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New Media News Every Morning

YouTube Tests a Cleaner, Less Cluttered Video Page

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YouTube is currently testing out a new layout of its video page, a more simplified and streamline video page if I may say so – all for the hopes of offering the best possible watching experience to users. The new video page is currently on an opt-in  basis, but anyone can try it out even if their primary language is not English. However, all the elements in the video page will be in English.  Like any of its opt-in feature, you can easily go back to the old video page via a single click.

So, what does the new video page offers? There’s quite a lot actually and these include:

Streamlined look and functionality – The new YouTube video page is now more subdued, stripped down, and simpler than before.  The redesign was aimed at offering advanced features in the highest way possible for users. The new YouTube video page focuses more on the video rather than the add-on elements that you see on a normal YouTube video page.

Smarter “next up” video list – This is a pretty cool feature of the new YouTube video home page. It takes into consideration how you found a particular video and will queue your next video to watch based on how you arrived at the current video. For example if you’ve used the search facility, the rest of the search results will be placed on the right side of the video page – making it easier for  you to check out the rest of the video search results.

Less cluttered design and united description and stats – You can now find more specific information about the video you’re watching in one place – underneath the video. If you click on “description”, you’d see more information about the video you are currently watchin.

Action Bar  is Now Cleaner –  The new YouTube video home page now has a cleaner “sharing” action bar. Sharing, rating, saving or flagging a video are now all grouped in one place.

Simpler Video Rating Scheme – Yes, it’s now a matter of selecting – “like or don’t like. Sound s familiar? In addition, if you like a video, it will be automatically added to your favorites.

New labels for video size and video quality controls – Aside from the usual selection of how you want to view a video, YouTube is also offering new size control .

Search while you watch – While watching a video, you can conduct a search and the results will be displayed on the right side of the page.

More prominent channel/subscriber placement and a new “see more videos” feature –

The “subscribe” button is now placed on the top of the video, right near the title. In addition, there’s is now an arrow next to the number of uploads on the person’s channel to let you view more videos from uploaded by that person.  Hence it’s now easier to find other videos.

If you want to try out the new YouTube video page, click here.

YouTube Now Streaming Facebook Video Feeds

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YouTube has started featuring Facebook videos shared by your friends right on its home page, says YouTube’s Official Blog. What this means is that every time your Facebook friends embed videos, it will be automatically pushed to your YouTube account. So, this practically gives you two ways of finding out what your friends have uploaded – either from YouTube or Facebook.

The feature is currently in beta mode. But the YouTube blog gave a work around to try out the feature.  Just go to this page and look just connect your Facebook account to YouTube. Once the verification process is complete, you would soon start seeing your friends’ video feeds on your YouTube homepage.

While you’re still there, you might want enable or disable autoshare as well if you don’t want your YouTube videos syndicated on Facebook. Although, I’m not really sure why you would want to do that since feeding your YouTube videos to Facebook gives it more audience.

You can also connect to your Facebook friends by using the search friends function on the YouTube homepage.

Christmas Carolling the YouTube Way

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Depending on the country where you are located, it’s either 13 or 14 days before Christmas. You’re probably on a rush now with your last minute shopping to neglect that there is one better way of spreading the joys of Christmas other  than showering your loved ones with their Christmas gifts. What is it? – Christmas carolling of course!

YouTube, in cooperation with TJMax and Marshalls have partnered up to bring the joys of holiday cheers with Christmas carolling done the YouTube way. Sing those old Christmas carols and share your videos by uploading them to YouTube and you could win a $5,000 shopping allowance.

Additionally YouTube is spreading the Christmas goodwill by donating money to Toys for Tots for every Christmas carolling video uploaded to.

Of course there are some contest details and official rules that you must follow. If you read the official rules you’d find out that the gig has started last Nov. 29 and will end on Dec. 20th. That gives you less than 10 days to get your gear on, belt out your best rendition of any classic Christmas carol and don’t forget to record your performance and upload it to YouTube as soon as you can. Winners will be announed on December 30.

Incidentally, the YouTube gig has the lovely YouTube sensation Happyslip as official endorser of the Christmas gig. That makes it even more exciting, well at least if you’re a fan of Happyslip aka Christine.

YouTube Gives Advertisers Better Ways to Annoy us When Watching Videos

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If you’re closely following our beats here at 901am, you’ll surely noticed that we’re so fond of news with accompanying YouTube videos. This is fine and good since YouTube is part of the new media. Now much as we don’t want to annoy you our dear readers with videos running various targeted ads, we can’t help it because it’s beyond our control.

And guess what? Expect to see more of those ads as YouTube announced that they are rolling out a video targeting tool which advertisers can use to find appropriate videos where their ad campaigns will run on. Google really wants to push video ads, thus it is giving advertisers more control of their ad campaigns by letting them choose specific YouTube partner content they’d like to target.

The new video targeting tool is also flexible enough that advertisers can discover videos relevant to their campaign easily as well as their target audience. The tool would even suggest videos based on keywords, viewer demographics, and interest-based graphics.

In short, YouTube has established an advertising marketplace where video targeting options result in extra control and better brand for display advertisers.

And what this gives us YouTube fans – more annoying video ads, slow loading time and possibly the need to find another place to satisfy our video content hunger. Don’t get me wrong here – if it’s all for the good and sustainability of YouTube, well and fine. I just don’t dig if consumers are really acting upon ads they encounter on YouTube videos. Have you?

Muppets Launch YouTube Channel

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Entertainment industry execs, take note: this is how an old classic can successfully make the transition into new media. When The Muppet Show was cancelled in 1981, a lot of us felt like we lost our old gang of childhood friends. Fortunately, the Muppets just launched their own YouTube channel, and they’re hitting the medium of online video with the force of Gonzo shooting out of a cannon.

Kermit and crew clearly did their homework. With punchy new original content perfectly tailored to the viral, shortform, fourth-wall-breaking nature of online video, the Muppets know exactly what they’re doing on YouTube — despite Statler’s and Waldorf’s constant assertions to the contrary. Apparently, old frogs can learn new tricks.