A special invitation from The Wiggles

The Wiggles are one of Australia’s most beloved entertainment acts, having rewritten the book on children’s entertainment with their unique song and dance routines. And now Sam (Yellow), Murray (Red), Jeff (Purple) and Anthony (Blue) are hitting the road in their big red car to find a fifth Wiggle for a special series of North American shows.

Are you a Mum or a Dad with a mean boogie and a penchant for wearing bright pink? Or an Aunt or Uncle with a quirky twist and an orange turtleneck that has been in the back of the closet for way too long? Then record your own version of iconic Wiggles song “Fruit Salad” for a chance to perform live on stage with The Wiggles in their upcoming North American Tour.



The Fine Print
The competition is open to people over 18; winning entrants will be selected in each city to receive a family pass to attend the concert, and perform live on stage!

Feel like some fruit salad today? Go ahead, show us what you’ve got.

Ernesto Soriano, YouTube Australia, recently watched “Let’s make Australia a reading nation."

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Pottermania at YouTube: live streams, movies and extras

Update 7/7: To top it all off like a happy hour priced butterbeer, you can rent Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 1 for 99 cents today and tomorrow only!

We were wondering how we could get you closer to the action of the upcoming Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 movie premiere. Since becoming a wizard isn’t currently an option, we found one of the next best things.

On July 7, we’ll be live streaming the red carpet event of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 from Trafalgar Square in London, and you’re invited to join. The event will be live on the Harry Potter channel on 7/7 from 8-11am PT (4-7pm GMT), with the entire cast, J.K. Rowling and surprise celebrity appearances. We’ll also be re-broadcasting the event immediately after in case you miss it.

Before the final throwdown between Harry and Voldemort, you can catch up on with our Harry Potter collection of movies, with all seven films and two extended versions available to rent.

If that’s still not enough wizarding for you, YouTube also has unique movie-related content that can’t be found elsewhere, including behind-the-scenes footage, parodies and remixes to accompany all the Harry Potter films. See the creativity the web has to offer with YouTube Movie extras like a hilarious Deathly Hallows trailer parody, a Time Magazine interview with Emma Watson and movie clips.

“This is beyond anything I have imagined.” Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Mildred Padilla, YouTube Movies, recently watched “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”

More about → Pottermania at YouTube: live streams, movies and extras

Top E3 game trailers based on your votes

This year’s E3 gaming expo produced a fresh crop of new game trailers to pour over, critique and get excited about. For two weeks, you’ve been voting for your favorites on the E3 channel and now the results are in.

The game that you got most excited about? Step forward Saints Row: The Third, whose “power CG” trailer delivered high-impact cinematics and what looks suspiciously like a CG cameo from the ubiquitous Ashton Kutcher. Congratulations to publisher THQ and developer Volition Inc, and check it out here:



Running down the remaining top trailers, we give the nod to:

• Battlefield 3: Operation Metro Multiplayer Gameplay Trailer (E3)
• INVERSION E3 2011 -- Official Trailer
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Reveal Trailer
• Gears of War 3 World Premiere Trailer

You can see all five trailers on the E3 channel until the end of June. For more of what’s hot in gaming, you can see popular videos, gaming channels and more on our gaming browse page, and catch more trailers in our trailers section.

Mark Day, YouTube gaming, recently watched “The Crying PC Gamer.”

More about → Top E3 game trailers based on your votes

Introducing ThePianoGuys, your June On The Rise winner

Congratulations to ThePianoGuys, who received the most votes June’s On The Rise poll and will become the first piano-dealing videographers featured in this program. ThePianoGuys will have their day in the homepage spotlight today, thanks to your support and votes.

ThePianoGuys (aka Paul Anderson, Tel Stewart, and Craig Knudsen) operate a Yamaha piano dealership in St. George, Utah. Over the past decade, they’ve hosted countless musicians at their store and finally decided to combine their two passions—music and filmmaking—showcasing these artists for the world to see. The result: original YouTube hits featuring talented artists such as Jon Schmidt, Steven Sharp Nelson and Jarrod Radnich.



Here’s a word from Paul Anderson of ThePianoGuys:

We're a just couple of guys with a camera, a computer and some really talented friends. We are passionate about showcasing artists that are not big yet, but we know will be someday, and would love nothing more than to be a part of someone’s "Big Break." It's a joy to bring exciting music to life through video, and we can truly say we love what we do. Thanks to our loyal subscribers we are having the time of our lives and who knows, maybe someday we will be able to do this full-time!

If you’ve enjoyed monthly On The Rise blog series and want to see more rising YouTube partners, check out our On The Rise channel or look for our playlists on the browse page. Keep an eye out for next month’s blog post, as your channel may be the next one On The Rise!

Devon Storbeck, Account Manager, recently watched "To The Summit- by Jon Schmidt ‘Featuring Ray Smith on Tenor Sax.’”

More about → Introducing ThePianoGuys, your June On The Rise winner

Music Tuesday: Mystery bands, Buddy Holly and more

Things have been popping on youtube.com/music over the last week. Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti’s son Seun just released a new album, and in honor of the potent genre his dad created, we put together a playlist of Afrobeat essentials. We also joined the world in celebrating pride week last weekend with a clutch of anthemic songs new and old. And we turned our attention to England, where the Glastonbury music festival raged. We remembered Glastos past and heard from a young band named Viva Brother, who played the festival for the first time and guided us through the experience. Oh yeah, and pop star/actress Selena Gomez debuted her new album (with commentary) on Sunday. On to this week!

