YouTube

YouTube is the world's leading source of online video content (by volume). It is not the first online video site, but it is certainly the first to build an extremely strong community around its brand, and as a result has experienced the benefits of Network Externalities. ^[1]

YouTube celebrated it's 5th birthday on May 16, 2010

YouTube Architecture

YouTube follows a variation of the traditional LAMP Platform^[2]:

Linux (SuSe)
Apache
MySQL
Python
psyco, a dynamic python->C compiler
lighttpd for video instead of Apache

YouTube Features

Embeddable Player

The immense popularity of YouTube' and particularly the fast viral spread of its widespread use and adoption has long been attributed to (apart from its simple and catchy brand name) the ability to embed videos uploaded to its platform simply and easily. The embedded YouTube player has been the source of inspiration for hundreds of other online video initiatives. The embedded player itself owes much to the Flash ecosystem and W3C-developed open web standards for Object Embeds. Before YouTube got the formula exactly right, it may have been possible to embed video content from other sites but implementations were extremely fragmented and the user experience varied greatly from site to site. The other big attraction to YouTube's particular embeddable player was the ability to easily customize several properties, listed below:

code	property
hl	Language of video metadata
fs	FullScreen allowed (or not)
autoplay	Whether to auto-start a video on (page/embed) load or not (wait for user to hit play button)
width	Video's width (in pixels)
height	Video's height (in pixels)

Full list of embed parameters: http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/player_parameters.html

Sample video:
<object width="425" height="349">
  <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8-QNAwUdHUQ?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param>
  <param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param>
  <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
    <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8-QNAwUdHUQ?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="349"></embed>
</object>

UPDATE: YouTube's embed code has changed since the introduction of their HTML5 video player. It now utilizes an iFrame as follows (same video as above in new embed):

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="425" height="349"
 src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8-QNAwUdHUQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>
</iframe>

For a (possibly limited) time you can still utilize the old embed code, however your embed will be limited to the Flash-only version (which itself has code to detect Mobile devices so for supported devices it will replace the embed with a 3GP or MP4; both the iFrame and Object Embed embeddable players have this capability, so most users are switching to the simpler iFrame method).^[3]^[4]

Playlists

Playlists were an early favorite of earl-adopters, however criticism was drawn for YouTube not supporting Data Portability and similar iniatives or open data formats (i.e. XSPF, RSS) thereby locking users' data into YouTube in the initial stages of the company's development. YouTube has removed access to your playlists from your main profile page, however for a (possibly limited) time you can still access them at the URL below and via the Playlist API:

http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists

Channels

A YouTube Channel is now synonymous with a YouTube account. Every user on YouTube has their own private channel which contains any number (0..n) videos uploaded by that user. From a user's channel, you can also access videos favorited or commented on by that user. If they make them public you can also access videos viewed by that user. The existence of a common user channel experience and the ability to personalize your YouTube channel (i.e. look&feel, background/images, links on left-hand-side, etc) were major draws to YouTube over other video-sharing services.

EXAMPLE - BCmoney Channel

http://www.youtube.com/bcmoney

Channels FAQ: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=152024

Subscriptions

Subscriptions allow you to track an individual user and get notified in your YouTube account, by email, or other means (such as hooking into your Twitter feed or Social Network.

EXAMPLE - My Subscriptions area (access users you are subscribed to)

http://www.youtube.com/my_subscriptions?feature=mhum

YouTube Subscriptions: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=159998

Video Responses

Video Responses offered another viral element to the already rich feature-set of YouTube. They were a response to the increasing popularity of services like Seesmic, which allowed Video commenting on blogs and sites.

EXAMPLE - Video with some Video Responses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9toJRdu2bXQ

Video Responses: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=95724
How do I make a video response on YouTube?: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57931

Jumpspots

Also known as scrubbing, jumpspots give users the ability to link to a specific point in the video. EXAMPLE:

http://www.youtube.com/v/_AnimFQonJk&start=32&start=32&end=40&autoplay=1&enablejsapi=1

Tags to adjust video start/stop times : http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/youtube/thread?tid=0af4c34595d87787&hl=en

Annotations

Annotations were a response to popular services like Asterix which allowed video publishers to highlight select sections of their videos and offer pop-up text (in the style of [Much Music's "pop-up video"]).

EXAMPLE - Annotate one of your own videos:

http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_annotate?ns=1&v=IjSpps__BHw

EXAMPLE - Remove Annotations from embedded videos:

&iv_load_policy=3

YouTube - Video Annotations: http://www.youtube.com/t/annotations_about
Creating or editing annotations: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=92710&topic=14354
How to copy raw YouTube annotations XML: http://stefansundin.com/blog/277 | DEMO^[5]^[6]

Captions

Captions offer the opportunity to those who can't hear to read text along with the video to provide more accessibility of content. YouTube was frequently criticized for their lack of accessibility but a major update in 2008 was meant to appease these complaints.

How to create captions and subtitles on YouTube: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=100079^[7]

Subtitles

In addition to the complaints about lack of accessibility, there was major criticism on YouTube's being slow to add internationalization and translation services, but in 2009 they also made a major update which saw translations of the site into many more languages, and which eventually (2010) allowed Subtitles to be added to videos in much the same way as Captions.

