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26 Oct, 2015

First episode released on YouTube

Announcement0 Comments

13 episodes, including the first episode of the first season of The Joy of Painting from 1983 are released on YouTube. Ross (in the episode):

 For the next 13 weeks, I’ll be your host as we experience the joy of painting. I think each of us sometime during our life has wanted to paint a picture.

21 Oct, 2015

YouTube Red announcement

Announcement0 Comments

YouTube announces YouTube Red, a $9.99/month subscription service that lets users watch videos without ads, save videos for offline viewing, and, continue playing videos in the background while they switch apps. The service will start on October 28. The YouTube Red membership also lets users sign into the company’s Gaming and Music apps. U.S. viewers can sign up for a free one-month trial later this month.

14 Sep, 2015

Dancing Baby case will go to trial

Judgement0 Comments

A three-judge panel in The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, clears the way for the “Dancing Baby case” to go to trial. The court rules that fair use is “uniquely situated in copyright law so as to be treated differently than traditional affirmative defenses,” and copyright holders like Universal must consider fair use before issuing takedown notices asking services like YouTube to remove videos that include material they control. EFF:

Today’s ruling sends a strong message that copyright law does not authorize thoughtless censorship of lawful speech.

RIAA:

We respectfully disagree with the court’s conclusion about the D.M.C.A. and the burden the court places upon copyright holders before sending takedown notices.

28 Jul, 2015

YouTube unlinks from Google+

Design Change0 Comments

Google announces that users will no longer need to use Google+ to comment on YouTube videos. Horowitz:

In the coming months, a Google Account will be all you’ll need to share content, communicate with contacts, create a YouTube channel and more, all across Google…We want to formally retire the notion that a Google+ membership is required for anything at Google… other than using Google+ itself

25 Jul, 2015

British YouTuber jumps into Thames

Personal Injury/Fall0 Comments

A British YouTuber nearly drowns after jumping into the river Thames to celebrate gaining 25,000 followers on his channel.

It originally was a dare from one of my subscribers, and I attempted it as I like doing crazy shit. This was later very regretted by me and I realized it was the stupidest idea ever. Thanks for watching.

30 Jun, 2015

Adds 60fps mobile support

Design Change0 Comments

The Company announces via the YouTube Creators Twitter account that 60 fps is now supported by both the iPhone and Android YouTube app, a feature that many gaming videos choose to use; including the highest subscribed YouTube creator – Pewdiepie. Earlier in the year the option to use 60 fps for up to 4K video was added to the site, though currently there are few videos uploaded in this format, primarily as the equipment that produces this level of footage is expensive, and the resulting video drains the phone battery.

18 Jun, 2015

WITNESS Media Lab

Makes Statement0 Comments

YouTube partners with WITNESS to back the WITNESS Media Lab. The Media Lab is a novel method for addressing critical human rights issues by analyzing and interpreting first hand citizen video footage.

The WITNESS Media Lab – in collaboration with innovators in the technology, advocacy and journalism fields – will produce a series of in-depth projects that focus on human rights struggles as seen from the perspective of those who live, witness, and experience them. The first project from the WITNESS Media Lab will explore the impact of bystander video in bringing about justice in police brutality cases in the United States.

First Draft Coalition

Makes Statement0 Comments

Youtube creates a coalition of social media journalism experts to design educational resources aimed at learning how to verify eyewitness news reports. First Draft Coalition will also examine the ethics of using eyewitness reports in journalism media. Experts will be recruited from Eyewitness Media Hub, Storyful, Bellingcat, First Look Media’s Reported ly, Meedan, Emergent, SAM Desk and Verification Junkie.

The Coalition will develop and program a new site for verification and ethics training, tools, research, and, most importantly, case studies around the biggest news stories of the moment. The site will launch this fall.

YouTube Newswire

Makes Statement0 Comments

YouTube partners with Storyful, a social news agency to create YouTube Newswire. Newswire is a screened newsfeed of the most important stories that occur each day. The stories are verified by Storyful’s editors. Each story can be embedded from the source.

With the Newswire, we hope to provide journalists with an invaluable resource to discover news video around major events, and to highlight eyewitness video that offers new perspectives on important news stories.

14 Feb, 2015

10th Anniversary

Founding0 Comments

YouTube turns ten years old. The site was created by three Paypal employees, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and  Jawed Karim, who registered the domain name on February 14, 2005. The first video ever uploaded on YouTube on April 23, 2005 was made by Karim’s friend Yakov Lapitsky and titled  “Me at the Zoo”. It has since been viewed more than 17 million times.

Lapitsky comments on his moment in internet history:

It’s neat, but I don’t think that much of it.

It is estimated that around 300 hours of video are now uploaded every hour.