Mystery bands
With the release of Shabazz Palaces’s full-length debut Black Up this week (which you can listen to in its entirety here), we found ourselves thinking about disguises, and all the bands over the years who’ve used them. Shabazz Palaces offers an avant-garde take on hip-hop; the group is helmed by Ishmael Butler of Digable Planets, but he hid behind the moniker Palaceer Lazaro for several years and still refuses to name his collaborators. Butler isn’t the first to cloak his musical experiments in a veil of mystery. This week, we present some artists who have used anonymity to fuel their boundary-pushing work, starting with San Francisco provocateurs The Residents and moving through the leftfield R&B of The Weeknd (who seem to be linked with Drake), the pop culture pastiche act Nike7UP, British oddities Hype Williams and more.



Buddy Holly raves on
Buddy Holly forever altered the course of rock’n’roll with his astonishing 25 hit songs—all of which he penned and recorded before he died in a plane crash at the age of 22. Don McLean famously sang that the day the plane crashed was “the day the music died,” and it was hard not to agree with him. But nothing proves Holly’s music lives on like Rave On Buddy Holly, a tribute album that features everybody from CeeLo Green to Patti Smith covering his songs. We check out a few tracks from the album as well as other tributes to the rock’n’roll pioneer.



Breakbot “Fantasy Jacques Renault Remix”
With “Fantasy,” the French producer Breakbot turned out a song that could have come off of Michael Jackson’s “Off The Wall” circa 1979. But really it’s the video that had us at hello: a mash-up of roller-skating videos from the 1970s and ‘80s that practically screams “summer.”



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Bon Iver - Bon Iver ALBUM REVIEW.”

More about → Music Tuesday: Mystery bands, Buddy Holly and more

TED + YouTube: Releasing the power of video to shape ideas, 5 years on

TED has shared a wealth of innovative ideas with you over the years. We wish the TED team the happiest 5th anniversary and look forward to their continued contribution of inspiring content to YouTube and the world. We welcome Emily McManus as a guest to the YouTube blog today to discuss TED’s journey with us so far.

Today TED celebrates five years of spreading ideas online, and YouTube has been a key part of our mission from the start. In fact, TED and YouTube have grown up together as we've spent the past half-decade unlocking the power of video to set free convention-breaking ideas across the globe. On June 27, 2006 TED flipped the switch on a simple web page with six videos. Now five years later, TEDsters all over the world are using video to spread ideas feverishly across the Internet. We're excited to celebrate with the YouTube community a few amazing TEDTalks to mark our anniversary and pay tribute to the fascinating people who have inspired, intrigued and stirred our hearts and minds!

Together we’ve unlocked all kinds of ideas—from silly memes to paradigm shifts in human ingenuity to political change. Harnessing radical openness of the Internet, in fact, has been the topic of other TEDTalks including Clay Shirky, Sal Khan and Peter Gabriel. And we've found some of our most beloved speakers through YouTube—like Johnny Lee, the Wii-mote hacker, whose demo Chris spotted online early in 2008. A plane ticket later, Lee's demo of creating teaching tools with game controllers was on its way to ruling the web. If you haven’t seen it, check out TED's curator Chris Anderson in his own TEDTalk about "How web video powers global innovation." He starts by showing how YouTube-powered video is driving street dance to evolve globally at lightning speed.

With 70 million cumulative views, TEDTalks on YouTube is a killer platform for us, for ideas both big—Sam Richards, and and not-so-big—Terry Moore / How to tie your shoes. We treasure you for your smart insights, active commenting and dedicated subscribership to TED. Fan Ghazzawi9 calls us "weekly dosages of pure enlightenment and inspiration." (Thank you!)

Today's TEDTalk highlights another amazing YouTube power -- sharing ideas in more than one language. Emiliano Salinas' talk, which he delivered in Spanish, is instantly accessible to viewers around the world through YouTube's and TED's subtitle community.



Having reached the 5-year milestone, we look back in awe and look forward with excitement. Thanks, YouTubers, for helping us expand minds, open hearts and inspire others in ways we never expected.

Guest to The Official YouTube Blog Emily McManus, Editor of TED.com, on behalf of the worldwide TED team, recently watched “Google Chrome: It Gets Better."

More about → TED + YouTube: Releasing the power of video to shape ideas, 5 years on

This week's Trends: cones, onions, and hedgehogs

Each weekday, we at YouTube Trends take a look at the most interesting videos and cultural phenomena on YouTube as they develop. We want take a moment to highlight some of what we've come across this week:

• We discovered that it's possible to make something a trend, just by calling it one.
  
  
• We saw frightening footage from tornadoes in Nebraska.
  
  
• We tracked the big, new hit video out of South Korea.
  
  
• We celebrated Sonic the Hedgehog's 20th anniversary.
  
  
• We learned of one man's luggage nightmare.
  
  
• We enjoyed some cool covers.
  
  
• We followed the celebrity-driven campaign to get The Onion a Pulitzer Prize.
  
  
• And Weird Al lived up to his name:

Check back every day for the latest about what's trending on YouTube at: www.YouTube.com/Trends

Kevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager, recently watched "Hang on Woody!."

