Calling All Creative Types...

We'd like to introduce you to the Creator's Corner, a new hub for aspiring video-makers. This section of the site brings together all the information a budding artiste could want to know about making videos, including:

• video tutorials about actions on YouTube, special effects techniques, tips on being successful on the site and much more
• Help Center articles about editing videos, optimizing them for YouTube, and the basics of uploading
• a "feature kit" of tools available to creators
• tons of project ideas
• a dedicated forum for creative discussions and collaboration
• a blog focused on all the cool stuff you make on YouTube
  
• discount offers on products you're most likely to covet as a video-maker (right now Apple is offering free shipping on all orders over $50)
• cool graphics to place on your blog or site, to direct people back to your YouTube channel or video
  

We think of this as just the beginning: we're currently working on setting up some Webinars to help you take your video-making to the next level, and we're seeking out some of the most accomplished video producers on YouTube to grill them on the techniques, inspiration and secrets behind their videos. (First up: read about tilt-shifting and timelapse in Keith Loutit's "Metal Heart" video.)

In addition, we're eager to expand our badge gallery, so if you have an awesome graphic you'd like to share with others to help them advertise their YouTube presence on their own site, email it to ytcreators@gmail.com and we'll consider it for inclusion on the page. If we do add your graphic to the Corner, we'll be sure to credit you there and send you a T-shirt as thanks.

So please give the site a whirl and let us know what you think -- and what you'd like to see -- in the comments below or in the forum.

Mia Quagliarello, Community Manager, recently watched "The Old City of Dubrovnik."

User Inspires Favicon Change

Favicon is short for "Favorites Icon" and it is a square icon that often appears in your Web browser's address bar or in your list of bookmarks.

An enterprising blogger at Typophile recently pointed out that our favicon was fairly unreadable in a post that caught our eye. We didn't disagree with him and so we took him up on his suggestion, made a few extra tweaks and have now launched it on the site. (It will take a few weeks to update in other areas on the Web.) You can see the improvement in the before-and-after graphic below. As you can hopefully tell, the favicon on the right is now much more clearly defined.

So thank you, Miha at Typophile, for calling that out and being the catalyst behind this change. You are among the many users who've inspired us to do better, and for that we've got a thank you gift with your name on it heading your way.

Margaret Stewart, User Experience Manager, recently favorited "Twits: Episode 1 - P. Diddy, Lindsay Lohan, Brooke Hogan."

Join World Leaders on the Road to Copenhagen

In December, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen to discuss a global agreement on climate change as part of the United Nations’ Climate Change Convention (often referred to as COP15). The goal of the meeting is to reduce global warming emissions and ultimately chart a course that avoids the most severe impacts of climate change.

The road to Copenhagen begins now, as heads of state flock to the United Nations in hopes of laying the groundwork for COP15. That's why today, with the Danish government, we're launching the YouTube COP15 channel, where you can you can raise your thoughts and questions on climate change through an initiative called "Raise Your Voice."

We know that you've never been afraid to make your opinions heard on this important issue, from uploading footage of road trips to halt climate change in India to creating humorous educational videos about global warming:



Now here's your chance to submit your most pressing questions about climate change to world leaders through YouTube. All approved entries will be broadcast on screens around COP15 in December and rated by viewers of the channel. The top-rated entries will be put in front of a panel of experts at an interactive debate that will be globally aired by YouTube/CNN International. Two winners will also receive a trip to Copenhagen to be present at the debate.

Ramya Raghavan, Nonprofits & Activism, recently watched "Facing the Floods"

Five Stars Dominate Ratings

This graph fascinated us and so we wanted to share. It shows the number of videos that receive specific star ratings: one star for when you loathe something, five for when you love it. Judging from this chart, it looks like some of you are moved to rate videos when you don't like them, but the overwhelming majority of videos on YouTube have a stellar five-star rating:



Seems like when it comes to ratings it's pretty much all or nothing. Great videos prompt action; anything less prompts indifference. Thus, the ratings system is primarily being used as a seal of approval, not as an editorial indicator of what the community thinks about a video. Rating a video joins favoriting and sharing as a way to tell the world that this is something you love.

We're glad there are so many awesome videos on YouTube, but all of this begs the question: if the majority of videos are getting five stars, how useful is this system really? Would a thumbs up/thumbs down be more effective, or does favoriting do the trick of declaring your love for a video? These are just some of the questions we ask ourselves as we look at data like this and think about how to build the best, most efficient site for you.

What do you think? How useful are ratings? How do you use them? Please leave a comment below.

Shiva Rajaraman, Product Manager, recently rated "Dr Who and the Daleks."

