

Stefan Vraspir, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched DJ Earworm Mashup - United State of Pop 2011 (World Go Boom)

Update on Frozen Viewcounts

2012-01-03T14:23:00.000-08:00

We've heard from creators over the past few days that some public viewcounts have been frozen. We're sorry for the issue and we're close to fixing it. In the meantime, here's what you need to know:

While the public viewcount is stuck, all your views are still being recorded, and are visible in YouTube Analytics.

AdSense impressions are not affected by this data backlog.

You should see the results of our fixes within the next couple of days, and until all public viewcount updates have occurred, YouTube Analytics remains the most timely and accurate source of views data.

Thank you for your patience with these fixes, and hope your 2012 is off to a great start.

David Boyle, YouTube Staff, recently watched "Rebecca Black 'Person of Interest' (Brock's Dub)."

December’s “On The Rise” Partner is ThePortraitArt

2011-12-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Xiaonan, the talent behind the portraits featured on ThePortraitArt. This channel received the most votes for the December On The Rise poll, and will be featured on the YouTube homepage today.

Xiaonan Sun is a self-taught artist, and producing lifelike portraits is his passion. Since 2008, Xiaonan has used YouTube to document his talent through timelapse videos that showcase not only the final product but the full creative process. Some of his most popular pieces are pop-culture celebrity likenesses, but he also produces personal portraits by commission. And if you thought traditional portrayals and media were the limits of Xiaonan’s skill, you’re in for a treat: he can create the illusion of reality with his portraits, and he doesn’t limit himself to using simply pencils and erasers

Here are a few words from our December On The Rise star himself:

“I make my art videos to share my creation process, which I think could be every bit as compelling as the final product. But I also make these videos to relax your mind, calm your thoughts and uplift your mood. After all, today's people are so often stuck in thoughts, dealing with its worries and day to day concerns, that most rarely calm their mind down to feel the presence of the moment, which is the only thing there really is and ever could be. I want more people to be in this state more often, to see things not through the limited and rigid mind or the fearful ego, but through a heart that loves to express and create. I like to express my deep appreciation for all those who voted for me and watch my videos, and my sincere gratitude to youtube for providing the canvas, for my channel is a drawing, and each video a stroke on its paper.”

If you’ve enjoyed this monthly On The Rise blog series and want to see more rising YouTube partners, check out our On The Rise channel or look for our playlists on the browse page. Keep an eye out for next month’s blog post, as your channel may be the next one On The Rise!

Devon Storbeck, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “Downhill extreme: Rollerman overtaking motocycle!”

Subscriptions and Publishing: Updates and FAQs

2011-12-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

We know there have been issues with subscriptions and publishing reliability for some time, and today we wanted to give you an update on the issues we're facing and where we are with resolving them. We know we haven't met your expectations with this, and here's how we're trying to fix that.

To start, here’s some background on how publishing works at YouTube. Delivering your videos is a two phased system—we process your video and then we deliver that video to your subscribers.

Processing your video
Our engineers are working hard to make video processing even faster, more reliable, and continue adding related features that make your life easier like resumable uploads. We have more to do here in 2012, and will keep you updated with our progress.

Delivering your video
Over the last few weeks we’ve rolled out a subscriptions delivery system that’s 20 times faster and more powerful, able to deliver your videos to even more subscribers as your Channels continue to grow. It’s like upgrading from a unicycle to a racecar.

Once our processing improvements are complete, all the pieces should fall into place to make publishing a seamless and uneventful experience (as it should be). Until that happens, here are some tips to avoid common problems.

The 0% Published problem
What it means: What this generally means is that the video is waiting on processing to complete, before attempting to publish. Until the video has processed in all formats, the status will stay at 0%.

What you can do: Don’t delete your video and reupload. Just wait for your video to become available on all formats you would expect--for a 1920x1080 video that means everything from 240p through 1080p--and then the 0% published should go away very quickly once all formats have processed.

What we’re doing to fix this: We’ve removed the confusing 0% published notification from the new video manager. The icon will now say “Sending to subscribers feeds” instead.

Published video isn’t appearing in feeds
What it means: In almost all reports of this problems, the issue isn’t that videos aren’t appearing in feeds at all, but it’s that the videos are not appearing at the top of the feed, in chronological order. This is because the position of videos in the chronology of the feeds reflects the uploaded time rather than published time. This commonly happens when you upload a video as private or unlisted, then make it public 48 hours later.

