Official YouTube Blog

A special invitation from The Wiggles

Thursday, 30 June 2011

The Wigglesbig red carNorth American TourThe Fine Printselected in each cityfruit saladErnesto Soriano, YouTube Australia, recently watched “Let’s make Australia a reading nation."

Pottermania at YouTube: live streams, movies and extras

Thursday, 30 June 2011

Update 7/7:Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1Harry Potter channelcollection of moviesparodyTime Magazine interviewmovie clipsAlbus DumbledoreHarry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceMildred Padilla, YouTube Movies, recently watched “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”

Top E3 game trailers based on your votes

Wednesday, 29 June 2011

E3 channelpower CG

Battlefield 3: Operation Metro Multiplayer Gameplay Trailer (E3)

INVERSION E3 2011 -- Official Trailer

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Reveal Trailer

Gears of War 3 World Premiere Trailer

E3 channelgaming browsetrailers sectionMark Day, YouTube gaming, recently watched “The Crying PC Gamer.”

Introducing ThePianoGuys, your June On The Rise winner

Wednesday, 29 June 2011

ThePianoGuysOn The RisehomepageJon SchmidtSteven Sharp NelsonJarrod RadnichWe're a just couple of guys with a camera, a computer and some really talented friends. We are passionate about showcasing artists that are not big yet, but we know will be someday, and would love nothing more than to be a part of someone’s "Big Break." It's a joy to bring exciting music to life through video, and we can truly say we love what we do. Thanks to our loyal subscribers we are having the time of our lives and who knows, maybe someday we will be able to do this full-time!channelbrowseDevon Storbeck, Account Manager, recently watched "To The Summit- by Jon Schmidt ‘Featuring Ray Smith on Tenor Sax.’”

Music Tuesday: Mystery bands, Buddy Holly and more

Tuesday, 28 June 2011

Things have been popping on youtube.com/music over the last week. Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti’s son Seun just released a new album, and in honor of the potent genre his dad created, we put together a playlist of Afrobeat essentials. We also joined the world in celebrating pride week last weekend with a clutch of anthemic songs new and old. And we turned our attention to England, where the Glastonbury music festival raged. We remembered Glastos past and heard from a young band named Viva Brother, who played the festival for the first time and guided us through the experience. Oh yeah, and pop star/actress Selena Gomez debuted her new album (with commentary) on Sunday. On to this week!

Mystery bands
With the release of Shabazz Palaces’s full-length debut Black Up this week (which you can listen to in its entirety here), we found ourselves thinking about disguises, and all the bands over the years who’ve used them. Shabazz Palaces offers an avant-garde take on hip-hop; the group is helmed by Ishmael Butler of Digable Planets, but he hid behind the moniker Palaceer Lazaro for several years and still refuses to name his collaborators. Butler isn’t the first to cloak his musical experiments in a veil of mystery. This week, we present some artists who have used anonymity to fuel their boundary-pushing work, starting with San Francisco provocateurs The Residents and moving through the leftfield R&B of The Weeknd (who seem to be linked with Drake), the pop culture pastiche act Nike7UP, British oddities Hype Williams and more.

Buddy Holly raves on
Buddy Holly forever altered the course of rock’n’roll with his astonishing 25 hit songs—all of which he penned and recorded before he died in a plane crash at the age of 22. Don McLean famously sang that the day the plane crashed was “the day the music died,” and it was hard not to agree with him. But nothing proves Holly’s music lives on like Rave On Buddy Holly, a tribute album that features everybody from CeeLo Green to Patti Smith covering his songs. We check out a few tracks from the album as well as other tributes to the rock’n’roll pioneer.

Breakbot “Fantasy Jacques Renault Remix”
With “Fantasy,” the French producer Breakbot turned out a song that could have come off of Michael Jackson’s “Off The Wall” circa 1979. But really it’s the video that had us at hello: a mash-up of roller-skating videos from the 1970s and ‘80s that practically screams “summer.”

Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Bon Iver - Bon Iver ALBUM REVIEW.”

TED + YouTube: Releasing the power of video to shape ideas, 5 years on

Monday, 27 June 2011

TED has shared a wealth of innovative ideas with you over the years. We wish the TED team the happiest 5th anniversary and look forward to their continued contribution of inspiring content to YouTube and the world. We welcome Emily McManus as a guest to the YouTube blog today to discuss TED’s journey with us so far.

Today TED celebrates five years of spreading ideas online, and YouTube has been a key part of our mission from the start. In fact, TED and YouTube have grown up together as we've spent the past half-decade unlocking the power of video to set free convention-breaking ideas across the globe. On June 27, 2006 TED flipped the switch on a simple web page with six videos. Now five years later, TEDsters all over the world are using video to spread ideas feverishly across the Internet. We're excited to celebrate with the YouTube community a few amazing TEDTalks to mark our anniversary and pay tribute to the fascinating people who have inspired, intrigued and stirred our hearts and minds!

Together we’ve unlocked all kinds of ideas—from silly memes to paradigm shifts in human ingenuity to political change. Harnessing radical openness of the Internet, in fact, has been the topic of other TEDTalks including Clay Shirky, Sal Khan and Peter Gabriel. And we've found some of our most beloved speakers through YouTube—like Johnny Lee, the Wii-mote hacker, whose demo Chris spotted online early in 2008. A plane ticket later, Lee's demo of creating teaching tools with game controllers was on its way to ruling the web. If you haven’t seen it, check out TED's curator Chris Anderson in his own TEDTalk about "How web video powers global innovation." He starts by showing how YouTube-powered video is driving street dance to evolve globally at lightning speed.

With 70 million cumulative views, TEDTalks on YouTube is a killer platform for us, for ideas both big—Sam Richards, and and not-so-big—Terry Moore / How to tie your shoes. We treasure you for your smart insights, active commenting and dedicated subscribership to TED. Fan Ghazzawi9 calls us "weekly dosages of pure enlightenment and inspiration." (Thank you!)

Today's TEDTalk highlights another amazing YouTube power -- sharing ideas in more than one language. Emiliano Salinas' talk, which he delivered in Spanish, is instantly accessible to viewers around the world through YouTube's and TED's subtitle community.

Having reached the 5-year milestone, we look back in awe and look forward with excitement. Thanks, YouTubers, for helping us expand minds, open hearts and inspire others in ways we never expected.

Guest to The Official YouTube Blog Emily McManus, Editor of TED.com, on behalf of the worldwide TED team, recently watched “Google Chrome: It Gets Better."

This week's Trends: cones, onions, and hedgehogs

Friday, 24 June 2011

YouTube Trends

We discovered that it's possible to make something a trend, just by calling it one.

We saw frightening footage from tornadoes in Nebraska.

We tracked the big, new hit video out of South Korea.

We celebrated Sonic the Hedgehog's 20th anniversary.

We learned of one man's luggage nightmare.

We enjoyed some cool covers.

We followed the celebrity-driven campaign to get The Onion a Pulitzer Prize.

And Weird Al lived up to his name:

www.YouTube.com/TrendsKevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager, recently watched "Hang on Woody!."

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