More about → This week's Trends: cones, onions, and hedgehogs

Get Missing Album Art In iTunes Automatically

One of the disadvantages many of us who had MP3 collections before the trend of iTunes and Amazon MP3 is that many of the files lack album art. It’s annoying to browse through CoverFlow and see half your library with pretty pictures and the other half with a generic Icon. Here’s a step-by-step guide to make iTunes search for album art for you.

Find Missing Album Art Automatically in iTunes

1. If you haven’t already download and install iTunes from Apple’s site.

2. During the initial set up iTunes will encourage you to create an account. While you don’t have to make an account to use the application, you do need an account to search for album art. Creating an account is easy, free and only requires an active email address.

3. Wait for the initial set up to finish and import your music library. While this happens, ensure that you are logged in by clicking on the “Store” tab and seeing if it asks you to log in. If so, then you’ll need to enter your email and password. If not, you’re already logged in and can move on to the next step.

4. Once all of your music library has been entered into iTunes, click on the Music tab.

5. On the information directory, at the top of the application, click the tab that says “Advanced”

6. In the “Advanced” dialog box, click “Get Album Art Work”

7. The status bar will change to “Getting Album Artwork”. This may take a while depending on the size of your library.

8. After a little while, the status should change to “Downloading Album Artwork” . This again may take a while depending on your music library.

9. Change your view to “Cover Flow” and you will see all or most of the albums missing art work now have some.

This tutorial will work on devices running Windows and/ or Macintosh.

This is a guest post written by Maria Rainier. Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blogger for First in Education where she’s recently written on securities sales jobs along with a piece on physical therapy degree programs. In her spare time, she enjoys Yoga, traveling, and working with origami.

Also by Maria: Wirelessly Send files to and from your Android Device with Dropbox.

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School’s out for summer, but still open on YouTube

Summer is a time for teachers to get some well-deserved R&R, but it’s also an opportunity to develop new methods for the coming school year. One of our YouTube EDU partners, Teaching Channel, shares advice on how teachers can stay busy this summer on YouTube.

June brings dreams of lazy summer days, vacations and the old “no more pencils, no more books.” But with the changes in education today, summer’s less of a languorous break and more of a brief pause from the pressures of teaching. Year round learning, adjustments to new teaching guidelines and the constant race to keep up with requirements often mean that educators are more likely to be looking for professional development than singing “ School’s Out For Summer.”

To support teachers’ professional growth, Teaching Channel captures great teaching on video – sharing knowledge with anyone looking to improve learning for students. On our YouTube channel, you can see everything from using rhythm in teaching reading to explaining the beauty of haikus with fruit. Many of the lessons are aligned with the new Common Core standards being adopted by many states for implementation in the coming school year.



If you have a great idea for a video, know a teacher we should check out or just want to discover some great ideas, subscribe and post feedback in our channel comments. You can also come by and see us at the NEA (June 30-July 1) or AFT (July 13) conferences. Because guess what — we’re too busy to take a summer vacation this year, and school’s always open on YouTube.

Guest to The Official YouTube Blog Candice Meyers, Teaching Channel Head of Product Development, recently watched, “Is 'Teach' a Big Word?”

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Music Tuesday: Other Music, Terra Naomi and Pete Rock

Summer is finally underway in the northern hemisphere, and while new releases may be slowing down, youtube.com/music is getting busy. Neo-soul songstress Jill Scott graced us with a playlist of her inspirations over the weekend, the ever-charming Alicia Keys celebrates the ten-year anniversary of Songs In A Minor with an invitation to the YouTube community and the music world mourned the loss of Clarence Clemons, the gentle giant who played saxophone with Bruce Springsteen for more than thirty years. Meanwhile, everybody from Bon Iver to Pitbull are releasing new albums today. Later this week we’ll feature a contest, another video premiere and some very special coverage from England’s Glastonbury music festival; be sure to check out youtube.com/music over the weekend for updates.

Other Music recommends...music!
When we started inviting independent record stores to curate playlists of their favorite music, we had no idea that so many of you would be watching. More than 500k views later, Amoeba Music’s playlist is still turning people on to good music, so this month we head to the East Coast to see what’s popping at Other Music, the New York record store known as a home to all things indie, experimental and adventurous. They came up with a creative collection of videos which we’re featuring on the homepage today.



Terra Naomi
One of YouTube’s early music stars, Terra Naomi set the template for many who followed. Her song “Say It’s Possible” featured one of the first crowdsourced music videos; five years later, she’s releasing a new album and a new crowdsourced video, which she’s premiering with us today. The video is directed by Alex Albrecht and made in conjunction with iPhone app Hipstamatic and pulls images from over 10,000 entries from around the world. She also shares a playlist of some of her favorite cover songs of all time.



Smif-n-Wessun & Pete Rock premiere the album Monumental
Smif-n-Wessun (later known as Cocoa Brovaz after a legal dispute over their name) helped define hardcore hip-hop lyricism with a string of successful, critically-lauded albums back in the 1990s. Pete Rock has been in the game just as long, an emcee and producer who helped define jazz-hop alongside acts like A Tribe Called Quest. He went on to become one of the Wu-Tang Clan’s go-to producers, crafting tracks for everyone from Raekwon to Ghostface Killah. Monumental proves the duo’s tag-team rap style is still on lock, while Pete Rock’s production never misses the mark — and often recalls his late, great colleague, the venerated J Dilla. Check it out now, one week before release date.