What you can do: If you expect to keep your video private or unlisted for an extended period of time before marking it public, consider using scheduled publishing to ensure it gets to the top of user feeds.

What we’re doing: We’re looking at ways to make sure the order of videos reflects the published time rather than the original upload time.

As we are rolling out improvements, we’ll continue to provide updates through the Creator Blog and please keep sharing your feedback in the Partner Forum.

David Boyle, YouTube Staff, recently watched "Wham! - Last Christmas."

Build your audiences....on TV!

2011-12-20T18:52:00.000-08:00

You're already driving over 3 billion views every day around the world--whether it's on a laptop or phone. We're excited to share that you can now increase that reach even further: through the Xbox 360--on TV.

Through the YouTube application on the Xbox 360 that we announced last week, you can reach your fans in ways that you never could before--and engage with them even more. This is particularly valuable for partners who may have gaming related-content in their videos.

Watch some of the things that gaming partners are saying about the experience below.

Sang Kim, Gaming Partner Development, recently watched “Mahalo Video Games Guide: Youtube for Xbox."

Check out the new Video Manager

2011-12-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

You put a lot of work into your videos, so we’re putting a lot of work into making sure they look their best on YouTube. Today we’re rolling out an updated Video Manager with some new features that’ll help you handle all your videos. To try out the new design, go to the Video Manager and click “try it now.”

Highlights of the new Video Manager are:

Simplified top and left navigation bars to help you get to the tools you need more quickly
Icons to indicate privacy status, if monetization is enabled and scheduled publish status
Badges to indicate whether videos are HD, Creative Commons and/or captioned
A new look that’s consistent with our fresh coat of digital paint

We also cleaned up our suite of editing tools and improved the navigation used to get between these tools:

To learn more, watch this video walkthrough or check out our Help Center.

Have feedback? On the left side of the page click the “send feedback” button, where we’ll be reviewing all of your comments on the design. We’re planning on fully releasing this interface early next year, so submit your ideas before then. You can also share your thoughts in our forum.

Dan Auclair, Web Developer, recently watched “Halloween Light Show 2011 - Party Rock Anthem.”

Easier copyright management on YouTube

2011-12-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

From Justin Bieber to The Gregory Brothers, YouTube is a platform for anyone with a passion for performing to showcase their musical talents and get noticed across the web. Smart copyright management is an important part of this online video service—it helps songwriters and performers to be appropriately compensated for their works, while also allowing for those works to be used in new ways.

YouTube has had a longstanding commitment to solving the really tough challenges around online copyright—how to manage content rights in a quickly evolving technology world. We’ve already invested tens of millions of dollars in content management technology such as Content ID and, with over 3,000 major media companies using it, we’ve come a long way in just a few years. But we want to keep pushing things forward.

Today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve acquired RightsFlow, a New York-based company that helps songwriters, recording artists, record labels, distributors and online music services manage music rights. As new ways of consuming music have emerged, RightsFlow has been at the forefront of solving the complex issues of licensing and royalty payment management. We couldn’t think of a better team to bring on board to further YouTube’s support of the creative community.

By combining RightsFlow’s expertise and technology with YouTube’s platform, we hope to more rapidly and efficiently license music on YouTube, meaning more music for you all to enjoy, and more money for the talented people producing the music. From music videos to live-streamed concerts, YouTube has become a launch-pad for both aspiring musicians and more established independent artists—which is why we have and will continue to invest in tools that make it easier for copyright owners to manage their content online.

David King, Product Manager, recently watched "Danny Macaskill - Industrial Revolutions.”

'Tis the season to decorate: Make your YouTube Channel a home for the holidays and beyond!

2011-12-08T15:18:00.001-08:00

With the holidays upon us, many of you are busy decorating your homes to get into the spirit of the season. What better time to bring this decorative mood to your home on YouTube — your Channel — and help your audience to get more into your videos?

As part of the announcement last week of our new look, we unveiled Channel layouts to help you better showcase your videos. Since this announcement, we’ve been encouraged by data showing logged in usage and subscriptions on the rise. So, we’re moving forward to bring the new YouTube to more of you. Starting this week, all newly created and existing basic Channels will be transitioned to the new design. YouTube Partners can opt into the new design at any point, but their Channels will not be automatically transitioned at this point. When you visit “My Channel” on YouTube, you’ll see your Channel in the new design, and the “Edit Channel” button that’s your gateway to exploring the various layouts. Here are some pointers to help you get started:

1. Fill your feed with great videos: Are you sharing your likes, favorites and subscriptions? Publishing these activities to your feed will keep your Channel fresh with new entertaining videos, even when you’re not uploading videos.

