YouTube

As reported by the Financial Times, YouTube video-sharing website is accelerating its negotiations with Hollywood movie makers over a global pay-as-you-go video service that could be launched by the end of the year.

According to the sources familiar with the matter the new service will likely be first launched in the United States, followed by other countries over time.

Google and YouTube "talked about how many people they could steer to this ... it's a huge number," the newspaper quoted an executive with knowledge of the plans as saying.

As it became known YouTube is now planning to boost the maximum upload length to 15 minutes, giving the site’s millions of amateur directors a bit more leg room. 

It’s well known, for years YouTube has enabled its users to upload as many videos as they wanted, but no more than 10 minutes in length, unless user was not part of one of YouTube’s special partner programs.

 Americans do not like Facebook! This conclusion can be drawn from the recent merican Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) E-Business Report, produced in partnership with ForeSee Results. Facebook scored 64 on the ACSI’s 100-point scale, which puts its satisfaction even lower than IRS e-filers. This puts Facebook in the bottom 5% of all measured private sector companies and in the same range as airlines and cable companies, two perennially low-scoring industries with terrible customer satisfaction. 

Good news for YouTube lovers, the company has recently announced support for videos that are to be shown on 25-foot screens. That means YouTube now supports a resolution known as "4K", used   in movie theaters or when whole walls are used as televisions.

To underline the difference, it’s important to say, 4K is nearly four times the size of 1080p.

This week YouTube has unveiled a new version its YouTube Mobile website (m.youtube.com) specially meant for HTML5-capable browsers such as the iPhone's Safari and those on Android-based phones.

"[The update] incorporates the features and functionality you've come to expect from the .com site, like search query suggestions, the options to create playlists, the ability to designate 'favorite,' 'like' or 'unlike' videos directly from your device," YouTube product manager Andrey Doronichev writes in a introductory blog post.

Twitter users can enjoy now with their custom-made playlists created with iTunes, Spotify, Last.fm, YouTube, We Are Hunted, Winamp, Rhapsody, Soundcloud, or even if simply scribbled list of favorite tracks in a notepad file. 

As it became known, Sunday, hackers attacked Google's ultra-popular video sharing site YouTube, exploiting a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability. Thus, the section suffered mostly appeared to be the section where users post comments.

This malicious attack compromised YouTube cookies of users who visited a compromised page, but it couldn't be used to access their Google accounts.

Users who post their video on YouTube will now be able to add music to their videos for a reasonable commission. YouTube now supports a site called FriendlyMusic from RumbleFish. The site lets YouTube users purchase a lifetime license to edit songs into their videos. Users can find the music composition they like, pay for mp3 and use it in their video clips. Once the user purchases the song from the site it remains licensed for unlimited views.

On its official blog YouTube says the following:

YouTube has introduced a vuvuzela trumpet sound to its website allowing thus its users to watch video clips with the vuvuzela playing alongside. Now visitors to the popular online vide site will be able to make their video viewing more cheerful and noisier.

As is known from reports the blasting of the plastic trumpet caused much controversy and debates at the World Cup. The organizers of the competitions said the will not ban the noisy trumpets -- which sound like millions of bees or a herd of charging elephants -- despite criticism from coaches and players.

A Manhattan federal judge brought an acquittal judgment this week in a Viacom case launched against Google and YouTube on allegations of copyright infringement marking a major victory for Mountain View.

In its lawsuit Viacom alleged "tens of thousands of videos on YouTube, resulting in hundreds of millions of views," had been posted based on its copyrighted works, and that the defendants knew about it but did nothing to stop illegal uploads.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) urged Turkish government to stop blocking Google’s video sharing website YouTube as well as a great number of other web services under its Internet law that in fact do not cover these web resources.

A new research was recently released by Ipsos. The research studied how consumers engage with media brands, with a specific focus on popular online video and TV brands. The results show that YouTube is considered the most engaging online video brand.

Yet, YouTube achieved lower ratings when it comes to credibility as compared with its high ranks in entertainment.

Microsoft announced the changes it had applied to the new version of its Hotmail web email service. The company has tied it to its Bing search engine, its Silverlight media player, and its SkyDrive online store service.

The new features will be effective starting mid summer and users won’t need to leave their Hotmail inbox to open browser or media player to view the items somebody's emailed you. Bing search results are embedded without showing the URL.

National media regulator in China, that has Internet population growing by leaps and bounds, has severed monitoring in a move to prevent online crimes.

As Wang Chen, head of the Information Office of the State Council, said the country would intensify a crackdown on online crimes as part of an ongoing campaign that netted more than 5,510 suspects last year.

As it became known Sunday, China's state media accused Google of pushing a political agenda by "groundlessly accusing the Chinese government" of supporting hacker attacks and by trying to export its own culture, values and ideas.

The state news agency was also seeking to defend the government's Internet censorship, which Google has cited as one reason company may quit China.