Release Notes: 3/26/2009
Traditionally after site maintenance we've only shared information about the most significant new features. But after watching you guys take to the forums and Twitter to discuss what else has changed, we figured more frequent, casual "release notes" would be good to publish as well. That way you can get a broader sense of what's new on the site, from major features to cosmetic touches, as well as background on the thinking or motivation behind some of these items.
* Upload Progress Bar: A new Flash uploader is up for all supported browsers and it comes with a long-awaited (and much-requested) feature: an upload progress bar that lets you know the status of your upload. Our next step will be providing the estimated video processing time for your upload.
* Simpler HD Parameter: We want to give you more control over how your video looks, including the option of it being eye-blazingly clear (HD), so we've now added an official URL parameter (hd=1) for sharing HD links.
* Tweet Tweet: Everyone's on The Twitter these days, so we've added a "share to Twitter" button under the Share options so you can easily send a video into your Twitterstream. (Feel free to change the prefilled text, if you like.) This was a big internal request, but we know many of you asked for it, too. We don't currently shorten the Video URL automagically but hope to get to it down the road.
* Do You EDU? Educational Hub Launches: Using YouTube as a vehicle to democratize learning is one of the coolest, unintended outcomes of its existence. YouTube EDU is a volunteer project sparked by a group of employees who wanted to find a better way to collect and highlight all the great educational content being uploaded to YouTube by colleges and universities. We'll feature some of these videos on the home page on Friday and elaborate further in a separate post on that day.
* Mobile Improvements: We're working hard to develop apps and a mobile Web site that enables the best possible video experience on as many devices as possible -- we recognize that mobile is a key component of how people will consume video in the future. So in addition to launching a new mobile landing page, we've cleaned up the upload flow from phone-to-YouTube so this should be a lot more smooth and intuitive now. More on this in a post this weekend.
*Easier to Log In With Google Credentials: If you have your YouTube account associated with your Google account, you no longer have to go to a separate page to log in to YouTube with your Google account information. It's all in one place at sign-in.
* Neater Watch Pages: Yes, sometimes YouTube can feel a bit cluttered, so last night we took some time to "clean up" the presentation on the watch page. Generally, we've heard from you that the action area on this page has been a bit confusing and should be made simpler. So we're streamlining the space beneath the player to better use the available real estate and to present all of the actions more consistently. Some changes you'll notice: a) the action links are a bit smaller and more condensed; b) we've eliminated the tabs for Comments, Statistics & Data and instead made all of these available in expandable sections (which you can collapse/uncollapse using the little arrow), making it easy to expose or hide information in a consistent way. As a side note, we've begun work on a broader watch page redesign to incorporate all the things we've learned since our last major change. Expect to see some ideas and concept sketches on the blog once we're further along.
* A Little Help for Your Friends: The process of connecting with your friends on YouTube will see some bigger improvements soon, but in the meantime, we've added the ability for you to send an invite and personalized note to a username or email address. There's also an instant friend link to instant message if that's your preferred mode of communication -- go to: http://www.youtube.com/my_friends_invite.
* New Names for Sponsored, Promoted and Featured Videos: We've done a bit of spring cleaning with regards to some of the nomenclature on the site. This post from yesterday tells the story.
As always, let us know what you think in the comments below.
Thanks,
The YouTube Team
Posts
90 comments:
love, love, love the progress bar.
I like it!!!
when Youtube finds a way to shorten the url with a service like tinyurl dot com, twitter function would be an awesome addition
Cool updates! Keep on improving.
Thank you for the twitter link and the progress bar. I will look forward to more updates and improvements.
twitter is where its at!
Twitter is growing like crazy.It will be more popular then SMS.
change it back to how it normally was
How about fixing subscriptions so they don't keep showing up as 'new' even days after you've actually watched them!
I like the "Share to Twitter" option, and that will be very cool when you integrate the "link shrinking" feature! nice work!
i agree with liberalviewer, how do you get the not spam link to work
is there a way to set the embed option to show the HD version automatically?
I noticed today that the progress bar under every video got smaller, which I don't like since the numbers are so small it's hard to see how long the video is. But the big problem is that since then whenever I watch videos in full screen the frame rate is horrible, something that never happened to me before. I'd really love to have the old progress bar, since it doesn't really affect the size of the videos, I mean, it's the same as before.
Firefox 2 is not supported??
