Hello! Wanted to update you on some progress this week:

• We know there were some major things wrong with commenting and private messaging. Our engineers looked into it and discovered an over-enthusiastic spam filter. (There are people with racks of machines sending out spam and the filter helps to cut down on the junk that gets through.) Anyway, things should be working smoothly again in messaging land, but please let us know if you continue to encounter problems. **UPDATE (1/12): Messages that contain URLs and email addresses are still problematic. We're testing a new spam filter to see how well it catches spam that includes URLs. Based on that performance, we will lift the URL restriction.**

• Many of you have pointed out that we should be vlogging more ourselves, including site updates like this. I’m terribly camera shy, but we’ve asked a high-profile and well-connected member of the YouTube community, Damien Estreich, to help broadcast these messages (in addition to the ones we produce ourselves). He’s working on his first one as we speak.

• Of course you can expect to hear from (and see) the YouTube staff more often too. Every month we’ll be asking you a thought-provoking question which we’ll introduce by answering ourselves. The first will revolve around Valentine’s Day, so get ready to film some lovey-dovey (or not!) video responses. We'll be asking you to tell us about the person or thing you love the most in this world.

• Finally, we’re opening up the programming of our home page to guest editors. We’ll pick one user a month to take over for a few days. All you’ll have to do is send us 10 videos you’d like to place on home (make sure they adhere to the terms of service!) along with a short video about why you chose what you did and how you found the experience. If you’re interested in participating, please let me know.

Well, that’s it for now. Keep on letting us know how we can improve things.

Ciao,
Mia
The YouTube Team

Now that our hangovers have worn off and we’ve picked all the confetti out of our hair, it’s time to get down to business. We’ve got big plans for 2007, and while we can’t reveal all the details of our quest, we did want to let you get a whiff of what’s cooking.

First and foremost, we heard you loud and clear when you told us you don’t necessarily want more features added to the site, you just want the current features to be working well. High on our list of priorities is ensuring that private messages work the way you expect them to and it doesn’t take eons to reply to one.

We’re also aware of how frustrating it can be when you have a question or an issue and you get stuck in automated reply hell. We’re going to strengthen communication internally so that your biggest concerns are heard by the people who can fix them. And then we’re going to improve how we communicate with you – if we don’t address your issue via a personal email response, you can check this blog for more frequent general updates.

In short, we want you to know that we’re listening to you and doing our best to give you a site that you find as essential as oxygen. We’ll be tapping power users to help guide us along the way (more on that later), and we’ll be launching new programming initiatives that will encourage you to speak your minds, to show your limitless creativity, to reach out to us and to each other. I can't wait.

Be back soon,
Mia
The YouTube Team

Wow. What a year 2006 was, eh? For us at YouTube, it exceeded our wildest dreams. I don’t think anyone could have predicted that the year would end with a Time magazine cover that celebrated exactly why the site is so successful: you! We got to know you through your videos (what else!) and some of them stayed with us all yearlong.

Because I love lists and firmly believe that no year is complete without reflecting on (and savoring) those moments of pure delight, I took an informal poll among YouTube staffers to find out which videos were their favorites in 2006. Here are the highly subjective results, in no particular order, in general and music flavors.

Best of 2006


Best of 2006 – Music Edition


So what were your favorite YouTube videos of 2006? Send us your playlists and we'll feature a few here, and then start collecting your votes for 2007!

Happily hangover free,
Mia
The YouTube Team

If you haven’t heard yet, the Underground contest was a huge success. We had about 2,200 submissions and four great bands rose up: Greenland, Ostrich Head, Pawnshop Roses and Maldroid. Not only are these bands extremely talented, but they are kind, funny and entertaining. We had a blast hanging out with them in New York. We worked hard to make sure that everything went well, and they worked even harder to make sure we had fun doing it. There was never a dull moment and one of the best parts was all the bands not only got along, but they became friends. There was a lot of intermingling of bands, and they jammed together as often as they could. I felt like it was the old days of rock 'n' roll, when bands were friends and played together constantly, unlike nowadays when it’s every member for themselves. We could not have asked for a better group.

We wined and dined them at the nicest spots New York has to offer, running up some hefty bar tabs, and schmoozed with press and record labels. One of the highlights was our appearance on Good Morning America. The GMA experience was pretty surreal. We were hustled passed the crowed into the backstage room, where we hung out with NASCAR drivers (I think Jeff Gordon was there). Then we were hustled into the studio where each band was presented a “Golden Mouse” award by Sam Champion and Diane Sawyer. Later that day we set up a cocktail party at the Gibson Showroom, which is in the old Hit Factory in Hells Kitchen, with record labels, press and friends. There were photo shoots, jam sessions, tequila shots, guitar hero competitions and the Gibson VIP Tour Bus. We could not have asked for a better end result from our first YouTube contest.

And with that, here are the winning videos/bands:
Greenland
Ostrich Head
Pawnshop Roses
Maldroid


Cheers,
Spencer
The YouTube Team

Hello there!

Sorry for the silence lately. I had a baby! Now I’m not one to brag, but Maryrose told me that many of you were asking about the fate of my bulging belly so I don’t want to keep you in suspense any longer: I had a son on November 14. Thanks to all of you who sent in suggestions for names. We settled on Strider Patrick: “Strider” because we wanted a name that sounded strong and had a strong literal meaning. We hope this little one will indeed walk forward with purpose in life and take things in stride, and for my Lord of the Rings-loving husband, it was a nice bonus that Strider is also an alias for Aragorn. “Patrick” is for a dear family member who’s been in our thoughts a lot lately.

We all know how special YouTube is, but let me tell you as a new parent, I’ve been even more awe-struck by the potential and power of the site. Naturally, Strider has his own YouTube channel, and it’s what the family is buzzing about, never mind the so-very-yesterday digital photos I’ve also sent them. Relatives who never used YouTube before are signing up and moving beyond their email-only universe; it’s amazing to watch the videos unite a geographically-diverse clan around its shining new star. I feel so lucky to live in a day and age when such things are possible.

So if you will allow me a moment of unfettered new parent pride, here is my little monkey on his one week birthday, making the funny faces that signal his impending drift into sleep:



Alright, now off to change diapers, but keep on writing. I'm still checking email and keeping one foot in the YouTube world until my return in February.

All the best,
Mia
The YouTube Team

Since the very beginning user feedback has been critical to us. Without direct feedback from you, we have no idea what features you like, what you don't or when we've just plain pissed you off (because that never happens right?).

We get feedback in a number of ways, through the contacts you send to our customer service team, through usability studies, and through the direct emails you send to me and Mia. Sometimes users make contact with other members of the YouTube team through other various venues - like video responses, groups, youtubetalk.com - or just by guessing our email addresses.

As both our site, and our company continues to grow and expand it's become more important than ever to us that we stay connected to our roots - the YouTube community. We've recently started to become much more proactive with reaching out to our members by email, by phone, and even by video (yes video!) to get feedback and have an open, two way dialogue. We're focused on constantly working to improve our site and product, and we need your help and feedback to be able to achieve that.

You can expect to hear more about our community outreach efforts in the coming weeks, but in the mean time don't be surprised if we come a knockin at your door! ;-)

Best,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

I'd like to keep on destroying the myth that featured videos are paid advertisements by continuing to share success stories with you, to show you that we really are watching and listening to what you're doing and that our feature slots are for the best of your work. So once a month, I'll blog about the videos that were featured on the home page because you wrote to the editor and we agreed that you're on to something good. Videos like these (in no particular order):

Greg Hits Hollywood
Alien Vlog 1 - First Contact
So Why Walk 1000 Miles?
Pre-School Political Ad
"We Are the Strange" Trailer
YourTube SPOTLIGHT #3 'Your Selection!'
"Moonbeam Death Ray" CG Music Video
Die By Dawn
SNOWMEN HUNTERS Ep 08: Michael Jackson F@#*s Boys

I also hear amazing stories about opportunities that came up for people after they were featured on YouTube, and I'd like to share those with the community, too. Here's some recent news that made us proud:

• After we featured his hilarious response to superlunary's Five Questions! video, Zipster08 says he was contacted by VH1 to do a rant on the show Web Junk 20: You Tube for Dummies?