Sarah Bardeen recently watched “Breakbot - ‘Fantasy’ (Jacques Renault remix).”

More about → Music Tuesday: Other Music, Terra Naomi and Pete Rock

YouTube Town Hall: members of Congress answer your questions on education, immigration and the economy

Since we launched the YouTube Town Hall, an online platform for members of Congress to debate and discuss the most important issues of the day, representatives and citizens alike have actively used the site. Twenty-five members of Congress submitted videos across the six initial topics, and people watched these videos more than 1.1 million times. You cumulatively submitted more than 115,000 votes, and it was Tom Udall’s video, “Time for Afghanistan Transition”, that ended the month at the top of the YouTube Town Hall Leaderboard. The top five videos included a diverse array of issues from Senators and Representatives on both sides of the aisle:







Today we’re launching round two with new topics. You’ve submitted hundreds of questions and voted thousands of times, and here are the three top questions that Congress is answering:

1. Economy: We are greatly concerned about the current economic climate in the United States. Not only are prices on consumer goods going up, but the value of our currency is falling. How will Congress solve the burdens that weigh so heavily on everyone?
2. Education: Technology is rapidly becoming one of the country's largest industries. How can high schools help prepare their students if they're using outdated computers and equipment?
3. Immigration: There are millions of undocumented individuals living in the United States, many of whom were brought to the US as children. Is enacting the Dream Act a viable way for these individuals to be granted citizenship?

Visit YouTube Town Hall to watch members of Congress debate these new questions. And if you’re interested in posing questions of your own, ask them here!



Will Houghteling, YouTube News and Politics, recently watched “Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson: U.S. Economy - By The Numbers.“

More about → YouTube Town Hall: members of Congress answer your questions on education, immigration and the economy

Life in a Day: request a screening, create a trailer and more

Today, we’ve got some exciting updates from editor Joe Walker and Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald about Life in a Day, the documentary shot by YouTube users about a single day on Earth.

First, as we previously announced, to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the film’s making, there will be a sneak-peek premiere in cities across the US on July 24, five days before National Geographic begins to release the film in theaters nationwide. If you want Life in a Day to play in your town, visit the Life in a Day channel and request a screening. National Geographic, in partnership with Cinedigm, will collect your requests from now through August, and will try to bring the film to those towns and cities where the demand is highest (either for the July 24 premiere or the following release).

Second, you can also check out the Life in a Day Trailer Remixer. If you haven't already seen the trailer, we recommend watching it. After that, go to the Life in a Day channel or directly to the Remixer page, where you can edit and publish your own trailer to share with your friends and the world. All of the trailers will appear on the Life in a Day channel, and National Geographic may feature some of their favorites at the film’s premiere.





One more exciting announcement: Life in a Day opened theatrically this weekend in the United Kingdom to critical acclaim! According to a critic from The Telegraph, the 5-star film is "Extraordinary…the summer's most inspiring film." For users in the US, don't fret: National Geographic is bringing the film to theaters across the country in late July.

Be sure to subscribe to the Life in a Day channel for all the latest news, and check out the Life in a Day Facebook page for daily updates.

Nate Weinstein, Entertainment Marketing Manager, recently watched the "Life in a Day Trailer."

More about → Life in a Day: request a screening, create a trailer and more

This week's Trends: downbursts, Canucks, and finger tutting

Each weekday, we at YouTube Trends take a look at the most interesting videos and cultural phenomena on YouTube as they develop. We want take a moment to highlight some of what we've come across this week:

• We saw evidence of a unique weather event in Oklahoma.
  
  
• We saw how an unusual dance trend from a few years ago made a comeback.
  
  
• We watched how Vancouver Canuck fans got ready for and reacted to game 7 of the Stanley Cup.
  
  
• We noted that a few new YouTube channels reached the 1 million subscriber club.
  
  
• We ranked the most-viewed videos from the NBA playoffs.
  
  
• We checked in on the most-watched previews from last week's E3.
  
  
• We witnessed aftershocks in New Zealand, accidentally captured on camera.
  
  
• And Katy Perry debuted her cameo-filled new video for "Last Friday Night."

Check back every day for the latest about what's trending on YouTube at: www.YouTube.com/Trends

Kevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager, recently watched "Nyan Cat [Original]."

More about → This week's Trends: downbursts, Canucks, and finger tutting

Wirelessly Transfer Files To And From Android Devices With Dropbox

As great as smart phones have become when it comes to handling our digital lives, there are still a few tiresome concessions we make for their use. One is having to plug our device into our computer in order to transfer files. Some manufacturers such as Apple have launched new services to alleviate that using cloud computing. Here is one way you can send files to your Android based phone completely free without the help of a USB cable.

Transferring files wirelessly on Android using Dropbox is easy

Step 1: On your computer navigate to dropbox.com and download the application installer.

Step 2: Once the application has been downloaded run it and an initial set up wizard should begin.

Step 3: Using the initial set up wizard create a Dropbox account by entering your name email address and computer name.

Step 4: A folder called Dropbox should now be available on your computer. Put any file you wish to wirelessly send to your phone in this folder.

Step 5: On your Android phone open your App drawer and open the Market application.