2. Feature your very best content: Have videos or playlists you want to showcase? Add the featured tab to your Channel and choose a template that works best for you. You can do this in just a few clicks -- get started by clicking “Edit Channel.”

3. Write a unique description: Create a description that tells your visitors what to expect from your Channel. Click the “Edit” button in the top right corner of your Channel. You can also add links to Facebook, Twitter and other websites.

4. Share the love: Our viewers look to you for great videos on YouTube. Give the gift of your suggestions by adding the "Other Channels" feature, and encourage other Channel owners to do the same.

Many YouTube Channels have already made the switch, and we’re hoping you’ll join them. You’ll receive the new Channels design over the next few days. Play with the templates and design options to make your channel the most inviting home for your audience. Remember, you can always switch back to the old design by clicking the “Switch back” button in the Appearance tab should you need more time to get your Channel ready for primetime.

Looking for even more inspiration? Visit a gallery of examples, or watch a few YouTube creators tour their new Channels.

We can’t wait to see what you do with your place!

The YouTube team

Project for Awesome: 5 years of doing good

2011-12-08T11:35:00.001-08:00

Today’s guest post comes from Hank and John Green, aka the VlogBrothers, with a special message about how you can dramatically increase the level of awesome that exists around the world this year.

In 2007, we asked everyone on YouTube to upload videos for their favorite causes and charities on December 17. We wanted to help raise awareness and donations for awesome causes that we all care about—big and small, from near and far. This YouTube community-driven movement became known as Project for Awesome.

This year is now the 5th anniversary of Project for Awesome, and we want you to help make it more awesome than ever. Here’s how:

Make an innovative video promoting your favorite charity and upload it on December 17 starting at Noon ET. Make it original, and most importantly, make it awesome. Use this thumbnail as your thumbnail for the video, and tag it with "p4a2011” (here’s info about using thumbnails). It’s our hope that if we all upload on the same day, all of YouTube and the Internet will be taken over by a flurry of awesomeness.

Awesome waits for no one, so here are some ideas to get started:

Organize a campaign with your community and film it. This can be anything from a bake sale to rebuilding a village. There are many non-profits that allow you to build teams such as Charity:Water, Kiva, and Causes.com.
Check out some of our favorite Project for Awesome videos below.
Take one of your existing videos and spend some time using the YouTube Video Editor to make it even better.

On December 17, we hope all of you around the Internet and around the world upload videos for your favorite causes. Then, share your favorites and donate to the causes you think are awesome. Here are some past videos to get you started.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to be awesome.

Hank and John Green of the VlogBrothers recently watched “Pas De Deux - Sean Malone (Remix).”

Submit your questions for KalebNation, FinalCutKing, and BlackBoxTV

2011-12-07T09:00:00.000-08:00

On Monday, December 12th, the YouTube Partner Support team will host a partner meet-up in Los Angeles. During the meet-up we will film a YouTube Partner Panel featuring KalebNation, FinalCutKing and BlackBoxTV. These partners will be answering questions submitted by YouTube users like you!

Is there something you'd like to ask KalebNation about his YouTube history? Want FinalCutKing’s advice on best practices? Wondering what BlackBoxTV considers his best moment on YouTube? You have until next Monday to submit your questions (and vote for others) here to be answered during the panel: http://goo.gl/Ii6LR

Visit www.youtube.com/partnersupport in late December to watch the panel!

Lindsay Hampton, YouTube Partner Support, ""Morning Dew" — a bad lip reading of Bruno Mars, feat. Lady Gaga and Jay-Z."

Meet the December “On The Rise” nominees and vote for your favorite

2011-12-05T12:00:00.000-08:00

Each month, we find four YouTube Partners whose subscriber numbers are growing but haven’t yet hit 100,000 for our monthly On The Rise program. December’s candidates are in, and we encourage you to check out their videos and vote for your favorite in the top right corner of the Official YouTube blog by December 12 at 5pm PT. The channel with the most votes at the end of the week will be featured on the YouTube homepage and videos page.