• Thanks to his brave ingestion of spices, Gisthename told us he "got a lot of attention in Norway and was on the absolute biggest talk show in Norway. I have also got some job offers in entertaining on the internet."

• YouTube's promotion of the Free Hugs Campaign. Inspiring Story! video, which so many of you told us about, led to an appearance on Oprah, among other shows, as well as a bidding war to sign Sick Puppies, the band responsible for the song in the clip. This video is now up to an astounding 6,159,324 views.

• showwhat's Pre-School Political Ad was featured on CNN Headline Morning News on November 10.

So before you get so famous you forget all about us, do drop us a line when something good happens to you because of YouTube. Or better yet, make a video about it and send us the link.

Thanks,
Mia
The YouTube Team

Imagine this: you worked on your video for weeks, months, maybe years. You're incredibly proud of your work, and you want as many people as possible to see it. You post it to YouTube, maybe it gets featured, and the comments start flowing in. And in. You get some genuine praise and possibly some constructive criticism. And then you get some comments of another kind – we'll just call them unconstructive criticism. The haters descend, making you wonder (hopefully just for a nanosecond) if you'll ever post to YouTube again.

It's not easy dealing with pointless negativity, but a user named Duke Rightious alerted me to an acronym YouTubers are using in the fight against haters and I thought it was worthwhile sharing with the larger community. It was originally outlined by Pipistrello in this video and it's called R.I.D.:

R - Recognize. Recognize that a "hate" comment is different from constructive criticism or a WTF total lack of comprehension.

I - Ignore. Do not dignify the hater with a reply making your case or pleading for understanding. And don't bother blasting them, either. Your energy is really best spent elsewhere, like on your next video.

D - Delete. Remember, you always have the option of deleting deliberately hateful and mean comments. After all, these are your videos.

R.I.D. activate!

Mia
The YouTube Team

It's always to neat to find bands using YouTube in creative ways. As you would expect from a group that's been anonymous for 35 years, whose members usually appear as giant eyeballs with top hats and who never grant interviews, San Francisco's the Residents have posted a series of short clips that are just a bit strange and twisted. The films evoke a kind of 1950s Leave It to Beaver-esque suburban utopia, complete with gee-whiz-style narration from nine-year-old Timmy, son of a barber. I just love the earnestness with which Timmy chirps about car accidents, menstrual blood, dead dogs, and learning about sex from a creepy lawyer. Here are two of my favorites:





Tracking Timmy,
Mia
The YouTube Team

Greetings, everyone. How's that candy hangover today?

Now that the Halloween revelry is over, it's down to some serious matters. First, Election Day is around the corner in the U.S., so if you're over 18, don't forget to vote. These might be midterm elections, but there are still some important issues at stake, namely the balance of power in the Senate and the House, not to mention some fierce local races. You've probably noticed a lot of politicians using YouTube to showcase their campaign ads; we've built a special area to highlight just some of the candidates. We encourage you to explore YouTube to find other politicians relevant to your area, party or ideals.

Second, we've noticed a rash of videos and commentary claiming that "the only featured videos we're seeing [on the YouTube home page] are paid advertising videos." This is totally untrue – anything you see in the box marked "Featured Videos" has been selected by a team of editors who are constantly thinking about what might appeal to you, the users, and trying to balance the types of videos and subject matter seen here. We don't always nail it, but the intentions are never commercially oriented, we can promise you that.

Cheers,
Mia
The YouTube Team

I've had my eye on Nerdkiller for a while now and not just because the mildly agitated honking outside his window reminds me of my Manhattan home land. Nerdkiller is an often-shirtless, somewhat spastic twenty-something who seems tragically stuck between teenagerdom and adulthood. He'll whine until you just. can't. take. it. anymore. (the "I Don't Have a Job" song) and then celebrate living on his own with a one-man watermelon party where he thinks it's a good thing that he doesn't have to shower if he doesn't want to. The longwinded but occasionally brilliant "Being Grownup Can Suck" petulantly details all the things that adults do – like drink coffee made in a French press and read the New Yorker (you know, all those words). His pet Chihuahua Miguel is a stabilizing force on the sidelines, but we shall see if the pooch's zen-like aura will be shattered by the latest visitor to Nerdkiller's air-conditioned lair. Enter Miss Allosaur:

Sexier than a T.Rex,
Mia
The YouTube Team

We may be peaceniks from the Bay Area (Maryrose has never tasted a hamburger! Can you believe it? -- Mia), but we've seen some comments lately in response to featured videos that have really disturbed us. As human beings.

We've got thick skin, so we're not talking about the "wtf-why-is-this-featured" jabs at our (sniff, sniff) senses of humor and taste. We're talking about the hateful comments directed at users who've done nothing to hurt anyone. Comments about their sexual orientation or weight or looks or skin color; things that we all know don't count a bit toward what's really important.

We'll stop short of a full-on lecture, but we just want to ask you to please treat each other decently and kindly. It's really not too much to ask -- and will make you look a whole lot better.

Peace out,
Maryrose and Mia
The YouTube Team

Hi Tubers,
We wanted to follow up on Maryrose’s recent post and talk to you all about what’s going on with our content policies and the flagging system on the site.

Our little department administers all of the community areas of the site, from rejecting porn, to responding to copyright notices, support email and much, much more! Our number one job is to keep the site safe, so that it can continue to exist. Our greatest challenge is maintaining this in an open and transparent way that helps users follow the rules and treats everyone equal.

When a video is flagged, it goes into a queue for us to review. It doesn’t matter how many times a video gets flagged, it will never be removed without us reviewing it first. If a video violates our Terms of Use, it is rejected. At this point, a warning letter is emailed to the user letting them know that the video was removed and that repeat violations will cause their account to be terminated. Lately the volume of videos to review has taken away from other things, like responding to support messages. This means that a lot of you haven’t gotten the attention you deserve.

One problem we’ve been experiencing is that sometimes these warning emails go into people’s spam buckets, other times people presume the warning was sent in error and choose to ignore it. Sometimes it’s not readily apparent which part of the Terms of Use was violated and users will look at what else is on the site to judge what is allowed. While this seems like a logical approach, the problem is that many of those videos may be prohibited but simply have not been flagged yet.

With all of this in mind, we’re working on improving the system so that we can finally get ahead of the game and serve you all better:

We have published new Community Guidelines which spell out, in plain English, just what is and is not allowed in videos and in text.

We are developing new tools to help users defend themselves from harassment, spam and other abuse.

Our team is growing every week, including some folks dedicated to support email.

We’re going to improve our communication with you. When something happens, you’ll get a notification on the site (not just in email) and we’re working on more detailed notifications. We sincerely want our warnings to be helpful so that people will learn not to make the same mistakes twice. We’re confident that better communication will make a huge difference. So expect to see improvements in this area very soon.

Once this is all in place, we hope to have tools that will allow us to review more videos in less time, allowing the rules to be enforced more evenly.

We’ve been planning and working on these things all year and we’re excited to be aggressively pursuing all of them.

The YouTube SQUAD

My in-box overfloweth. And I love it that way. But it's also making me feel guilty for not being able to respond to each and every one of you who sends in feature suggestions (yes, Casey from Maryland and Clive from England, I mean you!). So I wanted to reassure you that even though you may not get a personal response from me, I do really watch all your videos and consider them for the home page. Don't believe me? Here are some videos we featured thanks to your email alerts:

Free Hugs
You Tube: The Movie
Spamland #1
La grúa y la Jirafa
Crutch!
Spice Test
Mr. Pringles Press Conference
Taco Bell Dog


Some helpful hints when writing to editor@youtube.com: include the link to your video in the email and don't forget that we don’t allow content that uses copyrighted soundtracks or images. Oh, and I can also sniff out when you get your friends to spam me about a video. But that's OK. It's good to have friends.