YouTube TimedTex (TTS): https://developers.google.com/youtube/2.0/developers_guide_protocol_captions\\\ | EXAMPLE
GoogleSRT - YouTuve Video Subtitle/Closed-Caption extraction Tool: http://sourceforge.net/projects/google2srt/
Youtube Subtitles extractor (.srt): http://www.serpsite.com/youtube-subtitles-download-tool/ | EXAMPLE
Get YouTube Subtitles tool: http://mo.dbxdb.com
How to extract subtitles from youtube videos?: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10036796/how-to-extract-subtitles-from-youtube-videos

YouTube Mobile

YouTube's first attempt at a mobile-specific version of their site that supported streaming video over a mobile network to various mobile devices launched in June 2007.^[8]

YouTube MOBILE: http://m.youtube.com
NYTimes - YouTube on the Go: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/youtube-on-the-go/

YouTube TV

YouTube LeanBack: http://www.youtube.com/leanback
Original YouTube TV "official portal": http://www.youtube.com/xl^[9]

^[10] ^[11] ^[12]

YouTube LIVE

YouTube has experimented with live broadcasts^[13] since its first YouTube LIVE^[14] broadcast in November, 2008^[15] and its founders have had live video on the roadmap since its founding.^[16] Some of the most notable streamed events were an October, 2009 U2 concert^[17], Outside Lands 2009^[18], a full-length viewing of Taxi Driver with live tweets^[19], several of Barack Obama's Sate of the Union addresses^[20]^[21] and Press Conferences^[22], and Coacella Festival 2011^[23].

In April, 2011 YouTube LIVE was launched as the official Live Streaming service for select content partners.^[24]^[25]

YouTube LIVE: http://www.youtube.com/live^[26]
YouTube Live Streaming API: https://developers.google.com/youtube/v3/live/

SendToTV

SendToTV is a feature that allows you to transmit or queue up a video from your (Android) smartphone to your (Google TV-compatible) television set. That video can be either assigned to play next or set to play immediately.

YouTube SendToTV: http://youtube.com/yt/sendtotv/

YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids: https://kids.youtube.com | ANDROID | iOS
Content creators’ guide to Family-friendly content for YouTube Kids: https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/kids-app^[27]

^[28]

Business Model

Advertising

Like its parent company Google, advertising is a major source of revenue. As of 2010, YouTube generated

YouTube to Publishers - Don't Put Your Own Ads Into Those Videos!: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/youtube_to_publishers_dont_put_your_own_ads_into_videos.php
Google goes Gaudy with YouTube Ads (in embedded player): http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/06/google-goes-gaudy-with-youtube-ads/index.html?ref=media
Google Aims to Make YouTube Profitable With Ads: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/technology/22google.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Google plans push to sell ads inside YouTube videos: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/technology/21google.html?

ContentID

YouTube - ContentID: http://www.youtube.com/t/contentid^[29]
Making money on YouTube with Content ID: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/making-money-on-youtube-with-content-id.html^[30]

Movies

Google has long made it known about its intentions to offer full-length films as paid downloads or possibly under a subscription model (similar to NetFlix). Now, YouTube Movies was launched to realize this vision.

YouTube Movie Rentals: http://www.youtube.com/movies

YouTube API

Interactive YouTube API Demo Beta: http://gdata.youtube.com/demo/index.html
YouTube API: http://framework.zend.com/manual/en/zend.gdata.youtube.html#zend.gdata.youtube.playlists.user
YouTube Player API Reference for <iframe> Embeds (experimental): http://code.google.com/apis/youtube/iframe_api_reference.html

Feeds

Apart from using the official Zend YouTube gdata API, you can access raw feeds as follows:

VIDEO info (including different stream versions):

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/videos/VIDEO_ID

MOBILE "Top Videos":

http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/mobile/videos?v=2&fields=entry[link/@rel=%27http://gdata.youtube.com/schemas/2007%23mobile%27]&format=6

Playlists

PLAYLISTS by "UserID":

https://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/bcmoney/playlists?v=2

Playlists API: https://developers.google.com/youtube/2.0/developers_guide_protocol#Playlists
Working with YouTube Playlists (from within JW Media Player): http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?thread=7362
NO, I MEANT A YOUTUBE PLAYLIST : http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?thread=7655#msg44870

YouTube Lawsuits

Since such a large percentage of the content on YouTube is clips of copyrighted material, there has been much controversy since its inception. As a result, many companies have threatened lawsuits and sent YouTube management takedown notices asking for them to remove their content, and several have actually followed through beyond such requests with legal action.

Viacom

Viacom has been one of the largest corporations to take on YouTube. Their claim dates back to when YouTube was first growing, claiming that the Online Video portal gained notariety and rose to fame on the back of much of Viacom's content, whether in full or clipped format.^[31]

UK Football Association

The UK Football Association is suing YouTube for allegedly illegal use of sports highlights, and are back by a group of other copyright holders ranging from sports to news to music and other mainstream media outlets.^[32]

YouTube Class Action Lawsuit -- US District Court Ruling: http://regmedia.co.uk/2009/07/08/class_action_youtube_copyright_ruling7709.pdf

Mashups

MobiTubia

What's MobiTubia? MobiTubia is Flash Video (FLV) Player and Full-Function YouTube portal application with real-time decoding for Series 60 3rd Edition devices. User interface was neatly designed to be luxurious look. More than YouTube client application you will get. I am so pleased to give you the new experience of symbian application. Enjoy it!

Key Features - View Offline FLV file (.flv file in device) - View Online FLV file (access via http://...) - Full-Functions YouTube - Recently Featured - View featured videos listed in YouTube.com homepage - Popular Clips of the Day, of the Week, of the Month and Overall - Clips Search - Search through YouTube clips by Tag - View by YouTube ID - Enter 11-digit YouTube ID and MobiTubia will play that clip for you - Open Web Clip - Enter url of webpage embedded with YouTube clips and MobiTubia will display all available clips - Lot of Customization Options - Status Bar Visibility - Max Frame Skip - etc.

Limitation - FLV file must encoded in Sorenson-H263 codec (Flash 7) - Video resolution must not exceed 320x240 pixels