To close out 2011, the On The Rise candidates this month are as talented and diverse as ever, including an ESL teacher, a pop culture vlogger, a skateboard videographer and a portrait artist. Vote for your favorite by December 12, and we’ll announce the partner selected on the YouTube blog on December 19.

JenniferESL
Jennifer is a multi-lingual ESL/EFL teacher based in Boston, and her channel offers a range of free instructional videos that address the ins and outs of the English language.

Paperlilies
With a 5-year history on YouTube, Bryony has developed a loyal following for her channel’s vlogs. She hails from London but often fools her viewers with the American accents she uses as she comments on everything from pop culture to spiders.

nkalexander7
Nigel is a talented videographer from Washington whose subject is capturing the thrills and skills of skateboarders of all ages. His videos highlight skateboarding tricks, trick tips and even advice for other skateboarding filmmakers.

ThePortraitArt
Using only pencils and erasers, self-taught artist Xiaonan Sun from New York crafts lifelike portraits, but he tries not to focus exclusively on the final product. His channel is full of timelapse videos that offer viewers a glimpse of the creation process.

In past months, winners like AlexanderCarpenter and evmoneyTV have seen growth in their audience and video engagement thanks to your support. If you’re interested in checking out more rising YouTube Partners, visit our On The Rise channel, which features nominees, trending partners and monthly blog winners.

Devon Storbeck, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING PRANK!.”

New Channels, new homepage, new look

2011-12-01T14:05:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago we gave you all a preview of our new Channel redesign, and a chance to play around with it before we shared it with the broader YouTube community. Today’s the day that we’re making this new design available to anyone with a YouTube Channel, as well as making some other site changes that you can read about below. We believe that behind every great video is a great Channel, and all of these changes are designed to encourage people to get to know your Channel a whole lot better and to watch more of your videos as a result.

New Channels design
First up, new Channels design! You can review the main changes being made here. To opt your Channel into the new design, click the blue “Try the new design” button on the top of your Channel page. Once you’ve opted your channel in, your Channel and its new design will be public to other users. You can switch back to the old Channels design by clicking the “Switch Back” button in the appearance tab of the Edit Channel menu on your new Channel. You can switch back and forth as many times as you like, and whichever version you’re opted into is the version that will be public. If you’re still playing around with the new Channels design, you can stay with the old one while you sort things out, but in a few months, we will be bringing everyone over to the new design.

Since we previewed the new design with you all, we’ve seen a number of spiffy new Channels, like TheCraftyGemini, BarelyPolitical, FinalCutKing, ClevverTV, and DeStorm - you can click through on those links to see how the new designs look. Some partners also made videos about the features of the new Channels that are working well for them - click here to view the playlist.

So what does this mean for you?
The main action here is to work on setting up your Channel in the new formats, as more and more YouTube visitors will come to expect the new look. As we said, you’ll have a few months before you have to make the change, but it’s great to be ahead of the game. You can check out the full list of things to do at the Help Center.

Along with the new Channels design being made available to everyone on the site, we’re also making a couple of other important changes today.

A new homepage
To help viewers get more into YouTube, we’re making it easier for people to find and follow Channels when they arrive on the homepage.

On the left side of the homepage people can create their personal, customizable YouTube Channel line-up. To start creating your own, sign in, or create a YouTube account. Then, click on ‘Add Channels’, and subscribe to the Channels that appeal to you. The center homepage feed is also a great way to discover and explore new content. You can link your YouTube account to Google+ and other social networks to see what your friends are sharing, and can switch between feeds by clicking on different Channels on the left.

For step-by-step instructions on the new YouTube homepage, go to our Help Center.

So what does this mean for you?
Subscriptions - these were always important … they’re now more important than ever before. As people set up their new home pages they’ll be reviewing the subscriptions they have and considering new ones, so be sure to keep encouraging people to subscribe, and making it worth their while to do so.
Upload regularly - when people add new Channel subscriptions, they’ll see how often you upload (your average number of videos per week), so remember to program consistently and regularly so you’ll appeal to people who want a regular delivery of great videos.
Create the killer feed for your subscribers - videos that you like and favorite and put into playlists will be even more prominent to your subscribers as part of their feed, so take care in your site activity and think about the overall experience you’re creating for them - it’s about more than just the videos you upload.