Love the fact that you can send emails to firends on youtube/.....wonder if you cando the same with my subscribers?
yea, the twitter sharing add on was much needed....thanks for the new features guys!
Great imrpovements
A lot of good improvements I read here. But a question, is the 'option' to NOT be able to delete subscribers which account has been suspended also a new feature? I hope that I will again be able to delete subscribers at "My Account/Adress book/Subscribers".
love, love, love the progress bar.
Please give us the old login as an option at least.... please! Thank you ^_^
im trying to find a friend how the hell do i do it
how do i contact you with regard to iligal upload of a video, and find out who posted it without permission
good one guy's on the april fools joke.
I need the OLD log-in page, please give us that page somewhere, because I CAN'T login right now with my auto-login feature : (
hello to the youtube team, i am a a youtuber, and i am having some kind of technicla difficulty, all images in my account, that is videos are being presented upside down, i would like to have some advice about what i should do to go back to the normal configuration,
thank you
YouTube EDU looks great! Now what we need is a place to aggregate all of the wonderful K-12 content on the site.
Thank you for the twitter link and the progress bar. I will look forward to more updates and improvements.
Does the new Flash uploader works with Linux machine running Firefox with flash player installed?
It still shows me the old non upload progress bar video page.
It'd be great to have an official URL shortening capability directly hosted by YouTube. I'd love to suggest a domain or two, but discreetly via email - but finding an email address to do such a thing on the site anymore is nearly impossible. (If I post a suggested domain here, it's likely any that are unclaimed would be snapped up in moments and held for quite a ransom.)
How about Beyonce!! Why she has to wear that pissy ass black leaturd in every video????? And this is coming from a FAN! Somebody please respond.
For the most part, these were good updates. Still many things that need to be fixed and issues to be addressed, but it's at least a step forward.
It looks like the "Not spam" link for comments was deactivated in this update. Someone is marking a lot of the comments on my latest video as spam and, without the "Not spam" link, I have no way to unspam those comments.
Can you fix this problem?
Thx 4 helping to make YouTube better :-)
Twitter option was an excellent choice.
Bring back the bulletins
thank you, now it's ok. but this playlist generating part of youtube is still very caotic and far not userfriendly. think about it ! !
The new watch page is certainly better than the previous one.
But what I founbd really annoying: I just wanted to login at Youtube and suddenly I am redirected to google.com and the password i let firefox save is gone, instead firefox filled the login page in with my Google Mail login infos.
I had to manually re-enter the password so firefox would save it once more. Annoying. Very.
I even accidentaly nearly connected my Google Mail and Youtube accounts in spite of me certainly not wanting to connect the two. Even more annoying.
I love You Tube, this was my idea 10yrs ago
a new bug: i cannot add any of my uploaded videos to playlists because none of the playlists appears in the selection box. correct it, please!
we put in a status bar. MY ASS YOU PUT IN A STATUS BAR!! I dont see one in IE6 of FF3. What the hell man?
When is my video gonna be featured??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dsleUuenFw
Thanks for the progress bar, but one suggestion:
With the old uploader the favicon for the page (the little YouTube logo in the address bar) would change to a spinning thing while uploading a video, then change back when it was done. For those of us who use tabbed browsing, this was really helpful. If at all possible please bring back this moving favicon. Thanks!
oh dear god, im having a bad headache since youtube change their look. Its so ugly, and "OLD", its not bubbly like before. i feel like im entering an old site that never been update. I suggest youtube to change it again, because now youtube looks ugly.
Unfortunately, I see even more bugs.. and the old have not been eliminated!
Reading some of the negative comments, I also thought I'd share my point of view.
The copyright infringement policies seem rather extreme, as I noticed someone had the YouTube logo in one of his videos and was asked to remove that. I find that rather silly. All the corporate destruction that has been done to YouTube is seriously harming its potential for growth from future generations.
I would personally recommend better lawyers, to fight off these suits. But then again, who am I? I'm no politics spoof so I can't tell you what you can or can't do.
I'd also like you to please correct the viewcount problem too. It's annoying to see them freeze all the time. They are CONSTANTLY freezing, and I know people aren't just clicking the videos and then leaving the page.
