YouTube has quietly been testing a beta which makes its channel design a bit different than the traditional channels. According to Mashable, this is what the new design looks like:

What are the main differences? “Their videos are wider. They’re left-aligned. The content is better compartmentalized. Profiles information is pushed below the fold, and better organized. The entire layout is centered around playlists”. While it isn’t clear when the old channels will be converted to the new look, YouTube does have a blog set up for the new implementations. As of today, users that create a channel will have the new design.

Google News has been criticized for its lack of timeliness. While Google works on getting real-time updates, it has incorporated other features. Most recently, Google News has added a video feature. In efforts to attract more media, Google is adding on links to news clips related to the articles on Google News. These links to videos are hosted on YouTube.

According to Mashable, “If there’s video available for a given story, you’ll now see a YouTube icon under the snippet about the news. Click it and the YouTube video drops down, and can be watched right from the Google News page”. Google could have a few positive results with this addition if they see success. For one, more media and news coverage sites could collaborate with Google. Also, YouTube will get even further exposure, which may lead to success for their advertising.

It seems that with all Google does, some of its efforts have gone unnoticed. One of the larger innovations that had drawn a large buzz around it was the introduction of Google’s browser, Chrome. However, Chrome has not gotten off to the strongest start. Google is taking its browser to the masses by implementing a viral campaign.

This is an easy avenue for Google to get into, as it owns video giant, YouTube. Adage reports that at first, “the videos will get promotion as “featured videos” on YouTube’s home page, but Google may combine that with a media buy across the content network that would see the videos placed as display ads across the web”. The eleven videos feature the many elements of the Chrome browser. Will Google’s campaign truly go viral? Only time will tell if the series of eleven videos will make an impact on its marketing efforts.

While many companies have chosen to go with social media to make their presence known, Microsoft is using social media in a way to leverage competition. Microsoft is also using social media as a form of reputation management. Microsoft has chosen to go with using video sharing giant’s YouTube’s services.

As Mashable describes, “Microsoft is turning to what they hope will be viral video. The company somewhat infamously tried this last year with a multi-million dollar campaign featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld, but this time around, is going a bit more grassroots”. The main video describes the history of the web. Additionally, Microsoft has created a page that promotes the campaign. Within the page are more videos as well as options to share on other social media platforms. But can YouTube videos change the opinion of users and get them back to use Internet Explorer?

YouTube has become one of the names synonymous with web 2.0 and user-generated content. Its audience is nothing to ignore. In fact, ComScore recently released statistics that show YouTube surpassing 100 million U.S. viewers.  Nevertheless, Google-owned YouTube has been struggling to monetize on its vast success. This might not be the issue, as YouTube has been conversing with music company, Universal.

According to Reuters, “Universal, the world’s largest music label, and YouTube, the No. 1 U.S. video website, are in talks to create a stand-alone site to showcase music videos by Universal artists”. This will not only help YouTube with monetization, but it can also bridge ties with the music industry, which has had some trouble with YouTube due to copyright laws. With the music industry struggling, the partnership with YouTube could definitely help reach a wider audience. This partnership could be mutually beneficial, if it does in fact happen.

The rise of universal search provided by companies such as Google (and now Yahoo!), have given those in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) field new ways to look at how they can get the results they are working towards. One of the results, videos, has become the outlet to look at in increasing rankings.

BusinessWeek.com’s article on video optimization states, “one-fourth of U.S. Google searches (and more in other parts of the world) return videos in the results”. How do videos make it to the first page of Google? A lot of the same tactics used in traditional SEO can also help video optimization. For instance, the right titles on a video can be the difference between something going viral, and something being lost in the many search results both on Google and on video sites such as YouTube. Nevertheless, SEO is ever-changing, and video optimization will definitely not be the final innovation available.

Video sharing giant, YouTube (powered by Google), has become a phenomenon with its vast audience and influence on users. However, one struggle that YouTube has come across has been monetizing its successes.  YouTube aims at monetization through different outlets. YouTube will be going the e-commerce route, enabling users to purchase music from Apple’s iTunes or Amazon.com.  When users view a video with a music track, they can click on an icon next to the video and download the track from the two providers.

Another way in which Google is trying to bring revenue into YouTube is through ads.  Google is currently testing a system which will generate ads similar to those of Google AdWords. For example, when a user searches for a certain video, ads for related products, movies, etc. will also appear.  Ads for a product’s own YouTube channel might also appear. With the power of Google, YouTube may find a way to generate revenue in the future.

YouTube has become a powerful viral marketing tool for businesses. However, with its immense popularity, the chances of generating many views to a video are becoming smaller and smaller. Such may not be the case as a new tool, Insights, was released to analyze user behavior.

Insights can use both businesses as well as regular users. For businesses, videos are tracked using the HotSpots function. According to reports, HotSpots plays a video alongside a graph that maps whether the audience is lower or higher than average for a particular length of video. The video is deemed hot when there are more viewers, and cold when users skip ahead to different parts of the video, or stop watching altogether.  Another function, Visible Measures, measures audience engagement within a video. Regular users can also use Insights by looking at the data Insights provides, adjusting his videos’ tags and titles to attract a wider audience.

Insights appears to be a tool which can help capture the right kind of audience for any kind of user. It can also help those looking for videos find those with the most relevancy.