YouTube

When videos blur, buffer, or won’t play altogether, YouTube is now pinning the blame on your internet service provider. “Experiencing interruptions?” reads the message in a blue bar underneath choppy video, as seen in the above screenshot. Clicking “find out why” brings you to Google’s new website, where it displays video playback quality for internet Continue Reading →

VidCon, the largest online-video convention in the United States, kicked off its weekend-long run on Thursday evening with a keynote address from YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki. There, the company’s new leader announced a slew of creator-friendly additions and upgrades to the YouTube service—perhaps most notably, support for increased video frame rates. Though she was unable Continue Reading →

On Tuesday, news broke that YouTube would begin blocking videos from artists on indie labels that had not signed on to its new terms, a set of contracts it’s making partners agree to before it launches a paid streaming service later this year. Fans and artists were understandably upset, but YouTube insisted that the majority Continue Reading →

There’s been some brouhaha about YouTube blocking a huge swathe of music videos before launching its paid Spotify rival. The truth, however, is a little more nuanced. Labels who haven’t signed up to the website’s new terms, the majority of which are independents like XL Recordings, will have their artist channels blocked in the next Continue Reading →

YouTube will launch a new subscription music service, the company acknowledged Tuesday after being dragged into a public dispute over royalties that will result in the blockade of some independent artists’ music videos. The Google Inc.-owned video site said in a statement that it is “adding subscription-based features for music on YouTube” and that “hundreds Continue Reading →

It’s official: Google is about to ruin YouTube. A company exec told the Financial Times it will start blocking videos from record labels that refuse to sign licensing deals for its forthcoming premium service, YouTube Music Pass. This is the dumbest thing Google could do, and it threatens the very heart of what has always Continue Reading →

Among people in the U.S. who say they use social media to get news at least once a week, 37% said they get it from Facebook. In the same group, 65% said they used Facebook for other purposes — people who use Facebook often tended to get news from the site often enough, too. Not Continue Reading →

Even as the number of paid streaming-video services like Netflix and Hulu become more accessible on gadgets, built into TVs and installed on videogame consoles, people watching video online still prefer free. Google’s YouTube service soaked up 48% of the time people spent watching online video, according to a March 2014 survey by nScreenMedia that Continue Reading →

Google released an U.S.-focused version of its video quality report Tuesday, which offers users a way to check which of their local ISPs deliver the best-looking YouTube streams. The report is singling out some ISPs as “HD verified” which YouTube Product Manager Jay Akkad defined this way in a blog post: “If your provider can Continue Reading →

YouTube announced a new initiative called Creator Preview, a video series in which the Google-owned company shares what features it is working on for creators. In the first video, YouTube reveals it is building a mobile app just for creators, a feature that lets fans directly contribute funds to creators, and a “way to harness Continue Reading →