A new overall design
To bring the new homepage and Channels designs together, we’ve also applied a fresh coat of digital paint across the whole site. In July, we unveiled an experimental design called Cosmic Panda. We’ve used your feedback to improve our overall design, and today, we’re presenting a cleaner and simpler YouTube, with a consistent background, bigger video thumbnails, and a cleaner watch page.

So what does this mean for you?
This won’t change your day-to-day experience on the site very much, but of course, we hope it’s something that encourages people to stay on the site for longer to watch more of your great videos.

You’ll see all these changes today when you visit YouTube.com, and we’ve put together an instruction manual (and video) to help.

A new Analytics experience
As we announced yesterday, we built a brand new YouTube Analytics tool (formerly YouTube Insight) that you can reach inside of your account or at youtube.com/analytics.

So what does this mean for you?
This new tool is much simpler to use than Insight, and lets you compare more statistics than ever before to help build bigger and more engaged audiences, earn more money, and make better videos.

We’re always innovating and testing new stuff out to make the experience the best it can be for you. We rely on your feedback to figure out when we've gotten it right and when it needs further tweaks. So let us know what you think in the blue feedback link on the bottom right of YouTube.com. We’ll be closely monitoring this forum, and also reading the comments on this blog.

Everyone responds to change differently ;-) When we make significant changes like this it’s hard to please everyone, but we really believe that they will benefit the entire YouTube community over time, and allow us to remain a place for you to be successful in your YouTube careers. Here’s to a great 2012 for all of you.

The YouTube team

Announcing YouTube Analytics - the next generation in Insight

2011-11-30T08:14:00.001-08:00

Video can transcend language and cultural barriers. It can showcase real human moments all across the globe, even the silly ones. Take the video of the talking twin babies. That video was shot in Brooklyn, and has been viewed more than 10M times in the US and 30M times outside the U.S. 5% of its views came from Brazil, another 5% from Russia. Turns out, 1 out of 100 people in the Philippines watched these two babies from New York. One of the great joys of a global platform is finding out that people from afar can relate, connect, and appreciate your videos.

You’ve been able to discover who is watching your videos and where they’re coming from for awhile now on YouTube, through Insight. Now we want to make it even easier to learn about your audience, so we’ve replaced Insight with YouTube Analytics. Analytics will be released to everyone on a modern browser over the course of the day.

Check out some of the latest features in Analytics:

A Quick Overview: A new overview provides all of the information that you care about quickly, while also enabling you to easily access more detailed information.
More Detailed Reports: Analytics now includes more detailed statistics so that you can have a more precise understanding of your content and audiences.
Audience Builders: Discover which videos are driving the most views and subscriptions.
Audience Retention: See how far viewers are watching through your video in the new audience retention report.

The Creator Playbook has also been updated to show you how to use your new Analytics to build and engage with bigger audiences, earn more money, and make better videos.

In the meantime, visit the Help Center for more information on Analytics.

Ted Hamilton, Product Manager, recently watched, "British Animal Voiceovers."

Partner Support Talks with... WhatTheBuckShow

2011-11-29T13:15:00.001-08:00

On Tuesday, December 6th, the YouTube Partner Support team will be hosting a Partner meet-up in New York City. During the meet-up, we'll be live streaming the latest episode of Partner Support Talks with.... featuring a YouTube partner answering questions submitted by YouTube users like you!

In this episode, Partner Support Talks with... WhatTheBuckShow, we'll sit down with Michael Buckley to talk about how he's achieved success on YouTube. We'll also ask him YOUR questions, live, on the air.

Is there something you'd like to ask Michael Buckely about his YouTube history? Want his advice on best practices? You have until next Monday to submit your questions (and vote for others) here to be answered live: http://goo.gl/HFjc8

Tune in to www.youtube.com/youtube at 6:30pm EST on December 6th to watch the show live! We'll also post the show on the YouTube Partner Support channel for those who can't attend in real time.

Lindsay Hampton, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched "25 Ways to Wear a Scarf in 4.5 Minutes!"

Introducing evmoneyTV, November’s “On The Rise” YouTube Partner

2011-11-27T09:00:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted from the Official YouTube Blog

Congratulations to Ev of evmoneyTV, the channel that received the most votes for the October On The Rise poll, and his channel will be featured on the YouTube homepage today.

Ev discovered YouTube in 2009 and started his channel with the goal of offering financial advice to viewers (hence the channel name). His initial videos didn’t exactly reel in the viewers, so Ev decided to cover the “how-to” of more basic tasks. He’s stuck with stick figure drawings to illustrate his recommendations, which allows him to address a range of quotidian topics such as how to greet others properly, how to project confidence, and how to be sarcastic.