Alright, I’ve spent enough time on this post and have to get back to…your emails. Not that I’m complaining. In fact, please keep ’em coming and thanks so much for your patience.

Always,
Mia
The YouTube Team

P.S. I'm in the market for baby names. Got any ideas? "Lonelygirl15" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue...

I was trying to think what I should title this blog entry...'GooTube', 'YouTube is here to stay', 'Who's a moron now Mark Cuban' all came to mind, but I settled on the only thing I really can say - thank you. YouTube would not exist and be where it is today without the YouTube community. We owe everything to you guys and we will never, ever forget that.

I've been watching your videos, reading your comments and emails and I know there is a lot of concern and speculation of what may happen to YouTube because of the acquisition. I am here to say, if anything changes it will only be for the better. Being a start up, we have struggled a lot over the past year. We've had site performance problems and nasty bugs. We haven't always been able to respond to your emails or help you with your problems. There have been things we know we need to improve (like spamming and flagging) but just haven't had the time or resources to get it done as quickly as we would like. While there are still a lot of things to be hashed out over the coming months, many of the obstacles that used to stand in the way of us delivering you the best possible product have now been removed. And for all of you who have complained about our sucky search, well you can bet that will change. :)

So no, you won't have to start paying for videos and YouTube won't be replaced with Google video. We aren't going anywhere. YouTube and all the wonder that you have brought to it is here to stay.

From day one, every single thing we have done has been about building the site, building features for our users, continually making the product better. Our goal has always been users first, everything else second - and that will not change.

I honestly never expected to have this much passion for YouTube - but it is each and every one of you who has brought that out in me. You have awed me with your creativity, humbled me with willingness to share your lives, and yes, at times shocked me with your...well...nevermind. You have changed my life and opened my eyes in so many, many ways.

So once again, thank you, from all of us at YouTube.

Maryrose
The YouTube Team

A few days ago I posted that we've been feverishly working on ways to combat both abusive flagging and spamming on the site. We've gotten tons of emails with some really great ideas of things we could implement to help in these areas, so thank you for both your patience and your suggestions.

There does, however, seem to be a fair amount of confusion about the way flagging currently works so I think some clarification is probably needed. A video gets 'flagged' by a user clicking on the 'flag as inappropriate' link located below each video. Once a video is flagged, it is sent into a queue for our customer support team to review. Videos are NEVER automatically removed simply because they've been flagged. Every single flagged video is reviewed by someone at YouTube who then determines if the video contains material that is against our terms of use. You may have noticed that sometimes you're asked to login or register to verify your age because the video you're attempting to view may contain content that is inappropriate for some users. Sometimes flagged videos that we review do abide by our terms of use, but are not quite appropriate for all YouTube users. This could be due to a number of things - profanity, violence, adult content etc. Although they still abide by our terms of use, you can think of these videos as 'R' rated.

There are thousands of videos that are flagged for review every single day, and since we're still a small company with an even smaller team of people reviewing videos we do admittedly make mistakes at times. Occasionally a video gets flagged and we accidently take it down, or mark it as inappropriate. We're doing everything we can to diminish that margin of error but we would be lying if we said it's a 100% fail proof system.

We'll be continuing to roll out improvements to our flagging and spam filtering controls over the coming weeks so please check back here for continual updates. As always, thank you for patience and your feedback.

Best,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

Last night was our last feature release in this office. That's right, we're moving on to bigger, less rat infested digs next week. I can't even begin to tell you what a crazy ride it's been this past year and moving out of this, our first real office, has definitely been a little emotional for me. But more sappiness and nostalgia later. Tomorrow we're having a last day in the office shin dig and we'll be sure to post some videos from that.

So, what were we doing here until the wee hours of the morning last night? Launching a few new features. First off, QuickLists. The idea for QuickLists actually came from us watching users open up multiple browser windows so they could 'load up' a bunch of videos to watch later. Well, ⌘ N no more. See those little + icons on all the video images? Clicking on it will add that video to a list that is saved for later viewing. You can access your QuickList at anytime by clicking on the link at the top of every page, or by clicking the QuickList bar under any video you watch. You can watch all the videos in your QuickList at once by clicking 'play all', and if you want to keep the list permanently you can save it as a PlayList.

We've also been working diligently to combat two issues that have been somewhat plaguing YouTube lately - abusive flaggers and spammers. We get a lot of emails about both problems, and although we're not able to respond to everyone individually, please be rest assured that we are actively working on both of these issues and developing ways to abolish this type of abuse from the site. It's one of our highest priorities right now and we promise that in the coming weeks there will be much continued improvement in these areas.

In other news, The Underground contest is now accepting submissions. We've all spent countless (and I mean countless) hours this past week watching the entries and there are some truly amazing ones. Submissions are open until 10/18, so if you're a musician get your butt in gear and go make a video!

Best,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

First of all, thanks so much for all your emails about videos we should feature. I'm still going through them (and rapidly falling behind), but hopefully you've noticed that they're already having an effect on the site. You told me about YouTube: The Movie and the Free Hugs video in droves, and you were right – these deserved to be seen by the wider community. We even told our friends at Good Morning America about Hugs, and they featured the video on their weekly YouTube segment this morning. How you like that?

Now, you may have heard that I'm looking for two editors to join my team, and it struck me that some of you might have exactly the kind of passion for YouTube that I'm looking for. You don't have to have tons of work experience, but you do have to live in the San Francisco Bay Area and have an eye for quality content. You instinctively know what makes an exciting viewing experience, and you're incredibly plugged into the Internet and pop culture. You're brimming with so many ideas you just don't know what to do with them all, and generally you cannot conceive of life without this amazing Web site we all call home. For the full job description and how to apply, click here.

I look forward to hearing from you and – who knows – maybe even working together.

Rock on,
Mia
The YouTube Team

My name is Mia (I won't bother with the 12-syllable last name) and I'm the new czarina of programming. Huh, you say? Basically, that means a big part of my job is making sure we are finding and featuring the best videos in the YouTube universe – your original videos that never cease to amaze me with their creativity, senses of humor and, sometimes, strangeness.

I'm closing in on my second week here, and already I love working at YouTube (and it's not just the Oreos that call my name daily from the pantry behind me). In fact, you might think it's amazing I didn't run from the building on my first day, when I was greeted by an engineer snoring on a couch and I heard about The Rats (who better not touch my Oreos!).

Now I've worked at some pretty neat non-rat-infested places – MTV Networks, Rhapsody and Apple – but rarely have I felt such an immediate connection to the people who actually use the product. We feature a video, and you instantly tell us what you think about it. We can watch you acting silly, see what an awesome drummer you are, meet your whole family, and go deep inside your world on a daily basis. I can't think of anything much cooler than that.

So I'm really excited to be here and hope you'll continue to be as vocal as you are. Click here
to send me an email with suggestions of videos you think we should feature or to tell me about a new clip you've just uploaded or a new talent you've just discovered on the site. We may not be able to feature everything you send us, but we'll certainly pay close attention to what you're thinking and doing. After all, that's the YouTube way!

Yours 'Tube-ly,
Mia
The YouTube Team

We love our indie musicians at YouTube. Their spirit, creativity and often raw talent make for some of the best content on our site. I'm always filled with glee when someone tells me they 'discovered' a new band on YouTube. As a life long music junkie and avid supporter of local music scenes I take great personal pleasure in being part of something that can help indie musicians bring visibility to their music in a whole new way. We're constantly working to find new ways for musicians to promote themselves and connect to each other, so it's with great excitement that we announce our first-ever contest – The YouTube Underground (well, besides all those goofy contests we did last year, but nevermind that). It's pretty simple, really: if you're a musician, make a video, enter it in the contest and the YouTube community will vote for their favorites. Four grand prize winners will get a whole lot'o stuff, including:

All-new equipment from Gibson Guitar

Roundtrip airfare to New York City and lodging

Use of Gibson's pimped-out tour bus

Appearance on Good Morning America

Photo shoots and interviews

Video featured on YouTube

and of course...the envy of all eyes.

