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

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Two weeks ago, we announced Lionsgate's sponsorship of the YouTube Screening Room -- our platform for premium film content from around the world -- with a line-up of religious satires in honor of Bill Maher and Larry Charles' "Religulous", which opened in theaters today.

Now it's our great pleasure to bring you a round of films that examine the real lives of real people in conjunction with Oliver Stone's highly anticipated "W.", a biopic of the 43rd President of the United States, in theaters October 17.

In this line-up, you'll see the Academy Award-winning documentary, "Thoth", a chronicle of the life of S.K. Thoth, one of America's greatest street performers; "Heavy Metal Jr.", a hilarious and heartwarming documentary, nominated for a BAFTA, following the Irish heavy metal band, Hatred (and its 13-year-old members!), as they prepare for their first gig ever; "Peter and Ben", a touching documentary about the unbreakable bond between two 'black sheep,' which won the Aspen Shortsfest this year; and "Great White Hunters", winner of a Tropfest Comedy Award, about a group of friends who have made a hobby of hunting the world's greatest hunter.

Also, if you haven't done so already, be sure to submit your video to the "W." trailer mash-up contest, accepting entries through October 17.

Enjoy the films,
Sara P.
YouTube Film

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The U.S. presidential election is just over a month away, but you won't be able to exercise your right to vote on November 4 unless you've first registered to vote. And those deadlines are approaching fast - in many states, the deadline is next Monday, October 6.

How do you find out where to register? Google has created a great maps platform into which you can type in your home address and get information on where to register in your state - you can find it at maps.google.com/vote.

If you want to learn more about this easy-to-use platform, see this video made by our friends at Google, which we're currently featuring on the Worldwide homepage. We're also featuring two more voter registration videos -- one was shot by Leonardo DiCaprio and friends, especially for the Google Maps platform launch, and the second comes from YouTube's own Citizen Kate, who participated in the "Voter Vlog Tag" project, a YouTube community project started by JoeFelice that aims to get YouTubers to tag each other with the task of getting their friends to register to vote.

Keep your eyes peeled for the creative ways YouTube users are utilizing the site to encourage you to vote, and make sure to get out and register NOW on Google's new platform! And as always, stay on top of the latest election news directly from the candidates on our You Choose '08 platform.

Yours,
Steve G.
YouTube News & Politics

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Today we announced YouTube Live, a celebration of the vibrant communities that exist on the site, to be held on November 22 in San Francisco and streamed for a potential worldwide audience of millions.

YouTube users have been gathering informally for years, but this is the first time that YouTube is officially leaping off screens for an event unlike any other. With live performances, celebrity guests, original videos, surprise collaborations and much more, the event will mix elements of a concert, variety show and party, with YouTube phenomena always at the core. Here's a idea of what to expect:

Go to www.youtube.com/live for all the latest news on the event, including a list of who's already onboard to appear, and to take our survey, which is your chance to tell us what you would expect from an event like this. (You can also leave a comment below or on the video above, or post a video response to that clip.) The channel will also contain information on how to apply for tickets to attend the event in San Francisco.

You'll be hearing from us a lot more about YouTube Live between now and November 22, so stay tuned to our channel, this blog and, naturally, the videos on the site talking about the event. Finally, we'd like to thank sponsors Activision, Lionsgate and Virgin America for helping to make YouTube Live possible.

Yours,
The YouTube Team

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YouTube Insight has helped you learn more about your YouTube videos, enabling you to establish when and where your videos prove popular. But what if you could learn not just which of your videos are hot on the site, but which specific parts of those videos are hotter than others? What if you could know exactly when viewers tend to leave your videos, or which scenes within a video they watch again and again?

Happily, this information is now available to all YouTube video uploaders via an innovative new feature for Insight called "Hot Spots." The Hot Spots tab in Insight plays your video alongside a graph that shows the ups-and-downs of viewership at different moments within the video. We determine "hot" and "cold" spots by comparing your video's abandonment rate at that moment to other videos on YouTube of the same length, and incorporating data about rewinds and fast-forwards. So what does that mean? Well, when the graph goes up, your video is hot: few viewers are leaving, and people may be rewinding on the control bar to see that sequence again. When the graph goes down, your content's gone cold: viewers are moving to another part of the video or leaving the video entirely.

Here's an example of Hot Spots in action, based on a video of YouTube employee Michael Rucker making like Soulja Boy:



You can see that many viewers are not initially impressed with Rucker's efforts; they're leaving the video at a faster than average rate almost immediately after the video begins. But the longer the video plays, the more people tend to stay, generating a hot spot at the end of the video. Better late than never.