Step 6: Search for Dropbox and install the application.

Step 7: Once installed return home and re-open your App drawer and start up the Dropbox app.  

Step 8: Tap the existing Dropbox account button and log in using the account you just created in step 3.

You should now see any files you have in the Dropbox folder. Transferring additional files to your phone wirelessly is now as easy as dragging them into the folder and starting the app on your phone. Dropbox allows you to send up to 2GBs of data for free. Any files larger than that will either have to be transferred via hard connection or you’ll have to sign up for a 50 or 100 GB plan.

This is a guest post written by Maria Rainier. Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blogger for First in Education where she’s recently written on mechanical engineering technology programs along with a piece on social science research jobs . In her spare time, she enjoys Yoga, playing piano, and working with origami.

More about → Wirelessly Transfer Files To And From Android Devices With Dropbox

Introducing June’s On The Rise Nominees

It’s already mid-June, which means summer in the U.S. and a new set of On The Rise program nominees are here. We’re proud of our talented partners, and we invite you to check out these folks and vote for your favorite in the poll at the top right corner of the blog.

Here’s how it works: we identify channels who have grown their subscriber base in the past 30 days but haven’t yet reached 100,000. You vote on your favorite on the poll, and at the end of the week, the nominee with the most votes wins exposure on the YouTube homepage and videos page, as well as posts on Facebook and Twitter. Past winners like joshsundquist, theslowmoguys, and cutegirlshairstyles have seen their channels grow, all thanks to your support.

This month’s nominees showcase a range of video that will teach you, entertain you and thrill you. Take a look at their featured videos below, and cast your vote by June 22 at 6:00pm PT. Please note that only votes in the poll on the blog will count, and we’ll announce the channel with the most votes on this blog and the YouTube homepage on June 29.

Vihart
Vi Hart describes herself as a “recreational mathemusician.” She has a passion for music and hobby for mathematical art. On YouTube, Vi walks her audience through whimsical lessons that evolve from staged math class doodles. Who said math couldn’t be fun?



ThePianoGuys
Paul and Tel weren’t even thinking of YouTube when they opened their Yamaha Piano dealership in St. George, Utah, 10 years ago. But after seeing a steady flow of talented musicians coming through their store, they decided to combine their love of pianos with their passion for filmmaking. Their goal is to introduce the world to more talented pianists, and their YouTube channel is already a destination for musicians and music-lovers alike.



TommyandGracie
It’s hard not to love kittens and puppies, and Tommy the chihuahua and Gracie the cat — best friends since they were young — sure are cute. Lucky for us, their owners have documented their play-fights and antics on YouTube for all to enjoy.



Hrlmglobetrotters
The famed Harlem Globetrotters have thrilled audiences around the world for the past 84 years in more than 25,000 exhibition games. Their channel showcases clips of their shows, impersonations and interviews with members who continue the team’s tradition of combining theater with basketball.



If you’re inspired by what you see here, check out other up-and-coming Partners by visiting our On the Rise channel, which features nominees, trending partners and winners. Look for more featured rising partners on the Browse page.

Devon Storbeck, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “Geese Surf Glenwood Wave @ 25,500 cfs!!”

More about → Introducing June’s On The Rise Nominees

Live Soccer on YouTube: the 2011 Copa America Tournament

The beautiful game, as played by some of the world's best players, is coming to YouTube this summer.

Streamed to more than 50 countries around the world, the 2011 Copa America - the South American national soccer tournament that comes around every 4 years - will be broadcast live from Argentina on YouTube, July 1 - 24. Arguably the most important global sporting event of the year, the 2011 Copa will feature the 10 South American national teams and two guest teams, Mexico and Costa Rica, battling for continental soccer supremacy.

On the Copa America channel at youtube.com/copaamerica, soccer fans will have access to all 26 matches including pool play, semi-finals, quarter-finals and the championship match, live streaming as they happen with exclusive-to-YouTube commentary, as well as a highlights from all the matches, goal compilations, full-game uploads and more.

Taking place across eight Argentine host cities, this year's tournament will prominently feature Brazil and Argentina, soccer-mad nations who have won seven of the 19 FIFA World Cups and are talent factories of the best players in the world. Uruguay, Paraguay and Mexico are also stalwarts of the international soccer landscape, with an enviable pool of young talents. The list of players expected to compete is an all-star roster representing household-name professional teams, including Diego Milito (Argentina, Inter Milan), Robinho (Brazil, AC Milan), Diego Forlan (Uruguay, Athletico Madrid), and dozens more world class footballers.

Not to mention the player Argentines call "la pulga" ("the flea') - Lionel Messi. Messi is the two-time FIFA Player of the Year who has a list of honors and trophies, including this year's UEFA Champions League title. He is still only 23 years old (!) and looking to add a Copa to his résumé.

The three week competition starts on July 1, with Messi and Argentina meeting Bolivia in La Plata. To whet your appetite for great soccer, starting today on www.youtube.com/copaamerica you can find video from past tournaments, including great goals from the 2007 edition.

Precise touch passing, perfectly-weighted crosses, ball-glued-to-the-foot dribbling, artistic creativity and flair, thumping mid-air collisions, astonishing displays of speed and skill, and likely some controversial moments: all facets of the planet's most popular sport will be on display on Copa America 2011 on YouTube: don't miss it!