So go make videos, musicians! This is your chance to shine like the rock star you were always meant to be.

Maryrose
The YouTube Team

No doubt you've read the news about the partnership we announced with Warner. This is great news for the YouTube community!

Up front, let me say that the details will be worked out with Warner, its recording artists and YouTube over the next few months. Our goal is to provide you with the most entertaining service and more creative options.

The cool thing is that Warner will be posting top music videos, interviews with your favorite artists and behind-the-scenes footage, and more. You'll be able to enjoy and share these videos without concern that they could be removed.

What's even better is that Warner is the first record label to embrace and support your creativity by authorizing use of their music content for free, in partnership with your favorite artists! This new architecture will be available by the end of the year. We will have more details to share then.

Meanwhile, we love hearing from you and want to know how we can continue to be the best way to share your talent with a growing audience.

Cheers,
Powers
The YouTube Team

We took the site down tonight to do some maintenance and to push out a few new features. The new features are obviously more fun to talk about than the maintenance so here it goes:

Custom Channel URLS: Have you ever tried to tell people how to find you on youtube? "Go to youtube.com/profile? errrr...I think then you put user = or wait, is it user?...maybe just do a search." Well, now you can create your own customized channel url which will be simply youtube.com/name. Your custom URL can be your username or what ever name you want with a few exceptions - you can't pick someone else's username and you can't pick any words that would make your mother stick a bar of soap in your mouth.

My Account: We've been continuing to enhance the My Account page over the past couple of weeks. This is the one consolidated place for all your stuff - your account settings, inbox, channel information, videos, favorites and more. We also added a dropdown with some quick links to your most important things from the My Account link in the upper right hand corner.

Eye Candy: We're starting to pretty up some little things here and there on the site. Nothing too fancy, but you may notice new buttons in embeds and at the end of a video.

We also quietly launched a few new features that aren't quite ready for prime time. Come back in a few days to see what's been cooking.

One other thing, while the amount of spam I get to my email account steadily increases, I'd still like to get more feedback emails from all of you. I may not be able to respond to each and every email - but I really do read them all. Please continue to send me your thoughts, ideas and feedback, no matter how random or absurd, we want to hear it all.

Best,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

YouTube was down today from approximately 7AM to 1PM. There's really no enticing story to tell here, we weren't hacked and we weren't pushing new features. Simply put, our primary database crashed. We did make a very intentional decision to not immediately fail over to our redundant database but to instead bring up both databases simultaneously to ensure we had absolutely no data loss. Although we may have lengthened the time of our outage to do this, our number one priority was to not compromise our users' content in any way.

Our sincere apologies for any inconvenience the outage may have caused you. We can confidently say that the site is now completely restored and that we're working around the clock (literally, just ask our ops team) to ensure that this sort of thing does not happen in the future.

We will be taking a planned downtime this Thursday night to address some of the issues from today's outage as well push out some new features, so check back here in a few days for a more exciting update. 

Maryrose
The YouTube Team

Want to know what it's really like to work at YouTube? Check out this video of Chris (our head of BizDev no less) hunting down that stinky smell in the office. The fun never ceases at YouTube! :)

For all my fellow animal lovers - we did NOT set up those horrible rat traps, they were left in our office by the old tenants. I'm personally quite fond of rats.

Maryrose
The YouTube Team

You may have seen some of the blogs out there talking about our 'new' Terms of Use that would supposedly allow us to sell any videos our users uploaded to the site. Before going further, allow me to clarify: YouTube has never had the rights to sell, nor do we have any intention to sell, our users’ content. Plain and Simple.

These blogs posted a section from our Terms of Use completely out of context omitting a few key sentences (always be mindful of those darn ellipses). The section in question is quoted below and the sentences in bold were the ones omitted. If you don't want to read all that boring legalize, here are the CliffsNotes:

You keep ALL the rights to your videos.

We have the right to syndicate the content of our website. We have to have this to allow for our embed and API functionality.

As soon as you remove your video from YouTube, we lose all rights to redistribute or syndicate that video in any way. So once your video is gone from the site, we cannot do a thing with that content.

Terms of Use Section 5 (B):

For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your User Submissions. However, by submitting the User Submissions to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the User Submissions in connection with the YouTube Website and YouTube's (and its successor's) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the YouTube Website (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You also hereby grant each user of the YouTube Website a non-exclusive license to access your User Submissions through the Website, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display and perform such User Submissions as permitted through the functionality of the Website and under these Terms of Service. The foregoing license granted by you terminates once you remove or delete a User Submission from the YouTube Website.

Hopefully this clarifies matters and puts any unrest at ease about who owns the rights to your videos on YouTube. YOU own the rights to your videos.

Best,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

Just a quick update for all of you that were affected by the comments bug on our site the last few days. In addition to fixing the bug we have now restored all comments that were mass removed. Again, our most sincere apologies for the inconvenience and aggravation this caused many of you. If you any questions, issues or just want to rant (we deserve it), please don't hesitate to contact us.

sheepishly yours,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

It recently came to our attention that there was a bug in our comment code that allowed users to delete comments from videos which were not their own. Unfortunately, by the time we became aware of the issue several users exploited the bug to maliciously delete thousands of comments from other users videos. We have since fixed the bug and are actively working to restore all the comments that were removed.

To all of our users who had their comments deleted, please accept our most humble apologies. There is absolutely no excuse for what happened, it was a bug in our code - and one we should have caught. We can only say that we are feverishly working to restore your comments and we'll do everything we possibly can to make sure something like this does not happen again.

To all of our users who have been abusing comments with flagrant spamming, hate speech and other malicious activities - this behavior will simply not be tolerated on our site. If you engage in such activity be forewarned your account will be deleted and you will be permanently banned without warning.

YouTube is a place for everyone to express themselves. It is meant to be a creative, entertaining and democratic environment. Let's not allow a few bad apples spoil the bunch.

Maryrose
The YouTube Team

Last night we pushed out a bunch of new features, and apparently tricked the online world into thinking we were hacked with our down page message. Sorry if we scared you, we often forget how closely everyone is watching our little 32 person company. So bad spelling and jokes aside, here are the new features we pushed out last night.

Channels:
We think our users provide some of the most entertaining content in the world, and we're working to continuously develop new and exciting ways for you to broadcast yourself. What better way to do that than to give every user the ability to become their own channel? Now all content creators and collectors, be it professional filmmakers, videobloggers or just people who love chihuahuas can broadcast videos from their channel for all the world to see. You can visit our Channels tab to check out YouTube's most subscribed channels, or simply go to your profile to start creating and customizing your own channel. Here are just some of the new features included in channels:

Color customization: make your channel look as cool or as ugly as you like.

Video Log: showcase and discuss videos (yours or others) on your Channel

Channels I'm watching: check out what channels other users are subscribed and find great new content

Blog It:
You can now post videos directly to Blogger, BlogSpot and LiveJournal (and we'll be adding support for more blogs soon). Once you set up your blog options, just click the 'blog it' button when watching any video - and voila! your blog entry is created.

Viewing History
Many of our users have been asking for this feature, so we've created a viewing history log of the last 100 videos you've watched. We absolutely respect your privacy and do not store any of this information on our servers. You can also clear your viewing history at any time by clicking the 'clear viewing history' at the bottom of the page.

That's all for now, but check back often - we've got a bunch more features coming out very soon! And remember to send me an email with your thoughts, feedback and any other new features you'd like to see.