Why are Platinum Partners allowed to violate copyright? Sxephil doesn't own the rights to the naked Cindy Crawford thumbnail he used yesterday. One day someone like Phil is going to get sued and it'll end up all over the news and I'm sure you'll appreciate that.
nice updates, but the only thing I dont like are the new stars and how the views look
got
"invalid parameters"
on the YT.com/mobile
dumbasses
Hi Congratulations on the launch of YouTube Edu. When will you be adding UK partners? The Open University in the UK has three partner channels and we'd love to see more universities represented here.
the problems in order of importance:
1. old bulletins back 2. fix view counts 3. google/youtube accounts combined is confusing and irritating 4. change back the video watch pages 5. let UK users watch music
i love how many thousands of members are leaving youtube!! these changes arent massive but they couuld save you sooo much money and soooo many members!!
Love and equality for all/Amor y igualdad para todos
Why are you tube video counts freezing at 200 - 250 views ? I think this is a big problem , people are saying you tube is owned by censoring type corporations that dont want certain political content an their "freespeech" site. I dont know wheter or not to believe in this but it sure is suspicious. Seriously, many ppl are now saying Youtube is censoring them and rigging their view counts . Please Fix or stop rigging your view counters it is hurting your reputations.
THANKS for making the things smaller, it's better now.
Please correct the view count problem. The black hat marketers appear to have the upper hand.
A leader must have certain characteristics to be successful. First, he must have a set of principles—things he believes are absolutely true. He must possess a moral compass-understanding what is absolutely “right” or “wrong”. It is important for him to have a vision—what is to be accomplished. He also needs the skill to develop a consensus, that his plan is appropriate, among a group of individuals who will carry out the many tasks needed to effectively complete the project.
In addition he must have courage to act on his convictions and take full responsibility for his actions. He must have a sense of justice—such as, “do unto others as you would have others do onto you”. A sense of moderation is also needed, which is an understanding not to “act out” with outrageous arrogance. Equally important, he must have the wisdom of how to apply all the above.
To TranceSession (commented below me)
You CAN do that. I have done it before, but for some reason it always switches back to choosing even thouh I don't do that.
Anyways... Twitter sucks. Basically all you do is say what you're doing. It's stupid. The new video page is okay, but it's unecessary. I don't like the downloadable videos at all. There are so many ways to download the videos for free, so why have that to pay for it?
Hey there's a new change I notice that you didn't cover. If you subscribe to a partner channel you're given a prompt of also subscribing to channels on that users "Other channels" list
Absolutely hate having been basically forced by Google to link my google account with my youtube when I lost my old youtube password. You ask questions that are none of anybody's business on a site where we only go to watch videos. Google used to be cool, but you're getting more dictatorial, and it's eroding your credibility. I did not want my gmail address to be used for youtube, and I did not want any of my gmail info to be connected to youtube. This should be my choice, not Google's. Clean up your act or people will stop trusting you altogether. And stop forcing your changes down the throats of people who don't want them. I can't think of any benefit whatsoever of linking the two accounts and do not wish to. What a stupid move on youtube's part. Not all changes are improvements - some changes are nothing at all at best, and suspicious at worst.
HEY UTUBBY! FIX THE VIEW COUNT
There are only two parts of this I'll comment on at this time. First: the re-implementing of the upload progress bar. A big HURRAY for that! Secondly: the cleanup and uncluttering of the video watch page. I'd very much like to shake the hand of the Team member who pushed this through. It's cleaner, more logical, and looks a hundred times better. Kudos from me!!
i'd love a profile option that automatically put all video's I watch in the highest's quality possible, (HQ or HD depending on the video) instead of having to press the button all the time.
BRING BACK THE BULLETINS!!!!!!!
hey youtube i see theres a new flash uploader i have enjoyed uploading videos and i have seem a great job that you are doing thanks for what you have been doing its getting more intresting
Hurray for those changes! was thee a change in the way views are counted again? mine havent moved all day? which is unusual? and how bout following me on twitter? themtythor1212 Danka Shane! ::P
"democratize learning" its hilarious to hear you talk of such things after your own failures w regards to your users.
you made the text on the watch pages smaller. wow was that stupid. didnt think you guys could screw up the watch page worse than you did last time (hiding the ratings etc) i was wrong.
more superficial BS changes that ignore the real issues...like false DMCA's, flagging campaigns, false suspensions...the list goes on and on. dont worry, we are starting to understand that we community members are a burden to you. many are leaving in droves. i bet many more follow.
I'm so glad you added an upload progress bar! Great job youtube team!