Andrew Bangs, YouTube Sports, recently watched "El Clasico Animation Barcelona vs Real Madrid."

More about → Live Soccer on YouTube: the 2011 Copa America Tournament

Watch the lunar eclipse from anywhere

Cross posted from the Official Google Blog

We’re always fascinated by the unique wonders of space and the world—what can we say, it’s the geek in us! Naturally, when we learned that part of the world will be treated to a rare 100-minute long total lunar eclipse starting at 11:20am PDT today, we were both excited and disappointed that this rare occasion wouldn’t be visible from our Mountain View campus like last year’s eclipse. We suspect we aren’t alone, so you’ll be glad to know that we’ve worked with Slooh Space Camera to let you experience the spectacle wherever you are in the world, in real time.

Slooh will host a live mission interface using Google App Engine that lets anyone not lucky enough to live in certain areas (South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia) take part in this rare astronomical event. It’s equipped with audio narrations from real-life astronomers so you can hear a firsthand, expert account of the event. You can also watch the live stream on the Google YouTube Channel or from the Sky layer in Google Earth (download this kml), while exploring the fascinating world that exists in our galaxy. Finally, those of you on the go can download the Slooh Space Camera Android app to view the images right on your phone.

If you're fortunate enough to be able to view this event in the sky, we hope you'll get the chance to step outside and indulge in the spectacle. For everyone else, we hope our moon madness helps brighten your day.

Posted by Noel Gorelick, Chief Extraterrestrial Observer and Technical Lead in Special Projects

More about → Watch the lunar eclipse from anywhere

Living Life in a Day and a summer in Australia at the Sydney Film Festival

Update 7/6: We've changed the video in the post as "We Were Here" goes into festival consideration.

This past weekend at the Sydney Film Festival, we in the Australia office saw a single day on earth, a legendary summer to be remembered and the vision of thousands of YouTubers from all over the world on center stage. Along with the Australian premiere of “Life in a Day,” the world was introduced to “We Were Here,” a feature film made by YouTubers about summer in Australia.

From January to April 2011, YouTubers down under submitted their videos to create an archive of events and experiences from a summer not-to-be-forgotten. Everything from sunsets at the beach, bats in the night, to extraordinary events in Queensland were uploaded to form a new visualization of the Australian summer map. These stories were pulled together by up and coming Australian director Amy Gebhardt, mentored by Dr. George Miller of “Happy Feet,” "Mad Max” and “Babe.”

Have a look at highlights from the weekend, with "We Were Here" and "Life in a Day" on the big screen at the Sydney Film Festival:



Together, these two films are milestones in the evolution of radically inclusive film-making that is taking shape all over the world.

Ernesto Soriano III, Product Marketing Manager, YouTube Australia recently watched “1000 words for summer.”

More about → Living Life in a Day and a summer in Australia at the Sydney Film Festival

Music Tuesday: Eminem’s live Q&A, new jazz and dubstep meets G-Funk

It’s a quiet week on the new release front, but on the video front, things are popping. Perhaps the biggest debut was Katy Perry’s new video. The pop vixen performs as her alter-ego Kathy Beth Terry, and the video features none other than Rebecca Black and other familiar faces. If that doesn’t float your boat, check out what else is happening on youtube.com/music today.

Eminem’s favorite collaborations
How many EPs generate this much buzz? Eminem and fellow Detroit rapper Royce da 5'9 go way back -- the duo met in 1997 and immediately clicked. They formed Bad Meets Evil and recorded a few songs, but then Emimen got signed to a major label and, well, you know the rest. Though Royce appeared on The Slim Shady LP, various beefs led the friends to fall out until a mutual friend’s death reunited them a few years ago. Now they’re back in the studio, and Royce’s skillful rhymes seem to have invigorated Eminem: he sounds looser and more playful than you’ve heard him in years. You can see their chemistry in the video, which emphasizes the lyricism and wordplay with painted graphics. Today, Eminem picks his favorite collaborative videos to celebrate the release. It’s a Dre-heavy mix, naturally, but he also showcases an EPMD classic and the Junior Mafia evergreen “Mo Money, Mo Problems.” Also, Royce and the famously publicity-averse Mr. Mathers take to his YouTube channel this afternoon at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT to answer your questions live.



New jazz, now
This week, we extract some fresh jazz tidbits for the curious. Top of our list? Ambrose Akinmusire, a young trumpeter out of Oakland, Ca. who has been making waves among jazz fans for his fluid compositions and compelling tone. We’ve also got Norah Jones singing a lovely rendition of “Come Rain or Come Shine” with Wynton Marsalis and a short piece on the new album from the sultry Brazilian vocalist Eliane Elias.



CHLLNGR “Ask For”
This is the first single off of CHLLNGR’s upcoming release Haven. Who is CHLLNGR? The Danish producer has been quietly remixing everybody from M.I.A. to The XX, but that’s not why we love him. First, the creepy video is a win: shot in a forest outside of Copenhagen, nothing much happens, yet you keep watching in rapt anticipation. Something might happen. Equally awesome is the song’s G-funk synthesizer line, which erupts straight out of the West Coast circa 1992 and collides with dubstep’s unsteady bass (currently London’s biggest export). It’s a subtle and smart combination, and it has us looking forward to more from this producer from the north country.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “Bob Dylan - Tangled Up In Blue.”