With Love,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

We recently noticed that within many of the different ecosystems on YouTube our users are doing something really cool - they're communicating with each other through their videos. Text comments and messages are great, but our users have once again created something really innovative completely on their own - video responses. It's been amazing to watch our users create an entirely new mechanism for communicating with one another. However, one of the challenges with these video dialogues has been there is no way to 'link' your response back to the original video. To encourage and simplify this type of communication we just launched a new Video Response feature that will allow you to upload your own video reply while you're watching a video. Just look for the 'post a video response' link on any video watch page. All video responses will show up directly beneath the original video (just like text comments).

Check it out and let us know what you think!

Maryrose
The YouTube Team

The below video of me and Powers (your humble product servants and amateur acrobats extraordinaire) was uploaded directly to YouTube from Dwipal's cell phone. That's right, with YouTube's new mobile uploads feature you can now broadcast yourself to the world without ever using your computer. Check it out!

By now many of you have seen that the videos posted earlier this week of Stephen Colbert roasting President Bush at the annual White House Correspondents' dinner have been taken down. We know these videos were extremely popular and of immense social and political importance to many of you. The videos were not removed due to the content or any political bias. They were removed at the request of CSPAN, who claims to be the copyright owner. A number of you have inquired about whether or not the speech was considered 'public domain' and therefore exempt from copyright protection. Unfortunately, CSPAN has asserted that the video footage uploaded was broadcasted and owned by them.

When we become aware that there are videos on the site that were uploaded without the copyright owners permission we remove them and in most cases, (as was the case with the CSPAN videos) we become aware because the copyright owner contacts us and requests that the video be taken down. Copyright laws can be a tricky and a somewhat complicated matter but we want our community to be one where everyone's creative rights are respected.

Best,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

You'll notice lots of new and redesigned things on the site, much of which is from direct feedback we received from you (special thanks to everyone who participated in our usability studies). Below are just some of the changes we pushed out.

Redesigned video watch page and video player. You'll still see the old watch page by default because we wanted to have you take the new page for a test drive and give us feedback. If you click the 'watch this video on our new video watch page' link in the upper right hand corner you'll see the new (and hopefully improved) watch page. Let us know what you think!

Your playlists, your videos and your favorites are now one click away. Simply click on My Videos to get access to all your stuff. We also redesigned the playlist manager (yes, for the 3rd time), so it's easier than ever to organize all your favorite videos.

Steve finds great videos, but I really have no interest in seeing 8 million videos of his cat Stinky (sorry Stinky). Now I can subscribe to his favorites and get all the great videos he finds delivered straight to my inbox. If you want to subscribe to Steve's (or anyone else's) favorites, just visit his profile and click the 'subscribe to favorites link'. Oh, and if you do want to see 8 million videos of Stinky, you can subscribe to his uploads too.

Speaking of subscriptions, if you check out our Members tab, you can now see our most subscribed Members. This is a great way to find some of the best content creators and collectors on YouTube.

We get lots of questions. Questions on copyright, questions on how to make and optimize videos, questions on why unicorns are called unicorns. Check out our Help Center for a bunch of new 'How-To Guides'. Oh, and the word unicorn comes from the Latin 'Uni', meaning one, and 'Cornu, meaning horn.

That's all for now! Remember to send us your thoughts, concerns, feedback and questions. Oh, and make sure to check back here in a few days, because we've got another really cool feature we'll be pushing out very soon.

love,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

A few weeks ago I posted about the new 10 minute video limit we put in place. While the main driver of this limit was to help prevent copyright infringement, we also knew it wasn't the best solution for all of you legitimate content creators out there. Ever since that posting we've been inundated with emails with your thoughts, ideas, feedback and frustrations about the 10 minute limit. First off, my apologies if we weren't able to respond to all of your emails individually. But the one message that came through resoundingly loud and clear is that there are plenty of you out there that are creating original content over 10 minutes in length, and you need a platform to broadcast yourself.

You, the videoblogger, the comedian, the professional content producer, the amateur filmmaker, the independent musician, represent the very core of what YouTube is about. We wanted to do something more for you beyond accepting your videos that are over 10 minutes in length. That being said, we're thrilled to announce our new Director program. Upon successful registration, YouTube Director accounts will receive the following benefits:

This: smokin logo on all your video pages and profile.

Your own logo, company/organization URL, and description on all of your video pages

Ability to upload videos longer than 10 minutes

Customizable name & value fields for each of your videos (ex: "Price: $4.25" or "Show Time: 9 pm PST")

Ability to attach a per-video URL to each of your videos

And the best benefit of all? The YouTube Director program is completely, 100% FREE. The only thing we ask? That you be a legitimate, original content creator. Remember, this is just the first release of the YouTube Director program! It's our goal to provide tools and functionality to help you, the best content providers on YouTube, achieve maximum distribution. And in the middle of the night if a sudden idea or suggestion comes to you on how YouTube can improve the features we offer for our Directors, please get out of bed and contact us. So, go apply to become a Director and start creating your next masterpiece! We can't wait to see what you come up with.

Maryrose
The YouTube Team

The most important things to us here at YouTube are 1) listening to our users 2) bringing them the best online video experience with the most cutting edge features and functionality possible. For quite some time our users have been asking us for the ability to upload pictures to their profile. While this would have been a pretty straight forward request for us to grant, we wanted to do something bigger and better than just plain old, boring profile pictures. Come on, everybody does profile pictures. Profile pictures are so Web 1.0. YouTube is about creativity, self-expression, broadcasting yourself to the world - and our users deserve something better.

So, we sent our big brains at YouTube Labs off to solve this dilemma and what they came back with, is absolutely revolutionary. The technology for this new feature is not quite ready for prime time, but we're so excited about it, we had to share it and give you a glimpse of what is yet to come. It's with great pride that I introduce to you.......The Smiley Face Factory™!

You can see below an example of how The Smiley Face Factory™ will work, you select the eyes, nose and mouth you feel best represents your mood at any given point in time and voilà! you've got a new Smiley Face (of course your face may actually not be so smiley depending on your mood). We believe The Smiley Face Factory™ will revolutionize how the online world expresses itself and will push the boundaries of Web 2.0 into Web 3.0.

Stay tuned for the release of The Smiley Face Factory™, and other new and exciting features from YouTube Labs. And as always, we encourage your thoughts and feedback.

Best,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

The Smiley Face Factory :*)™   Eyes: : ; = % 8 B X   Nose: ^ * # - . >   Mouth: ) P ( 8 * S D O C I \ } ] [ J r > @ X     :^)

The past few months have been phenomenal for us here at YouTube, thanks to all of you. We've been going through unprecedented growth. Most days it seems we can barely catch our breath trying to keep up with everything, and sometimes I sit at my desk and look around at the 20 or so people around me and cannot believe how far we've come in such a short period of time. No matter how fast we grow or how large we may become, our primary goal is, and will always be, about being in touch with our users and providing them the best online video experience possible. That being said, we've gotten a fair amount of emails lately about the new 10 minute limit we've implemented for video uploads. For those of you not familiar with this change, we've always had a 100MB file limit for uploads. We also recently implemented a 10 minute length limit. This change won't impact the vast majority of our users. We know that over 99% of videos uploaded are already under 10 mins, and we also know that most of our users only watch videos that are under about 3 minutes in length.

So, if most of our users are uploading and watching short form video clips, why even bother to make the change? If it ain't broke, don't fix it right? Well, if you've followed our blog postings or any of the press articles, you know we're constantly trying to balance the rights of copyright owners with the rights of our users. We poked around the system a bit and found that these longer videos were more likely to be copyrighted videos from tv shows and movies than the shorter videos posted. However, we also recognize that there are legit content creators out there who may have videos over 10 mins, so we've created a Premium Content Program for those of you with professional-produced videos.