We think you'll find Hot Spots useful in several ways. For example, you can figure out which scenes in your videos are the "hottest" and edit them accordingly, or insert annotations at key moments to keep your audience more engaged. Now that Insight shows what parts of videos viewers are watching and skipping, you'll no longer have to guess why people watch your work – you'll know. You can find this new feature under the "Hot Spots" tab within the Insight dashboard (you must be logged in to your YouTube account).

As with all of Insight's features, we learn about the most creative examples from you. Are you using Insight in a new and interesting way? Upload a video to YouTube and let us know.

Have fun,
The YouTube Team

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In response to our call for aspiring journalists with untold stories to tell, reporters from around the globe have been sharing profiles of interesting, compelling individuals in their communities. Already, we've heard about a former truck driver who lost his job and found himself on the streets, a World War II veteran who served his country heroically on D-Day, and an 11-year-old baseball player diagnosed as deaf at the age of one.

Check out wisselvallig's profile of Pakistani-born Muslim, Sohail Khan, who teaches high school physics in Flower Mound, Texas, a mostly-white, affluent suburb 10 miles north of Dallas.

Do you know someone whose life or work is inspiring? Someone you think the world should know about? Now is your chance to tell their story!

There are just six days left before the deadline for Round One of Project: Report. To be eligible for the grandprize $10,000 journalism fellowship with the Pulitzer Center to report on a story abroad and technology prizes from Sony & Intel, submit your video profile (which must be three minutes or less, and in English or with English subtitles) to the Project: Report channel by midnight PST on October 5.

Good luck!

Yours,
Olivia M.
YouTube News & Politics

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We're excited to unveil our new and improved video uploader. A random sample of YouTube users have already been using the beta version, but now we're inviting everybody to check out this more streamlined uploading experience. Just login to your YouTube account and click this link to opt in. The new video upload flow includes these cool features:

We want your feedback, so don't be shy. Please leave a comment here, upload a video (using our new upload beta, of course) or join the discussion on our Community Help Forums.

The YouTube Team

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YouTube's FANalysts -- the site's resident sports experts --have been pulling out all the stops in their bid to break-down the week's NFL news and serve up the most fantastic fantasy football advice available this side of the locker-room door. This week's hightlights include Cowboys' loyalist Shango's waiver-wire pick-up tips, which are nothing short of heroic, and Boston superfan Fitzy being rendered mute from shock over the Patriots mauling by the lowly Dolphins:

If you live and die by your analysis of NFL stats the way these guys do, you should hurry up and join the FANalysts ranks by submitting up to five original videos giving original football and fantasy football commentary to Circuit City's Join The Squad Contest. Get your tips ready -- the last day to submit is Sunday, September 28th.

Good luck!
Andrew B.
YouTube Sports

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Today, in New York City, world leaders will meet to discuss the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight time-bound, measurable goals that they set in the year 2000 to combat global poverty. These ambitious objectives were promises made to the poor, meant to hold world leaders accountable for ending global poverty by 2015. Today, we are halfway there.

That's why YouTube, Will.i.am, and nonprofit organizations Oxfam, GCAP, Save the Children and Comic Relief are launching "In My Name," a global effort to raise awareness around these goals -- and to give you the opportunity to tell your leaders to do more. See Will's message on the project here:

John Legend, Scarlett Johansson, Fergie and others are joining Will to speak out about the importance of achieving these goals. But world leaders also need to hear from you.

From now through November 1, visit www.youtube.com/inmyname to upload a video stating your name, your home country, and your simple message to your government about the need to meet the MDGs. Be as creative, compelling, simple, or wordy as you like -- this is your chance to join the video petition to end world hunger.

At the end of the program on November 1, a mash-up of the most powerful submissions from around the world will be broadcast directly to global leaders at the United Nations General Assembly, as proof that global citizens are holding them to their commitment to create a better world for everyone.

You can make a difference in the fight against poverty -- all it takes is your name.

Sincerely,
Ramya R.
YouTube Nonprofits & Activism

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Chescaleigh, the winner of the Red Carpet Reporter contest, has returned from her celebrity-filled weekend with plenty of videos to share with you.

This summer, YouTube teamed up with People.com to find a new entertainment reporter. Hundreds of you rose to the challenge, and after two rounds of community voting, Chescaleigh was anointed the winner. She earned a weekend in Hollywood filled with parties, stylist appointments, and a spot on the red carpet alongside People.com's Michelle Beadle. Her videos give an exclusive behind-the-scenes peek at the big weekend, from a Revlon make-over to designer dress selection and dinner at the Four Seasons. Best of all, she captured some of the TV industry's top personalities at a major awards show and got them to share their enthusiasm for their favorite YouTube videos. You can check out Chescaleigh's interviews with stars like Ricky Gervais, Jorge Garcia (a.k.a. Hurley from Lost) and the queen of celebrity snark, Kathy Griffin, on the Red Carpet Reporter channel.

Thanks to all who entered and voted,
Mark D.
The YouTube Team

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