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Guest Blogging has Disadvantages that could Harm your Blog

I think that accepting guest posts on your blog is a great way to connect with new webmasters and offer fresh perspective to your blog's readers. Guest Blogging has many more advantages, but it has some risks and disadvantages that cannot be overlooked. Here are some ways in which guest blogging could actually harm your website:-

1. Guest bloggers get a direct search engine friendly (read dofollow) backlink from your blog. As a dofollow link mean that you trust a website, Google and other search engines are likely to penalize your website if you link to spammy pages or pages created solely for the purpose of generating sales.
2. Guest Posts can be unrelated to your blog's niche. This could not only frustrate your subscribers but also make Google think that your website is a content farm. This is certainly not what you wish Google to think about your website especially after the dreaded Google Farmer aka Panda Update.
3. Extremely short guest posts could mean addition of low quality pages (read thin content) on your website. This would reduce the overall quality of your blog for both human readers and search engine bots.



Guest Blogging has some disadvantages

4. Guest Posts could annoy your regular readers. Regular visitors of your website visit because they like your opinions and wish to read more from you, not from some stranger who they hardly know or have any information about.
5. Guest Blogging could actually lower the number of subscribers on your blog. This is basically a result of the previous two points. When your subscribers find that you provide irrelevant updates, they would undoubtedly wish to unsubscribe themselves from your blog.
6. Some guest authors copy content from other websites. If you are not able to discover it and publish their submissions, you further risk annoying readers who might know the original source of those posts. This could also result in search engines lowering your rankings for high traffic keywords as a result of the duplicate content effect.
7. Some guest authors take your blog up for granted and often submit posts that are written with lack of attention and an uncaring attitude. This results in receiving useless submissions which lead to wastage of your time reading and sorting through them.
8. Some guest authors write self promoting content with the aim of driving traffic to their websites. Hence, they deliberately try to make their articles less informative so that a reader must visit them in order to get full details. This again annoys your readers and results in low quality pages.

What should you do with guest posts? Should you accept them or not?

My recommendation would be that you should allow guest posting on your blog but, always take a close look at the author's website and make sure that it is worth a link. Moreover, set some quality standards for accepting articles and try to be professional in your decisions. Do not accept posts that you yourself do not like, after all your readers trust your opinions and that is the main reason they are reading your blog anyway.

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We have five words for you: celebrate Internet, watch Webbys here

The Webby Awards have been celebrating excellence on the Internet since 1996, and for the past three years we’ve been bringing you the full experience from the Webby Awards Gala on YouTube. From the award-winning videos to the five word acceptance speeches to the celebrity interviews, you’ve seen the celebration first-hand, and we’re excited to bring you back for another year.

Following the Gala tonight, you can watch clips from the event here on YouTube, hosted by the web therapist herself, Lisa Kudrow. The Webbys YouTube channel will also feature show highlights, speeches and more.

Congratulations to all the YouTubers who were nominated for or won a 2011 Webby Award!

Eric Meyerson, group manager for video advertiser marketing, recently watched Webby winner “The Google Job Project.”

More about → We have five words for you: celebrate Internet, watch Webbys here

This week's Trends: celebs, guitars, and artistic canoeing

Each weekday, we at YouTube Trends take a look at the most interesting videos and cultural phenomena on YouTube as they develop. We want take a moment to highlight some of what we've come across this week:

• We discovered a mini-Warbler just as he was starting to grab the attention of "Glee" fans around the country.
  
  
• We studied how that "cat hug" got so popular.
  
  
• We may have met the next Susan Boyle.
  
  
• We stumbled across some very unusual sports.
  
  
• We highlighted some big celebs who've posted personal messages to their channels.
  
  
• We tracked the popular videos starting to come out of the pre-E3 press conferences.
  
  
• We saw how some musically-inclined people utilized the Les Paul Google doodle.
  
  
• And T-Mobile showed us what it would be like to play Angry Birds in real life:

Check back every day for the latest about what's trending on YouTube at: www.YouTube.com/Trends

Kevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager, recently watched "X-Men Born This Way."

More about → This week's Trends: celebs, guitars, and artistic canoeing

‘As Seen On’ YouTube pages: celebrating content curators

Every day, you embed YouTube videos on blogs and sites across the web, often adding their own commentary and perspective. This sharing of videos helps to show the variety of great content on YouTube, and often adds context to what you’re watching. Today, with the launch of ‘As Seen On’ YouTube pages, we’re connecting those conversations around the web to deepen the connection to the YouTube videos you’re watching.

By crawling web feeds of sites that have embedded videos, we’ve built dedicated pages that highlight your embedded videos. This means that there is now a place on YouTube to find videos mentioned on your favorite blogs & sites. We think these pages provide a way to find new and interesting content while helping you dive deeper into the conversation around a video.




Starting today the ‘As Seen On’ links on our video pages will direct users to these pages to surface more content and commentary. As a blog or site owner, this is another way all that hard work you put into building your readership can pay off and generate even more traffic for your site. You might even get your site exposed to a whole new audience via people who encounter it for the first time on YouTube, so keep up the great work!

Kurt Wilms, Product Manager, and Nathan Hunt, Software Engineer, recently watched, “Great Fan Escape - Astros Game May 13, 2011.”