What about the little guys you ask? We hear ya. We know that although most users are uploading short form clips, there are those of you out there that are video bloggers or amateur film makers that have legitimate, user generated content over 10 mins, and obviously, this is not an ideal situation for you. We recognize that, and we're actively working on a solution that will allow for those of you with longer form user generated content, while still preventing copyrighted full length episodes from entering the system. In fact, if you are a user with videos over 10 mins, please contact us. We want to hear from you. We want to know how you've been impacted by this change and any thoughts or ideas you may have.

Remember: this site is about you, and we're listening.

Best,
Maryrose
The YouTube Team

You’re probably wondering about the MTV2 clip and “official partner” logo on our home page. In addition to all your videos, we are starting to feature entertaining, professional clips such as scenes from the MTV2 Andy Milonakis Show promoting the new season that starts March 31st. This is just a start, we’re in discussions with lots of networks, movie studios and record labels to feature more cool videos on YouTube.

We know you’re passionate about watching and sharing videos. These new partners will enhance the entertainment experience on YouTube where the majority of the videos will continue to be contributed by you. Also, please keep telling us which videos you want us to feature on our home page.

And, happy Tubing!

Hello members! You may have noticed we were down for a while upgrading the site. We listened to you and added in a few of the most requested features. We also added a bunch of things in the background that will make the site faster.

Personalized Profiles
Tired of not being able to choose which picture goes on your profile? Well breathe a sigh of relief, you can now select a main profile video. While you're at it, change how your profile looks with custom skins. Then post a bulletin about it (and maybe attach a video) and it will appear on all of your friend's profiles. Finally, you can direct people to your snazzy new profile with your new easy to remember URL (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/user/yourname) where they can leave you comments about how cool it is.
View Your Profile | Edit Your Profile

Hello Fans!
Members have been begging us to let them see who has marked their videos as a Favorite. Who are your fans? Click the My Videos link to see the number of "fans" each video has, then click on the number to see who they are!

Better Searching
In addition to searching through members, groups and videos, you can now search playlists! Plus we added a bunch of filters so that you can sort search results by any or all of the following: Title, Time Added, Number of Views, Rating, Username (when searching members) and Group Name (when searching groups).

Continuous Play
Playlists are a great way to organize a bunch of different YouTube videos all in one place. Now you can you search for playlists, and when you find one you like, you can play it continuously with the new Play All button! Then you can share it or embed it on a website.
Manage Your Playlists

Import Contacts
Thanks to some clever software called Plaxo, you can import friends and contacts automatically from Hotmail, Gmail, Outlook, and others. Just click the "Import email addresses" link from the "Invite Your Friends" page!

Premium Content Registration
Professional producers like television networks, movie studios and record labels are now able to join YouTube and take advantage of special branding and features. So keep an eye out for a lot of cool new videos!
Premium Content Registration

A Word on Safety
In the last two months we've gone from 3 million videos a day to 25 million (and counting!). You never know who is going to see what you post. With that in mind, we've put together some tips for staying safe on YouTube and helping out your fellow members, check it out.

That's it for now! Stay tuned, and keep broadcasting!

The YouTube Team

Hi Tubers! NBC recently contacted YouTube and asked us to remove Saturday Night Live's "Lazy Sunday: Chronicles of Narnia" video. We know how popular that video is but YouTube respects the rights of copyright holders. You can still watch SNL's "Lazy Sunday" video for free on NBC's website.

Some good news: we are happy to report that YouTube is now serving up more than 15 million videos streamed per day- that's nearly 465M videos streamed per month with 20,000 videos being uploaded daily.

Keep broadcasting!

Things are really picking up around here. Not only are we adding servers and bandwidth as fast as we can, we're also pleased to report that last month's kitchen sink upgrade was successfully integrated into the snack area and we hope to have that dirty dishes bug patched shortly.

As if we didn't have enough reasons to be excited, the other night we got a visit from MC HAMMER! Hammer came by the office to lend a hand and showed us the sweet new video for his song Look. While Hammer was here he dropped some serious science about the recording industry and taught us the difference between Hyphy, Thizz and Krumping. Check out the video, it's totally hyphy (see??). We gave him the grand tour and of course shot some video. Be sure to check out our awesome giant-curtain-wall-substitutes and the crazy tribal pattern we pimped our office walls with (it actually represents bandwidth but we all got it tattooed on our ankles anyway).

We've just rolled out a bunch of cool new features. Many of these come straight from requests or suggestions from all of you, so please keep those ideas coming.

• Groups brings Tubers Together
  Sure, it's great to send your favorite videos to your friends and family, but now you can take it one step further and create (or join) groups to share and discuss videos with other YouTube members! Each group has it's own forum, and for added control the group founder can decide if they want the group to be public and open to everyone, or private where membership is granted by request or invitation only. As a group founder you get to choose a custom URL for the group - your very own little video home on the web! So whether you join a public group to connect with other members who have the same video interests that you do, or create a private group to securely share and discuss videos with your friends and family - there's a group for you. Getting started is easy, just click on the Groups tab and start browsing or creating!


• I want my RSS!
  By popular demand, we've added a ton of new RSS feeds. You can now subscribe to several different feeds for categorized groups of videos (such as recently uploaded, recently featured, top viewed etc), as well as customized feeds for users and tags. You can even get a feed for this blog! Check out our new and improved RSS page and start subscribing!


• Friends Reloaded
  One of the areas we get a lot of questions about is friends management - how to delete a friend, how to organize friends etc. Well, we've heard you loud and clear and have (hopefully) dramatically simplified this process. When you visit the Friends tab, you can now easily delete a friend, or create personalized contact lists with a simple click of the mouse (well, maybe two clicks, but it's still really easy).


• Search and Ye Shall Find
  Searching on YouTube just got a whole lot easier. No more scrolling through pages and pages of search results to find the video you want, you can now filter your results by relevance, date added, title, view count or rating.

Happy New Years, Tubers! We hope you all had a restful and joyous holiday. 2005 went out with bang for us as our traffic has continued to soar to record numbers. However, as many of you noticed, the performance of our video upload process has been a bit lackluster the past few weeks. Recently, we've had users reporting video upload times anywhere from a few hours to a few days. First and foremost, we sincerely apologize for the degradation in service you may have experienced and any inconvenience it may have caused you. Bradley, our sys admin, explains in a bit more detail the issues we're encountering, what caused them and what we're doing about it:

Issue: Slow video uploads
Cause: Most consumer internet connections upload much slower than they download. So, uploading a 100 megabyte video via a DSL or cable modem will require a lot of time, upwards of multiple hours.
Resolution: We ask that for your patience when uploading large files. However, we are working on improving the upload page by adding a status tracker to let you know that the upload is still in progress.

Issue: Upload processing time. Some users are experiencing long waits during the "Processing" phase, after a video upload is complete.
Cause: Due to the extreme growth we've had recently (thanks!), we've started to run short on the servers required to perform this intensive task.
Resolution: Fortunately, we have plenty of machines on the way and expect this to be remedied shortly.

Issue: Video pausing. During peak hours users may occasionally notice that new or popular videos are slow to download, causing a pausing effect.
Cause: YouTube is currently serving over 45 terabytes of video per day. This is equal to 75,000 dial-up modems running at full speed for an entire day.
Resolution: To keep up with this demand and future growth, we're constantly working on ways to improve our internet connectivity. We expect some of our most recent additions to come online over the next few days and weeks.

So, while we're all extremely excited and thankful for the tremendous viral growth we've been experiencing, we've got a lot more bills to pay these days (including one for the kitchen sink we're finally getting - no more washing our coffee mugs in the bathroom!). Since YouTube's inception, one of the things we've been passionate, if not fanatical about, is that our service must always remain free to our users - no strings attached. In order to be able to keep this mantra, and not have to pass on a dime of costs to our users, we've started implementing some advertising on the site to help pay for our operating expenses (as well as that kitchen sink). Our goal is to not disrupt the video viewing experience in any way - and hopefully - if we do this right, we might even be able to enhance your experience.