Here are a few words from November’s On The Rise star himself:

“After trying and failing to feature financial advice videos, I decided to tackle life’s simpler problems. It all started as a video response to jpmetz about people who can’t seem to work a debit card machine. Armed with a cheap mic and MS Paint, I began to chronicle my encounters with stupidity – thus, my channel was born. I owe my success to Youtubers like jpmetz for my initial exposure, keeporjot for including me in charlieissocoollike’s likerchain, soundlyawake for heavily promoting me, whatthebuck for featuring me onstage for the live Buckfactor at Vidcon, rowlfwannabe for driving the #evsblowinup movement, alexcarpenter and tyleroakley for their last minute support in this competition, everyone who shared and tweeted my videos, and most of all, my viewers, who think drawing and voicing stick figures and putting them on the internet is a completely normal thing to do.”

If you’ve enjoyed this monthly On The Rise blog series and want to see more rising YouTube partners, check out our On The Rise channel or look for our playlists on the browse page. Keep an eye out for next month’s blog post, as your channel may be the next one On The Rise!

Devon Storbeck, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “Girl vs. Camel (in race!).”

Changing the Channel(s)

2011-11-17T16:09:00.001-08:00

We want to make sure that YouTube continues to evolve as a place where you can be successful, and take your careers to the next level. Today, we want to give you an update on two important topics that we know are important to your success on YouTube - Channels and Insights.

Latest Channels design
Your feedback has been super helpful as we’ve experimented with YouTube Channel designs via Cosmic Panda and other initiatives. We’ve listened to that feedback, and we’re ready to share the latest version of Channels with you. You can opt in and play around here.

The main changes you’ll notice are:

Customize Your Channel: You can promote your favorite content in the featured tab and choose a template that fits your content.
Engage Your Audience: You’ll be able to publish content to your subscribers through the new Channels feed--even when you don’t have a new video to upload. Videos you “like” and “favorite” will also appear in the feed to keep your subscribers entertained.
Expand Your Presence: When viewers go to the watch page, some elements of your Channel follow them (e.g. some of your videos), helping you to maintain your presence across YouTube.

This page is your portal into and out of the latest Channels design, so have fun playing around! Once you opt in, changes you make and publish to your Channel will only be seen by others on YouTube who are opted in via this page, and people who are still opted in to the Cosmic Panda experiment. In a few weeks, we’ll be back in touch before we share this more widely, and let you know when to publish the new channel for everyone to see. This is your chance to get ahead of the game and get your channel looking fabulous.

We have resources within the Help Center including a Channels Checklist and Guided Help to walk you through the new design, and as always, we’re always looking for feedback, so please share your thoughts with us.

New Analytics
A big part of your success is understanding your audience so that you can increase your subscribers and views, make better content, and make more money. We’ve put together the new YouTube Analytics (formerly YouTube Insight) to help you measure and achieve greater success.

Analytics is now easier than ever to use, located right within your YouTube.com account, using a simpler design, and with more precise categories that help you compare more metrics to fully understand your audience, channel and monetization. These changes will debut in the coming weeks--stay tuned for more information.

We hope these are welcome bits of news, and we’ll be back with another update on both Channels and Insights in a couple of weeks.

AJ Crane, product manager, recently watched “MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON.”

Are you reaching mobile users?

2011-11-16T13:00:00.000-08:00

If you are a content creator looking to get more views for your videos, visit our Inside AdWords blog for more information on our latest developments with YouTube mobile ads. To learn more about YouTube mobile ads, go to www.youtube.com/advertise/mobile.html.

Posted by Nicky Crane, Product Manager, recently watched, "MARCEL THE SHELL WITH SHOES ON, TWO."

Introducing November’s “On The Rise” candidates

2011-11-14T09:00:00.000-08:00

Each month, we find four YouTube Partners whose subscriber numbers are growing but don’t yet have 100,000, for our monthly On The Rise program. We invite you to check out their channels and vote for your favorite in the top right corner of the Official YouTube Blog. The channel with the most votes at the end of the week will be featured on the YouTube homepage and videos page.

