Comments Restored

Just a quick update for all of you that were affected by the comments bug on our site the last few days. In addition to fixing the bug we have now restored all comments that were mass removed. Again, our most sincere apologies for the inconvenience and aggravation this caused many of you. If you any questions, issues or just want to rant (we deserve it), please don't hesitate to contact us.



sheepishly yours,

Maryrose

The YouTube Team

Comments Bug

It recently came to our attention that there was a bug in our comment
code that allowed users to delete comments from videos which were not
their own. Unfortunately, by the time we became aware of the issue
several users exploited the bug to maliciously delete thousands of
comments from other users videos. We have since fixed the bug and are
actively working to restore all the comments that were removed.



To all of our users who had their comments deleted, please accept our
most humble apologies. There is absolutely no excuse for what
happened, it was a bug in our code - and one we should have caught.
We can only say that we are feverishly working to restore your
comments and we'll do everything we possibly can to make sure
something like this does not happen again.



To all of our users who have been abusing comments with flagrant
spamming, hate speech and other malicious activities - this behavior
will simply not be tolerated on our site. If you engage in such
activity be forewarned your account will be deleted and you will be
permanently banned without warning.



YouTube is a place for everyone to express themselves. It is meant to
be a creative, entertaining and democratic environment. Let's not
allow a few bad apples spoil the bunch.



Maryrose

The YouTube Team

Not Hacked, Just Pushing

Last night we pushed out a bunch of new features, and apparently tricked the online world into thinking we were hacked with our down page message. Sorry if we scared you, we often forget how closely everyone is watching our little 32 person company. So bad spelling and jokes aside, here are the new features we pushed out last night.

Channels:

We think our users provide some of the most entertaining content in the world, and we're working to continuously develop new and exciting ways for you to broadcast yourself. What better way to do that than to give every user the ability to become their own channel? Now all content creators and collectors, be it professional filmmakers, videobloggers or just people who love chihuahuas can broadcast videos from their channel for all the world to see. You can visit our Channels tab to check out YouTube's most subscribed channels, or simply go to your profile to start creating and customizing your own channel. Here are just some of the new features included in channels:

Color customization: make your channel look as cool or as ugly as you like.

Video Log: showcase and discuss videos (yours or others) on your Channel

Channels I'm watching: check out what channels other users are subscribed and find great new content

Blog It:

You can now post videos directly to Blogger, BlogSpot and LiveJournal (and we'll be adding support for more blogs soon). Once you set up your blog options, just click the 'blog it' button when watching any video - and voila! your blog entry is created.



Viewing History

Many of our users have been asking for this feature, so we've created a viewing history log of the last 100 videos you've watched. We absolutely respect your privacy and do not store any of this information on our servers. You can also clear your viewing history at any time by clicking the 'clear viewing history' at the bottom of the page.



That's all for now, but check back often - we've got a bunch more features coming out very soon! And remember to send me an email with your thoughts, feedback and any other new features you'd like to see.



With Love,

Maryrose

The YouTube Team

Video Responses

We recently noticed that within many of the different ecosystems on YouTube our users are doing something really cool - they're communicating with each other through their videos. Text comments and messages are great, but our users have once again created something really innovative completely on their own - video responses. It's been amazing to watch our users create an entirely new mechanism for communicating with one another. However, one of the challenges with these video dialogues has been there is no way to 'link' your response back to the original video. To encourage and simplify this type of communication we just launched a new Video Response feature that will allow you to upload your own video reply while you're watching a video. Just look for the 'post a video response' link on any video watch page. All video responses will show up directly beneath the original video (just like text comments).



Check it out and let us know what you think!



Maryrose

The YouTube Team

YouTube Goes Wireless

The below video of me and Powers (your humble product servants and amateur acrobats extraordinaire) was uploaded directly to YouTube from Dwipal's cell phone. That's right, with YouTube's new mobile uploads feature you can now broadcast yourself to the world without ever using your computer. Check it out!

Stephen Colbert Goes to Washington

By now many of you have seen that the videos posted earlier this week of Stephen Colbert roasting President Bush at the annual White House Correspondents' dinner have been taken down. We know these videos were extremely popular and of immense social and political importance to many of you. The videos were not removed due to the content or any political bias. They were removed at the request of CSPAN, who claims to be the copyright owner. A number of you have inquired about whether or not the speech was considered 'public domain' and therefore exempt from copyright protection. Unfortunately, CSPAN has asserted that the video footage uploaded was broadcasted and owned by them.



When we become aware that there are videos on the site that were uploaded without the copyright owners permission we remove them and in most cases, (as was the case with the CSPAN videos) we become aware because the copyright owner contacts us and requests that the video be taken down. Copyright laws can be a tricky and a somewhat complicated matter but we want our community to be one where everyone's creative rights are respected.


Best,

Maryrose

The YouTube Team

Lots 'O New Stuff

You'll notice lots of new and redesigned things on the site, much of which is from direct feedback we received from you (special thanks to everyone who participated in our usability studies). Below are just some of the changes we pushed out.

Redesigned video watch page and video player. You'll still see the old watch page by default because we wanted to have you take the new page for a test drive and give us feedback. If you click the 'watch this video on our new video watch page' link in the upper right hand corner you'll see the new (and hopefully improved) watch page. Let us know what you think!

Your playlists, your videos and your favorites are now one click away. Simply click on My Videos to get access to all your stuff. We also redesigned the playlist manager (yes, for the 3rd time), so it's easier than ever to organize all your favorite videos.

Steve finds great videos, but I really have no interest in seeing 8 million videos of his cat Stinky (sorry Stinky). Now I can subscribe to his favorites and get all the great videos he finds delivered straight to my inbox. If you want to subscribe to Steve's (or anyone else's) favorites, just visit his profile and click the 'subscribe to favorites link'. Oh, and if you do want to see 8 million videos of Stinky, you can subscribe to his uploads too.

Speaking of subscriptions, if you check out our Members tab, you can now see our most subscribed Members. This is a great way to find some of the best content creators and collectors on YouTube.

We get lots of questions. Questions on copyright, questions on how to make and optimize videos, questions on why unicorns are called unicorns. Check out our Help Center for a bunch of new 'How-To Guides'. Oh, and the word unicorn comes from the Latin 'Uni', meaning one, and 'Cornu, meaning horn.

That's all for now! Remember to send us your thoughts, concerns, feedback and questions. Oh, and make sure to check back here in a few days, because we've got another really cool feature we'll be pushing out very soon.



love,

Maryrose

The YouTube Team