Can you please add an option to watch HD videos in High quality. Because some people that watch my videos can watch High Quality videos, But can't watch them in High Quality without adding a code to the end of the url, and they find it annoying that they have to keep doing that.
Another thing I would like added is to be able to watch featured videos on channles in HQ and in HD! Thanks in advance!
@SamarkandChan:
you can actually do that by click on "account" > "playback setup" and choose the quality you would like to have from 3 options, then you won't have to click on "HQ" button anymore. the settings changes back when your browser's cookies expire.
so far you have integrated a lot of needed features but sorry, YOUTUBE still fails since the day you messed it up
My request is re. the INSIGHT feature (which I really like): you should divide canada up into provinces the same way you have the US divided into individual states. I would love to know WHERE in Canada (not only in the US) my videos are being seen. Thanks!
Request #1: Bring back bulletins
Request #2: Up the time limit to something not so constricting (15, 30, or 60 minutes)
copy and paste this if
YOU WANT THE BULLETINS TO BE BROUGHT BACK
ill let you know what to change:
1.the profile background image from upload to URL
2. change the layout design back to the old one and set "most viewed" as default
3. fix the view counter its taking long time to update in some cases of mine it froze at 276 since last week. 2009 music hits its popular and its not fair if someone fucks my video by watch it again. fix this
4. the subscription box sometimes feature videos that we already clicked on. fix this
5. it goes back to the old comments when i click on "newest comments" so i have to click on numbers to reach the new comments and its painful if the video has over 9000 comments. fix this
6. muting videos sounds its just ridiculous i understand the copyright issues but at least try to find alternate ways to deal with copyright. there are a lot of good muted videos and its a waste. fix this
7.from there on, stop messing with this site anymore.
that's what matters to me.
have a nice day
Hey YouTube staff! I know this is a longshot, but I would like to see some minor video editing features in the future. like the ability to add a watermark (logo) of our own onto our video, ability to adjust volume levels (a biggy for me because my camera sound is very quiet), and maybe small titles. I don't know. I think just a few minor video editing features would be cool. Thanks!
Now my Twitter feed will be spammed with YouTube links all the time and I'll have to constantly watch each and every one of your videos that people link to because I have OCD. Thank you. -_-
we always hear complaints from the community whenever changes are made. I think you guys have it under control.
I'm most impressed with the HD upgrade, but would like to see the technology used with gmail integrated with the messaging system. This would be fabulous.
bye.
I actually noticed the log in change yesterday... guess I wasn't imagining things. The HD link parameter is a good idea, too.
why does the progress bar come and go over the years?
Good job YouTube. You impress us once again.
i don't like the view count font size being smaller
Finally!!! You decided to aggregate educational content in ONE PLACE! THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart. I almost renegaded YouTube for not having something like this (although I am a newly Google lover, besides an Apple lover). And you may also partner with Fora.tv or buy it if that is possible, because they are a long way ahead of you in this filed.
I truly hope that you will never quit this project. Sincerely, I think that the educational content of YouTube is the best content hosted on it, and not the personal one.
With a lot of love from Romania, Darjan Sergiu.
Hi, what about a fix to the frame-drop issues affecting many videos lately? I'm posting a link to one of the threads about this problem:
http://help.youtube.com/group/youtube-issues/browse_thread/thread/55f144a40b82b130/178a63b39e42bd88
Thanks in advance.
I still say who cares
Yes i noticed a few new things indeed but the google account update is not so handy because if you have 2 accounts on youtube and you wanna sign in an other you have to sign out and sign in on the other account right? but if you sign out on yt you also sign out of gmail so everytime i have to log in again on my google account to see my mail. its very irritating. other than that everything look very nice
It was a positive step forward.
Y-Yes...
TWITTER SHARE BUTTON.
*sees the jesus light*
as long as your able to BROADCAST YOURSELF, then these changes dont seem too bad.
Well done youtube
Can you please fix my view counts they have been frozen for about 2 months now this is not on! Please fix mine for me as its very frustrating wen i see everyone elses going up. Stop ignoring this problem and please fix it. I have made numerous attempts to contact yous but to no avail! its like you tube is run by ghosts! Please fix mine I dont want to have go sum where else upload my videos as i quite like you tube. But fix the view counts its ridiculous!
Awesome stuff....keep up the great work!
Post a Comment