YouTube highlights 5/26

This is the latest in our series of YouTube highlights. Every couple of weeks, we bring you regular updates on new product features, interesting programs to watch and tips you can use to grow your audience on YouTube. Just look for the label “YouTube Highlights” and subscribe to the series. – Ed.

One busy six-year-old
The first video posted on YouTube.com was a 19-second video called Me at the Zoo. Six years later, more than 48 hours of video are uploaded every single minute, representing a 100% increase over last year alone. As YouTube continues to grow, we’re invested in bringing you more content, innovative tools and an increasingly effective platform to tell your stories. Read more about the past six years of YouTube on our blog.

Interviews in outer space
Last Thursday, Space Shuttle Endeavour and International Space Station astronauts answered questions submitted by YouTube fans during their first live interview from space shuttle STS-134. The astronauts answered questions ranging from social media and new technology to the challenges of leaving family behind—and they even performed a group somersault. Watch the full interview presented by PBS on YouTube.



Caps, gowns and pearls of wisdom
Graduation season is here, which means lots of commencement speeches. YouTube houses a vast repository of commencement addresses, and through YouTube EDU, colleges and universities have uploaded more than 1,600 videos to their own channels. Pick up some sage advice by checking out these star-studded commencement speeches.



The value of views
We announced a change to the way advertisers pay for Promoted Video ads on YouTube. Rather than paying on a per click basis, we’ll move this ad format to a cost-per-view (CPV) basis, meaning advertisers only pay when viewers click on their ad and watch the featured video. We hope CPV formats help to better align video ads with advertisers’ goals of driving trackable video viewership. Read more here.

This week in trends
Here are two of our favorite videos this week:

• One of the most shared videos of the past week has been this proposal via movie theatre trailer, a now famous engagement before a screening of Fast Five. See for yourself why this video has gotten more than 13 million views in just over a week!
• The latest Google Chrome ad starring Lady Gaga had a strong showing, with over 1 million views in six days. 

Posted by Neha Mandal, Product Marketing Manager, The YouTube Team