Extending the Olive Branch on YouTube

Today, in honor of the International Day of Peace, a UN-recognized global day of nonviolence and ceasefire, we're turning up the volume on this important issue by featuring peace-related film, music, and activism on the site.

In the Screening Room, we're running "The Day After Peace," an award-winning documentary that shows how Peace Day was created. See the trailer here, then head over to www.youtube.com/screeningroom to see the full-length feature:



YouTube users have also been making peace a priority by creating videos that inspire others to make the world a better place. You can take a spin through the entries to the "My Take on Peace" contest, which features content from celebs like Jude Law, Lenny Kravitz and Alanis Morissette, hear the moving story of the Bah twins whose experience as refugees has fueled their quest for non-violence, or find out "how to create peace" from user wickydkewl, a disciple of the "Free Hugs" movement:



How are you creating peace in your community? Submit your video here for the chance to win an HD camera, or leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Ramya Raghavan, Nonprofits & Activism Manager, recently watched "Banner Deployed at Niagara Falls."

If Only Every Homework Assignment Had Prizes Like This...

As a new school year unfolds, here's an assignment for America's students from the U.S. Department of Education and YouTube: in two minutes or less, make a video showing the nation and the world how education will help you achieve your dreams, and upload it to the submission platform on the Department of Education's YouTube channel.

The good news is that there are no failing grades and the top three submissions, as voted by the YouTube community, will each be issued a $1,000 prize by the DOE. Learn more about the "I Am What I Learn" video contest from Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education:



The contest is open to U.S. middle, high school, college and post-grad students, ages 13 and up, and the deadline to submit is October 20. For complete rules and FAQs, please visit www.ed.gov/iamwhatilearn.

Ramya Raghavan, News and Politics, recently watched "Media Multitaskers Pay Mental Price."

Release Notes: 9/17/09

We're back with a rundown of the new features and changes that went live recently:

Friend suggestions: As mentioned in a previous post, we've started the first phase of the "find your friends" project with a module on the homepage that makes friend suggestions based on the email addresses of people with whom you've shared videos on YouTube in the past. (Suggestions based on your Gmail address book will come soon.) Recommendations will be limited to people who have the "let someone find my channel if they have my email address" flag set.

Activity subscriptions: To this point, subscribing to someone meant never missing any of their uploads. But now, any new subscription you make will notify you of all public actions that user performs (uploads, favorites, ratings, comments, etc) in your Recent Activity module on the homepage. This should make it a lot easier to find cool videos: just see which videos your friends and other curators choose to interact with. (We've been calling this project "subtivity" internally.)

Trending Topics: When there is a spike in searches on a given topic, we are beginning to tease that out on our browse pages to help you see what the world is watching on any given day. You might see the queries appear in a "Trending Topic" spotlight on that category's browse page or at the bottom of the page. We're testing how this performs and if it does well, we'll find a permanent home for it on the browse page and potentially more broadly on YouTube.

Sticky HQ: When you switch to view a video in high quality and lean back to enjoy the wide player experience, having to lean forward again to switch the experience back on, video after video, can be a real chore. Moving forward, your choice is "sticky," meaning that when you "go wide" it will persist across your session. We're looking to make more of your video quality choices simpler and persistent so we'll be watching this one closely.

Effortless "More Comments": Replacing the page-based system, we will now have a "Show More Comments" link at the bottom of comments that, when clicked, quickly appends 10 more comments to the end of the list.

New Discovery Features in Insight: We've released three new features in our analytics tool that should give you more sophisticated ways of using Insight so you can better serve and understand your audience. Now you can access a "discovery over time" graph that combines data about your views with where those views came from; a "views from mobile" section where you can see which of your video's views came from mobile phones or platforms that use our APIs; and "views from subscribers" where you can more deeply understand how the homepage subscriptions module, the subscriptions page, and subscription email drive views of your videos. Full post in the Biz Blog.

Resume where you left off: Let's say you're watching an epic (read: longer than 20 minutes) video, and you get distracted and click away. The next time you return to the video, it will resume where you left off watching, assuming you've watched more than one minute of the video and there are more than three minutes left.

Subscriptions comes to Shows, Movie Trailers: Subscribe to your favorite shows on YouTube to never miss a new episode. Find the show you want to watch, go to its About page, click Subscribe, and episodes that hit your inbox will indicate the name of the show (as opposed to the name of the channel or provider). In addition, you can also subscribe to our movie trailers page to never miss any of these film promos.

Poster art in Movies: Move over, thumbnails! Films in our movies section can now display vertical poster art if the partner provides it.

Comments welcome below or in our forum.

Best, The YouTube Team