Our nominees this November are a creative bunch whose skills include painting, animation, music and fashion. You may be drawn into their channels for the recommendations they provide or simply for the chance to observe their talents. Take a look at the nominees’ videos below, and vote for your favorite by November 21 at 6pm PT. We’ll announce the partner selected on the YouTube blog on November 27.

valsartdiary
Val is a painter - and one of the first original partners! - whose YouTube channel chronicles her artistic process with weekly art videos. Throughout the week, she posts additional reviews and reflections, and even gives away original paintings to her viewers.

evmoneyTV
Need guidance on how to watch a movie, cross the street, or be sarcastic? Ev’s channel tackles some of life’s more complicated tasks, illustrating his recommendations with stick figure animations.

ortoPilot
Hailing from Manchester, England, Matt Hutchison (also known by his musical alias, ortoPilot) has made a career out of singing, songwriting, and video production. He’s spent the last five years posting original songs as well as acoustic adaptations to his YouTube channel.

hairodynamic
If you’re looking for advice about fashion or hair and beauty products, you might want to check out hairodynamic. Since 2009, style maven Monica has recorded her hauls, reviews, and tutorials for her loyal audience.

In past months, winners like theneedledrop and AlexanderCarpenter have seen growth in their audience and video engagement thanks to your support. If you’re interested in checking out more rising YouTube Partners, visit our On The Rise channel, which features nominees, trending partners and monthly blog winners. Look for more featured partners on the YouTubeBrowse page.

Devon Storbeck, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “Surfer rides 90 foot wave (World Record).”

Now announcing Medals, a new way to celebrate great videos

2011-11-09T09:00:00.000-08:00

We started Honors back in the early days of YouTube, as a way to help you find which videos are loved by the community. As we continue to grow at a rapid rate, we want to make sure our features can be flexible enough to handle all of your great content.

So today we’re kicking off Medals, a new system to recognize the great videos and creators out there. We’re starting with Medals that recognize popular videos with the most engagement. These are the first wave of Medals we’re planning to announce, with each including a gold, silver and bronze version to show popularity order and here’s a breakdown:

All Time Most Popular Medal, for videos with the most all-time engagement

Recently Most Popular Medal, for videos with the most engagement this week

Trending Medal, for videos that have a big jump in engagement this week compared to last

To help you find the videos earning Medals, we’ve also updated a topics page that shows you all the videos earning the Medal.

We were so excited to get this program going, that a couple weeks ago you might’ve heard something about Goodies—that was an early name for the program that’s changed to Medals, and we’ve spent even more time since then to make it better.

We’re eager to get everyone involved with this new system, so you’ll see video Honors phased out over the next few weeks. As we’re getting started, we hope you’ll share your thoughts on the Partner Forum where we’ll have an active thread about Medals.

Kurt Wilms, Product Manager, recently watched “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) (The Official 2010 FIFA ....”

Welcoming the next generation of cooking and fitness trainer stars

2011-11-09T05:05:00.001-08:00

Thinking of searching YouTube for a cooking recipe this holiday season? Want some videos to help you achieve that New Year’s fitness resolution? You’re in good company. Searches on YouTube for cooking recipes spike around the end of every year, and searches for fitness exercises spike just around the start of the new year.

We have partners who are doing amazing things with food and fitness, and to supercharge their careers, we created the YouTube Next Chef and the YouTube Next Trainer programs. We’d like to introduce you to the first class of partners who’ll be attending a 12-week course via Google+ Hangouts and receiving a $15,000 equipment and promotional package, all to help them share their passion for food or fitness on YouTube with you.

YouTube Next Chef
The partners of the YouTube Next Chef class include self-taught chefs, cookbook authors, former restaurant owners and more. Their culinary styles range from making a full meal with just one pot to vegan desserts to gourmet on a budget, and represent five countries around the world. These partners will be taught by the finest folks in culinary arts, including editors from CHOW.com, YouTube Partners like Rob Nixon, and industry experts like Lee Allison.

YouTube Next Trainer
If fitness is your goal, our YouTube Next Trainers are here to help. This international group can teach you exercises using city landscapes, fitness routines made for athletes, safe parkour training exercises, pilates made simple and more. Expect to see these partners get top tier training from our featured mentors Billy Blanks, YouTube Partners like DeStorm, and industry experts like Julie DelaBarre.

Stay tuned for weekly videos starting Nov 15 for YouTube Next Chef and Nov 23 for YouTube Next Trainer.

Austin Lau, YouTube Creator Programs, recently watched “The Coolest Extreme Skiing Dudes.”