YouTube's Blog


An Invitation to Video Your Vote
In less than three weeks, one of the most exciting presidential campaigns in history will come to head and millions of voters from every state in the nation will set out for the polls to cast their ballots. On November 4, we invite you to document your experiences on Election Day and share them with the world here on YouTube.

Today, in partnership with PBS, YouTube presents Video Your Vote, a project designed to shed light on voting in America and show democracy in action through the eyes of voters like you by sharing what you experience on Election Day. We're looking for perspectives from polling places across the country that chronicle the excitement and energy at the polls, as well as any problems that may arise -- like long lines or broken voting machines -- that could prevent citizens from exercising their right to vote.

Hear more from Judy Woodruff of the News Hour with Jim Lehrer:




Some of the best videos uploaded to the Video Your Vote channel will be showcased on PBS in the course of the station's election coverage. Be sure to tag all of your election day videos with the tag "videoyourvote" -- and if you witness or encounter anything problematic at the polls that is hindering the voting process, add the tag "pollproblem" so your video can be easily found.

From now until Election Day, Video Your Vote will be your go-to destination to learn all about voting. Here you'll find interviews with the world's most knowledgeable election experts, in-depth reports on this year's election and elections past, and creative "Get Out the Vote" videos from some of YouTube's champions of democracy.

Ready to see first-hand how the people get to have their say in the political process?

It's time to jump in and Video Your Vote.

Yours,
Steve G.
YouTube News & Politics

Fashion Guru Challenge with Isaac Mizrahi
The Spring Fashion Weeks may have ended but for some the desire to see inspiring style still lingers. Top designer Isaac Mizrahi always has fashion on the brain and is looking for creative style here on YouTube. He wants to see if our community can turn a fashion basic into something jaw dropping.



So take out an old pair of jeans and a white t-shirt and create a look that shows off your skills. Post a response video that really stands out and you may find your design on the guru challenge channel or on the home page.

Create and Inspire!
Sadia H.
YouTube HowTo & Style


Hungry for more? YouTube now serving full-length TV dinners
We are starting to test full-length programming on YouTube, beginning with some fan favorites requested by you. Let's see if you know your full-length TV ...

You asked to be beamed up with Scotty, to devise a world-saving weapon using only gum and paperclips, and to get your grub on at "The Peach Pit". So we're giving you full-length episodes of these shows and many others.

These shows will be available in the new Theater View style we rolled out earlier this week, which provides optimal experience for watching full-length programming on your computer. Our new full-length format, in conjunction with the launch of our new player, marks an exciting milestone for YouTube as we continue our efforts to expand user choice and improve viewer experience.

As we test this new format, we also want to ensure that our partners have more options when it comes to advertising on their full-length TV shows. You may see in-stream video ads (including pre-, mid- and post-rolls) embedded in some of these episodes; this advertising format will only appear on premium content where you are most comfortable seeing such ads. In order to make this clear to you, we've labeled all full-length videos with a Film Strip symbol ( ) so you'll know exactly what kind of content you're choosing to watch and what ads you might see. (To see an example of the badge on search results, click here.)

So if watching the newest installment of "Beverly Hills 90210" has you nostalgic for your favorite Brenda and Brandon moments, or if you're counting the days until the "Star Trek" movie release, you can watch your favorite TV on YouTube.

The YouTube Team

Today's Guest Editor: A Witness and His Testimony
James Nachtwey has spent his life documenting some of the most pressing conflicts, wars and critical social issues of our time, but today takes on the comparatively safe task of guest editing the YouTube homepage. Since his first assignment covering the troubles in Northern Ireland in 1981 – at the height of the IRA hunger strikes -- he has traveled from the West Bank to Rwanda and from Bosnia to Afghanistan, raising awareness of the human impact of the situations he encountered in the click of a shutter.

In 2007, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to society, Nachtwey was awarded the TED Prize: $100,000 to realize 'one wish' to change the world. He opted to "break a story that the world needs to know about in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age." Following this he spent 18 months documenting the ramifications and rapid spread of "extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis" (XDR-TB). Learn more about his undertaking here:



For more on why the photographer chose to launch a global awareness campaign about TB, see his special message to the YouTube community:



As today's guest editor, Nachtwey has selected compelling examples from other YouTube users that exhibit the power of film to relate a story and spread the word. These YouTube users -- by turning their cameras on subjects like the conflict in Africa, the human rights violations in Myanmar, and the HIV crisis in rural America -- are following Nachtwey's lead and, ultimately, are changing the world through the force of their efforts and film-making expertise.

Here's to them – and making wishes come true,
Ramya R.
YouTube Nonprofits & Activism

Like What You See? Then Click-to-Buy on YouTube
When you view a YouTube video with a great soundtrack, you often see comments from YouTube users asking about the name of the song and where they can download it. Or when users watch the trailer for an upcoming video game, they want to know when it will be released and where they can buy it.

Today, we're taking our first steps to providing YouTube users with this kind of instant gratification, by adding "click-to-buy" links to the watch pages of thousands of YouTube partner videos. Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features. Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products -- like songs, books, and movies -- related to the content they're watching on the site. We're getting started by embedding iTunes and Amazon.com links on videos from companies like EMI Music, and providing Amazon.com product links to the newly released video game Spore(TM) on videos from Electronic Arts.

This is just the beginning of building a broad, viable eCommerce platform for users and partners on YouTube. Our vision is to help partners across all industries -- from music, to film, to print, to TV -- offer useful and relevant products to a large, yet targeted audience, and generate additional revenue from their content on YouTube beyond the advertising we serve against their videos. And those partners who use our content identification and management system can also enable these links on user-generated content, by using Content ID to claim videos and choose to leave them up on the site.

These retail links are being gradually added to our library of music videos and are currently only available to users in the United States, but our goal is to slowly but surely expand the program to additional content and product partners, as well as our international users. We'll be experimenting with the UI over time to make sure this works for our community, and we'll continue to innovate based on your feedback. We're just getting started, so stay tuned for other innovative new features and product options soon.

Have fun,
The YouTube Team