Our mission at YouTube is simple, to provide our users with the best online video service imaginable, for free. Little things may change here and there on the site to continue to make that possible, but ultimately, the goal itself will never change.

Well Tubers, thanks to all of your emails and blogging, we have been able to get in contact with Tom from MySpace. Turns out this was a simple misunderstanding, and MySpace has re-enabled all YouTube embeds. Everything should now be back in working order.

We can't thank you enough for your support. Happy Holidays from all of us here at YouTube.

Welcome to Our World...

For quite awhile we've been discussing how and when we should start integrating ourselves more within the YouTube community. There's obviously a multitude of reasons we want to do this. First and foremost, we need you. We need an open and honest discourse with our users to understand what works, what doesn't, what features you would really like to see, what little annoying things on the site really piss you off. We want to hear it all, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Secondly, we want you to know us, how we work, what we're doing and the challenges we deal with. We get such an intimate view (sometimes a little too 'intimate' admittedly) into the lives of so many of users, it's about time you start seeing us as well.

So, what have we been up to lately? Thanks to all of you, our growth has been absolutely phenomenal these past months. And as you can probably imagine, with such rapid growth comes a whole host of scalability problems. Believe me, these are the best kind of problems to have, but they are still problems none the less, and we've spent much of our time and energy focused on just dealing with the amount of traffic we're getting. This has been a bit frustrating for all of us, since it distracts us from improving the site and working on new features as much as we would like to. However, we're continuing to do things to improve the scalability and stability of our site which will give us more time to focus on what matters most - bringing you all the features you want to see.

We did push out some new features this week that we're all pretty excited about. We'd love to get your feedback. Seriously, developing features in a black box sucks, so let us know what you think.

For your viewing pleasure I put together some clips of all us here at YouTube (I have to admit to being an iMovie novice, so please excuse the amateur editing). The video opens in Chad's garage oh so many months sketching out the very first layout drawings of the site. That's Steve (our other fearless leader) taking the video and talking in the background. This is followed by our last day working in our VC's office, first days in our new office and out to dinner celebrating our funding close. No more hiding, you now get to see what true dorks we all really are.

That's all for now. We're committed to keeping you as closely involved and informed as possible with what's going on in our world, so please check back here often for more updates, features, ideas and feedback.

Here are all the new features we just released. Again, we encourage your thoughts, ideas and feedback.

• Logged In Home Page
  We finally cleaned this page up. It's been one of my personal #1 pet peeves with the site that I'd rather see the logged out home page, than the logged in home page. Every single time I login, all I see is my subscribed videos, and all of the cool new content is pushed way down the page. So, we finally cleaned this up, and added a cool new scrolling format for viewing videos. We've also added this 'video inbox' idea. Basically anytime someone sends you a video, or you get a subscription, it will appear in your video 'inbox'.


• Subscriptions Center
  Again, we just cleaned up the UI for this feature but we also added the ability to subscribe to tags. Conceptually, I really dig the idea of subscribing to tags, and I'm eager to see if the community uses this feature.


• New Video Player
  New look and feel for the video player. Hopefully you all will find this cleaner and easier to use.


• Blocking/Reporting a User
  Sure, we would all like to believe that people are basically good, but unfortuently the truth of the matter is on any site like ours, there are going to be problem users. Blocking a user is now the easiest way to stop a harassing or malicious user. From both your message center, and from the user's profile page, you can choose to block that user. This prevents the user from commenting on your videos, or sending you messages. Additionally, you can report a user to us from their profile page if you feel the user has been continuously abusing YouTube or posting offensive content.


• Message Center
  We cleaned up some of the old annoying things about the message center, like not being able to delete new messages. Hopefully this will make the message center easier to use, and will help encourage inter member communications.


• Profiles
  We added 'my recent videos' to all user profiles. This is really just a baby step towards us continuing to build out user profiles and allow for more customized content.

Greetings, everyone! We've spent the last few weeks enhancing some of our existing features and adding new things that you, our users, have requested. So, please keep your comments and suggestions coming! We depend on you all to help keep YouTube the best video website on the web.

• Feature This!
  We want you to have a voice in what videos get featured on our home page. Whenever you see an entertaining, creative or funny video that you think other users would like to see as well, flag it 'Feature This!' and we'll review it for consideration in 'Today's Featured Videos'.


• More Playlists Features
  It's now easier then ever to organize and share your playlists! All of your videos and your favorites are now automatically imported into your Playlist Manager, so that you can easily copy these videos into the new playlists that you create. Did you put together an awesome collection of videos that you want to share with your family and friends? No problem! Just send them the URL that's now conveniently displayed for each one of your playlists.


• Threaded Comments (suggested by dearcrissy)
  Have you ever tried to respond to someone's comment on a video? Gets a little confusing trying to figure out who is replying to whom, doesn't it? With threaded comments, you can now respond directly to another user's comment -- and not only that, but you'll also get notified anytime someone replies to your comment.


• Required Tags
  You've just uploaded a video of your dog. You put "chihuahua" and "dog" in the tags field, but you're at a loss for that third tag to describe your video. We've heard your cries, and decreased the number of required tags from three to one.


• Most Viewed Videos
  We've updated Most Viewed to insure that you're always getting the most up to date videos. Whether you're watching most viewed today, this week, or this month you'll be watching the most viewed videos that were uploaded within that time period. For example, most viewed today will be the videos with the most views that were uploaded within the past 24 hours.

It's been awhile since our last update, but we've once again been busy working on bringing you lots of new features and functionality. Going forward, we're committed to bringing you something new each and every week, so check back here often, we're going to have lots to say.

We hope you'll be as excited as we are about these recent changes to the site:

• November nano-a-day Giveaway
  We're giving away one brand new 4GB iPod nano every day in November! Entering is easy, simply Sign up for a YouTube account. Already have an account? Invite a friend. The more friends you invite, the more chances you have to win. See Contest Rules and Details for more information.


• Playlists
  You can now organize all your favorite videos into Playlists! To add to your Playlists, watch a video and click the 'Add to Playlists' button. Once you've added videos, go to My Playlists to view, edit, delete or create new Playlists.


• My Subscriptions
  With our new Subscriptions Center you can now subscribe to any user's videos (or invite them to subscribe to yours) so that all of their videos show in one convenient location. Just go to My Subscriptions and enter the username of the person whose videos you'd like to subscribe to and click the 'Subscribe' button. Or, click the 'Subscribe to Videos' button on their profile page and viola! their videos will immediately appear under My Subscriptions.


• New XML-RPC/REST APIs
  If you're a developer with a desire to integrate YouTube with your application or website, you'll be pleased to know we have a new suite of APIs available. These APIs are available through two interfaces: REST and XML-RPC. Moving forward, we plan on working closely with fellow developers to ensure that the APIs we provide meet the needs of third-party sites looking for a plug-n-play video solution for their sites. Browse the new APIs here.


• Channels
  You're probably already familiar with Channels, but we've vastly improved this area recently. Visit Channels and click on your favorite topic (Music, Pets & Animals, Sports etc), you'll now get to see specific information for that Channel including: recently added videos, who the most active users are and the top watched videos. Channels are a great way to easily find the videos you're most interested in seeing.


• More FAQs
  We've updated our help section with more of your frequently asked questions. Want to know how to embed videos on MySpace/Friendster? Do you want to make your embedded videos autoplay? Do you spend many sleepless nights wondering "YouTube is such a great website, can it really be free??" For answers to these questions and more, visit our help section. And remember, our FAQs come straight from our users, so please don't hesitate to contact us with your questions, issues and comments.


• Full Screen View
  It's easy to see the full screen version of any video, just click the fullscreen icon in the bottom right of the video while watching a video, and the full screen version will open in a new window. Make sure you have pop-up blocking disabled for YouTube.com, otherwise this feature will not work.