28 Jan, 2015

All videos support HTML 5

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YouTube confirms all their videos now support HTML 5 plugin and no longer rely on Adobe Flash Player. Google Chrome and Firefox browsers in beta channel already support the change, while older versions of Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer will still use Flash player until an upgrade is available. HTML 5 improved bandwidth efficiency, stability and load times. According to the Company this is a move towards standardization across the video industry.

Other content providers like Netflix and Vimeo, as well as companies like Microsoft and Apple have embraced HTML5 and been key contributors to its success.

19 Aug, 2014

Gmail for kids

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Google may give out accounts to kids under the age of 13 for GMail and YouTube. This will allow children to use the features without lying about their age. The Company may also  installing a dashboard for parents to oversee their kids’ activities, as well as a change to Google’s current policy of entering birth dates only on personal computers. Google would expand the birth date requirement onto its Android software for those signing up for an account. YouTube would see similar parental control add-ons for children’s accounts.

13 Aug, 2014

Changetip tipping

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Changetip is now available for You Tube. This is a bitcoin feature that allows anyone to send a reward or tip for a great video. Nick Sullivan, ChangeCoin’s founder and CEO:

We believe people are basically good and we let them show their appreciation directly in everyday social media interactions. That’s why we call ChangeTip a ‘love button’ for the Internet.

31 Jul, 2014

Fire challenge injures teens

0 Comments

Several teenagers in Cape Girardeau, Missouri are severely burnt after emulating “fire challenge” videos from YouTube and Facebook. They involve people putting alcohol or perfume on their skin and setting it on fire to see if they can handle the pain. Cape Girardeau Fire Battalion Chief Mark Starnes says many people have been taken to the emergency room due to this trend:

These kids are starting to challenge themselves more and more in a very dangerous way. We are starting to get more and more people that are confirmed going to the ER and we’ve had one confirmed death.

18 Jul, 2014

Second leaked iPhone display test

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YouTube user Marques Brownlee releases a second scratch test on what he claims is an iPhone 6 sapphire display obtained from a factory, as well as an iPhone 5 for comparison. The iPhone 5 shows much heavier damage than the iPhone 6, but he says the fact that he is able to scratch the iPhone 6 with sandpaper at all proves that it is not pure sapphire, because sapphire is higher than sandpaper on the Mohs scale.

iPhone 6 Sapphire: Explained!

11 Jul, 2014

YogDiscovery

Announcement0 Comments

Yogscast member Mark Turpin makes a Reddit post announcing YogDiscovery, a new plan for Yogscast members to get paid by game developers to cover their games. The developers agree to give them a small portion of the extra revenue driven by the Yogscast if they make videos about their game. He says this is a way for YouTubers to guarantee income from covering unpopular games:

Our entertainers earn a livelihood from advertising directly based on how many views they get. This motivates them to create content around games that are popular – e.g. Minecraft or Garry’s Mod…YogDiscovery allows them to partially negate the financial risk from playing games that aren’t guaranteed views and be more genuine about playing the games they want to play.

8 Jul, 2014

British songwriters criticize YouTube

0 Comments

The British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) releases a statement criticizing YouTube’s policies on dividing advertising revenue. They claim that artists are forced to accept a small portion of the revenue or have their songs taken off YouTube. Barry Mason, composer of Tom Jones’ Delilah, makes a statement in support of their cause:

Someone must be making money out of the music on You Tube but it certainly isn’t the people who write the songs. Delilah would need to be streamed roughly 113,250 times for [co-writer] Les Reed and I to earn enough for a coffee each at Starbucks.

7 Jul, 2014

YouTube Recharge

0 Comments

Google makes a deal with Indian cellular service provider Tata DoCoMo to offer a pay-as-you-go data streaming plan for YouTube called YouTube Recharge. Users can buy 100 MB of data for 9 rupees (15 cents) or a weekly plan with 300 MB for 39 rupees (65 cents). A YouTube spokesperson says:

This is part of our efforts to make video content more affordable to a large base of mobile Internet users in the country. This is the first of its kind partnership in India.

30 May, 2014

Gangnam Style two billion views

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Gangnam Style becomes the first video to hit two billion views on YouTube. The only other video to surpass one billion views, Justin Bieber’s song Baby, has 1.04 billion views. YouTube adds a second dancing Psy next to the view count to celebrate.

25 Oct, 2013

2013 Golden Joystick

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The Yogscast is voted the winner of the Golden Joystick YouTube Gamer Award for the second year in a row. Mark “Turpster” Turpin, a member of the Yogscast, hosts a question and answer session at the ceremony.

Mark Turpin Yogscast Q&A At Golden Joystick Awards 2013