YouTube Begins Experimenting With HTML5 Embeddable Player

The battle between Adobe Flash and HTML5 will extend into YouTube video players embedded around the web, now that Google has announced a developer preview of video iFrames that use HTML5 when viewed in a browser that supports it.

 

Google began experimenting with HTML5 players on the YouTube site itself in January, but offering HTML5 for the embedded players all over the web is a big step.

Source: Youtube Blog

YouTube Play jury selected and ready to view your work

Since the YouTube Play project was announced last month, more than 6,000 videos have been submitted from 69 countries, and the YouTube Play channel has received over 2 million views. Today “23/7/2010”, they are unveiling the jury for YouTube Play.

 

YouTube Play jurors                                                                           

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• Musician and performance artist: Laurie Anderson
• Musical group: Animal Collective
• Visual artists: Douglas Gordon, Ryan McGinley, Marilyn Minter and Takashi Murakami
• Artists and filmmakers Shirin Neshat, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Darren Aronofsky
• Graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister, with Guggenheim Chief Curator and Deputy Director Nancy Spector serving as jury chairperson.

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Over the course of the next few months, these jurors will watch countless hours of videos submitted by the international YouTube community and select the most creative and inspiring work to showcase at the Guggenheim museums in October.

 

For more information about the jurors and to learn more about how to participate, check out youtube.com/play.

Connecting a Google Account to your older YouTube account

Following YouTube’s acquisition by Google in 2006, new YouTube signups were given the choice between two different account systems to power their YouTube experience: the original YouTube account system (built in 2005) or the Google Account system.

In May 2009, google started requiring all new YouTube usernames to be powered by Google Accounts. Now, we’re gradually asking all remaining pre-May 2009 users still using the older YouTube account system to connect a Google Account to their YouTube username. For now, it’s an optional step, but eventually it’ll be required in order to continue using your YouTube username.
Before we go any further, we should clarify three important facts:

• YouTube usernames themselves aren’t going anywhere.
• A Google Account is not necessarily a Gmail account: You can create a Google Account with any email address through many different Google products.
• Connecting your existing YouTube username to an existing Google Account doesn’t start sharing your YouTube activity to your Buzz followers.

So what’s the point of asking people to connect a Google Account to their older YouTube account? Here are the main reasons:

• Improved account security: The Google Account system will reduce spam across the site; users will get a slew of security and safety features that Google has spent the past decade developing.
• A single account system: This may not mean much to anyone outside of the YouTube engineering team, but behind the scenes it’s extremely complicated to support two different account systems. Having all users on the same account system not only simplifies matters, but more important, it makes it much easier to use Google technologies to keep the site running smoothly, as well as introduce new functionality.

If you have an older YouTube account and you’d like to link to a new or existing Google Account today, just visit this page and choose to link to an existing Google Account or a brand new one. You can also visit our "Linked YouTube/Google Accounts" topic in the Help Center for more information on common questions and problems.

Facebook, Youtube blocked in Afghanistan

Following Pakistan, Afghanistan also blocked the world’s most popular social networking and video sharing websites, facebook and youtube. Both are now completely blocked. The pages say ‘This Site is Restricted.

 

These websites gained popularity in Afghanistan recently. The sites are facing criticism over a page that asked fans to draw Prophet Mohammad’s caricatures. A court in Pakistan ordered the government to block facebook. Youtube and Wikipedia are also blocked.

YouTube Offers Personalized TV-Like Experience

YouTube has announced the launch of LeanBack, a TV-like viewing experience.

Go to LeanBack and a full-screen feed, personalized for each viewer, begins playing. Using your enter and direction keys you can navigate the feed. No need for the mouse or for entering URLs.

 

"This feed is based on your YouTube settings and preferences, including content from your subscriptions and videos your friends are sharing on Facebook (assuming you've connected your YouTube account to your Facebook account)."