Check out the new Video Manager

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

Highlights of the new Video Manager are:

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

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

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

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

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

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Get more into what you love on YouTube with our new look

From your favorite sports highlights and dance competitions to make-up tutorials, science experiments and great movies, there’s a ton of great stuff on YouTube — over three billion views worth per day by last count. More and more, behind every great video is a great Channel, and with our announcement last month that more of them are coming to YouTube, we want to make it easier for you to find and keep tabs of what you want to watch.

So, today we're introducing a new homepage, Channel design and a fresh coat of digital paint. Here are three ways these updates will improve your life on YouTube:

1. A new homepage
The YouTube homepage is your gateway to a vast entertainment universe. To help you get more into YouTube, we’re making it easier to find and follow great Channels when you arrive. On the left side of the homepage you can create your own, personal, customizable YouTube Channel line-up. Sign-in, or create a YouTube account. Then you can browse recommended Channels; customize your homepage’s feed; even link your YouTube account to Google+ and Facebook to see what your friends are sharing. The new homepage feed we launched earlier this year is now front and center on the homepage. You can switch between feeds by clicking on different Channels on the left.

For step by step instructions on using the new YouTube homepage, you can go to our help center.

2. Simpler, customizable Channels
Given the homepage’s new focus on helping you find and organize your favorite Channels, we would be remiss if we didn’t update the look and feel of the Channels themselves. Today we're launching an improved Channel design focused on what matters most: helping users find great videos. As different uploaders have different goals, we've created new Channel templates to meet your needs whether you produce one video a week or have thousands of videos for a fan to browse. Some partners have even uploaded videos talking about the features, or giving tips on how they’re taking advantage of the new design. To learn how to opt-in to and test this new Channel design, check out our help center.

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

Ready to get started? Your new YouTube is already shipped and waiting for you at YouTube.com, and like every new toy, we included an instruction manual (and video) to help.



Our recent Channels expansion, our grants and educational programs, and this new design are all focused on helping you discover a broader range of entertainment on YouTube. We’re always innovating and testing new stuff out to make the experience the best it can be for you. We rely on your feedback to figure out when we've gotten it right and when it needs further tweaks. So let us know what you think.

The YouTube team

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Welcoming you to +YouTube

This morning the Google+ team launched Google+ Pages, making it easier for you to connect with things you care about like businesses, brands and products. To help you find more of what you’re into at YouTube, we’re kicking off +YouTube to share news and start conversations from all areas of YouTube. We’re bringing you the latest from news to music and live streamed events, as well as partners and everyday people doing amazing things with video.

Expect to discuss and experience the many ways you’re changing the world through video, and we hope you’ll join us by adding us to your circles. Tell us what you think is awesome, what you want featured and, like YouTube, you can help make this page your own.

You can read more about Google+ Pages and see other brands involved at the Official Google Blog here, and if you don’t have a Google+ account yet you can sign up here.

Danielle Paquette, Social Media Manager, recently watched “YouTube Challenge - I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy.”

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YouTube now speaks IsiZulu and Afrikaans

Cross posted from the Google Africa Blog.

For many Africans online, the Internet is something created by other people which we simply consume. We see this with many African languages that have a dominant presence offline (on radio, TV, newspapers), yet are underrepresented on the web today. Seeing your language appear on global services like Google Search, YouTube, or Gmail can help change that. Suddenly, you become part of the conversation.

Last November we launched YouTube in Kiswahili and Amharic with precisely this in mind. We soon began to see many people enjoying the new versions, and also saw an increase in searches, video uploads and comments in both languages.

Today, we are excited to release 2 more African language versions of YouTube - in Afrikaans and isiZulu.

This is important for several reasons. First, the new language versions create awareness among new users who are not fluent in English and have not been able to fully enjoy or understand YouTube. Second, it’s a reminder of the great local content in both languages that is increasingly finding its way to YouTube in South Africa, a country blessed with creative talent - for a taste, sample and subscribe to MduComics, JusGorilla, Die Heuwels Fantasties, and Jack Parow. There’s a lot more out there. Lastly, YouTube in South Africa is already over a year old, and with YouTube views increasing by 175% in the past year, we were eager to introduce these new features on the local domain.

If you are a native Afrikaans or IsiZulu speaker, we invite you to join this celebration, and here’s how:

• Visit Youtube.co.za. At the bottom of the page, click on language and select Afrikaans or Zulu.
• Upload a video!
• Share it on Google+ or Twitter with #YoutubeIsiZulu or #YoutubeAfrikaans.

Ian Parsons & Mthokozisi Dlalisa - Afrikaans & IsiZulu specialists, Google South Africa, recently watched "Nicholis Louw - Baby Baby."

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YouTube.com/music is your ever-changing guide to music

YouTube has videos across the entire spectrum of music, from current pop hits to classic tracks to obscure but wonderful sounds. But how do you find that next piece of musical gold? To help with this task we’re re-launching our YouTube Music page with a host of new features to help guide you on your audio-visual quest, and several guest curators to help out as well.

On YouTube.com/music you can now find:

• recommended videos and artists based on the music videos you’re watching


• local concert listings in your area paired with artist videos


• the YouTube Top 100 - your invaluable source to the most popular music based on what the community is viewing

To help you get more into music on YouTube we’ve also partnered with music experts and tastemakers to provide you with daily playlists and picks. In the coming weeks you’ll be able to check out curations from SPIN, Vice, XLR8R and more. Some of YouTube’s music vloggers will also find a new home on the page, like the “Internet’s busiest music nerd,” Anthony Fantano of The Needle Drop.

Finally, you may have noticed the electric guitar adorning the YouTube logo today. It’s there today to celebrate the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Guide to Rock, who have the first hand-picked playlist on the new music page. Over the next five days some of your favorite music stars will be sharing a personal guide to their genre, including David Guetta’s Guide to Electronica on Friday, Lady Gaga’s Guide to Pop on Saturday and Eminem & Royce Da 5’9”’s Guide to Hiphop on Monday. Look out for a new music-based YouTube logo each day, and clicking on it will bring you straight to the music page.

Tim Partridge, Music Marketing Manager recently watched “Check out the new youtube.com/music.”

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Auto-Captions now available in Japanese

Cross Posted from the YouTube Japan Blog.

Last March we offered everyone the ability to automatically create captions on your videos, and the response has been exciting to see: auto-captions have been generated on nearly 40 million videos, and the number of manually-created caption tracks has more than tripled. We’re eager to see more videos captioned in more languages, so we just rolled out this feature to a new language — Japanese.

Now on any video with a clear Japanese speech track, a red “CC” button will appear at the bottom of the player, where you can click it to generate automatic captions from the speech. We’re also working closely with the the Japan Federation for the Deaf to improve this technology and make it more useful.

Here’s an example of how it works from our partner ANN News Channel:



And if you really want to get multilingual with YouTube videos, when these auto-captions are combined with our auto-translate feature, you’ll be able to generate subtitles into more than 50 languages.

Keeping up with our Japanese partners just got that much easier.

Brad Ellis, Product Manager, YouTube Japan, recently watched “手話あいらんど手話教室入門コース.”

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