We are ecstatic to announce the changes we made to the site last night. As a result of many sleepless nights, we have completed a very feature-rich release. Once again, many of these changes are in direct response to your feedback, so please keep them coming. And the changes include...

• First up, video flagging. At the bottom of the video watch page, you will notice a new section for flagging a video. If you encounter a video that's inappropriate or copyrighted, please use this feature to notify us. We will aggressively monitor these submissions and respond as quickly as we can.


• Second, Friends & Sharing. We poured a tremendous amount of time and effort into enhancing our sharing functionality. With the new sharing feature, an easy-to-use pop-up appears over the video. From here, you can choose with whom you'd like to share the video with. This feature is really something that you have to see to appreciate. Trust me! Log in and watch a video. Then, click on 'Share this Video'... I told you so!


• Lastly, Channels. While the video uploads have been pouring in, we realized it grew ever more difficult for viewers to find relevant and interesting videos. Though tags are very efficient at identifying specific details about content, we wanted to further simplify the browsing experience. With the release of Channels, similar content will be categorized and grouped into common channels. By "flipping" to a channel such as Short Movies or Travel & Places, you can browse through all videos within the channel.

Once again, thanks for using the site! Please contact us with any suggestions or feedback.

How goes it, folks? We have added a ton of new features to our site.

• You can now embed the YouTube video player into your own webpage! That way people can view the video on your website without even coming to YouTube! See examples and instructions here.
  
  
• See how many videos other people have watched :) Just click on their profile and look for the "I have watched 100 videos!" sentence under their username. Try this user for example.
  
  
• Rate videos between 1 and 5 stars. Just click on the appropriate rating underneath the video while it's playing.
  
  
• Find the top rated videos on the site.
  
  
• Allow/Disallow comments on your own videos. You can set this preference for each video.
  
  
• Allow/Disallow ratings on your own videos. You can set this preference for each video.
  
  
• Email preferences: tell us for which events you like to receive emails.
  
  
• Honors: When you watch a video, we'll tell you what Honors it has received (Top Viewed, Top Discussed, Top Favorite, ...). This list is shown to the right side of the video, above the related videos list. View this video as an example.

We are ecstatic to announce the changes we made to the site last night. As a result of many sleepless nights, we have completed a very feature-rich release. Once again, many of these changes are in direct response to your feedback, so please keep them coming. And the changes include...

• First up, video flagging. At the bottom of the video watch page, you will notice a new section for flagging a video. If you encounter a video that's inappropriate or copyrighted, please use this feature to notify us. We will aggressively monitor these submissions and respond as quickly as we can.


• Second, Friends & Sharing. We poured a tremendous amount of time and effort into enhancing our sharing functionality. With the new sharing feature, an easy-to-use pop-up appears over the video. From here, you can choose with whom you'd like to share the video with. This feature is really something that you have to see to appreciate. Trust me! Log in and watch a video. Then, click on 'Share this Video'... I told you so!


• Lastly, Channels. While the video uploads have been pouring in, we realized it grew ever more difficult for viewers to find relevant and interesting videos. Though tags are very efficient at identifying specific details about content, we wanted to further simplify the browsing experience. With the release of Channels, similar content will be categorized and grouped into common channels. By "flipping" to a channel such as Short Movies or Travel & Places, you can browse through all videos within the channel.

Once again, thanks for using the site! Please contact us with any suggestions or feedback.

Developers! Developers! Developers!

It's now possible to put an HTML snippet on your website that automatically pulls up the latest videos with a certain tag word. An example of this, let's say you want to show all videos related to Mexico on your website. However, you want your website to be automatically updated whenever a new video is uploaded with the tag word Mexico. By using the snippet below, you can do this!

HTML Snippet for Mexico

<iframe id="videos_list" name="videos_list" src="http://www.youtube.com/videos_list?tag=mexico" scrolling="auto" width="265" height="400" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0"></iframe>
By replacing the word mexico in the above snippet, you can show any tagged videos on your website and have your site automatically updated whenever a new video is uploaded with that tag!

You know, I really can't believe the pace that we're releasing new features. I mean, it really does seem like like just yesterday we launched something and, yet, here we are again... back with more.

And here they are:

• Video Sharing
  
  On YouTube you've always been able to upload Public and Private videos. Public videos are for everyone to see, and Private videos are only seen by the people that get the secret link URL to that video.
  
  Now you can share videos more easily with friends and family by inviting them directly through the My Friends tab, and by adding them to your Friends or to your Family groups.
  
  For each video that you uploaded to YouTube, you can decide to share the video with Friends, Family or both.


• Ability to Remove Comments on your own videos
  
  You can now remove comments left by others on your videos.

Many people have asked us how to put a list of videos on MySpace. We've made a Flash application that can be embedded into your MySpace page! It looks like this:



For details on how to do this, please see help.

• Attach a video to messages!
  If you want to send someone else on YouTube a cool video, you no longer have to paste the URL into the message. You will now see a dropdown menu where you can select the video that you want to attach to the message! The message recipient can simply click on the thumbnail to view the video.
  


• Show related video in comments
  While browsing through the site, we've seen that many users reference videos they've posted when they leave comments in other people's videos. To help this effort, we've pushed out a new feature that allows you to reference one of your videos directly from the comments section. Watch a video and see this feature in action!
  

Whew! A couple busy, busy weeks. These are some of the changes we've made:

• New front page
  We have redesigned the front page to better capture what YouTube is about. The featured videos lend an instant snapshot of the cool videos added recently to the site. Upload your interesting video and watch it get featured!
  


• Browse pages
  The browse page contains many, many more items for each of the categories. Each category now contains 100 items separated into 5 pages.
  


• UTF-8 support in tags
  Finally! UTF-8 support has been added to tags. You can now attach UTF-8 tags to your video. You can also go back to videos you've previously uploaded and add UTF-8 tags to those. Furthermore, UTF-8 searching is enabled. Try searching for 王力宏.
  


• HTML-enabled emails
  Emails being sent from the system have been converted over to using HTML.

As always, while you're perusing the site, if you notice anything you'd like changed, please feel free to shoot us a message.

You can now add a field for "Date Recorded" and "Location" to each of your videos. This information will show up when your video is viewed. Also, the location you enter becomes a clickable link that brings you to Google maps. To associate a date or location to your video, please go to my videos and click on the edit video button.

Greetings everyone!

Thanks for visiting YouTube! We have been most impressed with the reception from our users. In an effort to communicate improvements and changes, this blog was created.

So, first off, we are extremely happy with the feedback we've received thus far. We are continuously working towards our goal of making YouTube the digital video repository for the Internet. That said, please let us know if there's something you'd like us to address -- we really, really, really do value any input our users send. We read every e-mail that is sent to us. Go ahead, try it; we'll prove it!

Anyway, back to the recent changes. This last week, we've added many improvements to the site:

• New browse videos page
  We have been receiving many video uploads each day. While this is really exciting, we realized that it has gotten increasingly more difficult to find videos you want to watch. We have made an attempt to address this problem by launching a convenient browse page. From here, you can find the most recent videos, the most popular videos, the most discussed videos, the most added to favorites videos, and a random browse page.
  


• Searching by username
  Prior to this week, it was difficult to find videos by a certain user. For example, I've enjoyed every video Cobaltgruv has ever put up. Instead of having to search for a video of his, I can now type "cobaltgruv" in the search box and get a result set of all his videos.
  


• Linking your videos from your homepage
  Many YouTube users maintain their own websites. A common request from users was to have a convenient way to link to videos users have uploaded to YouTube from these websites. We just released a feature that enables users to easily do this - linking to one's YouTube videos from anywhere on the Internet. By adding a tiny snippet of HTML code on your homepage, you can have your YouTube videos directly show up inside your homepage! For more details on how to do this, please see the help section.