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John Legend talks charter schools, Glee’s influence on education and more in YouTube World View interview

We know he has a superb voice but in our latest YouTube World View interview, John Legend shows he also has serious heart as he talks about his major passion — education for all.

In this 30-minute interview, YouTube partner Josh Sundquist asks your top-voted, and pretty difficult, questions, including those about whether charter schools really work, how to recruit college grads into teaching positions rather than corporate gigs and how to balance the importance of work and school in lower-income families. Watch the full interview here:



Legend also opens up about some lighter subjects like his greatest musical influences, what kept him up until 2 am the previous night and why he thinks Glee is having a positive impact on the state of education.

For more information about how you can get involved with John’s own “Show Me Campaign,” visit www.showmecampaign.org, and for great educational content year-round, from guitar lessons to astronomy lectures, check out YouTube EDU.

Ramya Raghavan, News and Politics Manager, recently watched “2011 Commencement Address by Denzel Washington."

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Behind the scenes of the NBA Draft with the Golden State Warriors

We love sports here at YouTube and are always looking for ways to connect fans on our site more closely to the sports they love, working with our partners to create cool, engaging and video-driven experiences. We’re also big U.S. hoops fans, so we've teamed up with our neighbors across the SF Bay — the Golden State Warriors — to bring you a comprehensive inside look at the NBA Draft process.

Go to Warriors Draft Central on YouTube for exclusive interviews with top prospects, footage from workouts with Warriors coaches and behind-the-scenes video like this interview with Warriors guard Jeremy Lin:



Who do you think the Warriors should draft? What are their most pressing on-court needs? Let the Warriors know what you think, right on the channel through your YouTube, Facebook or Twitter accounts — and subscribe for more video up through the Draft.

Andrew Bangs, YouTube Sports, recently watched “Brandon Westgate Emerica Stay Gold B-Side.”

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The next step in embedded videos: HD preview images and a logoless option

It may be hard to imagine, but YouTube’s video preview images represent to many the ultimate deciding factor as to whether or not to watch a video. If a preview image looks interesting, it can mean the difference between someone pressing the play button. In addition, your site and the videos on it represent to you polished masterpieces. Yet, your videos’ preview images can appear lower in quality, and sometimes you don't want a logo in your player. So today we're rolling out new features for both situations: HD preview images and the option to remove the logo from your player.

HD preview images

Video resolutions have been increasing across YouTube, and the sizes of your embedded players are bigger than ever. But until now, video preview images in today’s larger players (e.g. the image that appears before you click “Play”) haven’t kept up with your high-quality and larger videos.

Any new video uploaded to the site in a resolution of 480p or higher will have an HD preview image wherever the player is embedded. The difference is even more striking with larger embeds (which don’t fit on this blog), so try it out yourself and see what we’re talking about. Here’s an example:

Before:


Now:


We’ll also automatically give HD preview images to older videos in the next few weeks, as long as they’re 480p or larger. A note for partners, if you’ve uploaded a custom preview image for your video, you’ll need to re-upload a new one for your videos in order to upgrade it to HD (1920 x 1080px, 2MB max).

Logoless player
Many of you have asked us for a version of the YouTube player without a YouTube logo, so the video plays without any branding nearby. We’ve now added a simple option to do it. At the end of the video URL in your embed code, just add the code ?modestbranding=1 and the player will show without the YouTube logo in the control bar. Note that a small “YouTube” text label will still show up in the upper-right corner of a paused video when you hover over the player. We’ve published the full list of the player’s possible parameters, and here’s an example:



We hope these features help you show your videos the way you want them to be seen.

Kevin Wilson, Software Engineer, recently watched "I'm Yours (ukulele)” and Ravi Kanodia, Software Engineer, recently watched “Candy BBQ - Epic Meal Time.”

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YouTube EDU partners Dartmouth College and Stanford University to live stream commencements on YouTube

To kick off the 2011 graduation season in the United States, we featured some inspiring commencement speeches available on YouTube. Since then, many new addresses have been uploaded, including Amy Poehler’s speech at Harvard Class Day, Denzel Washington’s address at the University of Pennsylvania, and First Lady Michelle Obama’s (Part 1 and Part 2) at Spellman College.

While you can spend hours watching these and other addresses on YouTube, sometimes there’s nothing like watching a live event. So to tune in this Sunday June 12 and watch the commencement ceremonies of two YouTube EDU partners live — Dartmouth College and Stanford University will use YouTube’s live stream platform to broadcast their ceremonies beyond their own campuses.

Dartmouth College will kick off the festivities this Sunday at 9:30am ET from Hanover, New Hampshire. Conan O’Brien will deliver the commencement address, likely to be as entertaining as his visit to Google. You can also stay tuned as honorary degrees are presented to former President George H.W. Bush; philanthropist and retired executive Russell A. Boss ’61; New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast; Native American leader and activist Elouise Cobell; actress Ruby Dee; brain scientist Michael S. Gazzaniga ’61; physician and researcher Howard Hiatt; and Joel Klein, former chancellor of the New York City public school system.

Then, travel from small town New England to Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California, to watch Stanford University’s 120th commencement ceremony at 12:30pm ET. The day will start with the traditional “Wacky Walk” processional of graduates wearing zany costumes and carrying signs, props and even floats into the stadium with them. Mexican President Felipe Calderón will speak, expected to discuss leadership, social justice and international cooperation. Stanford President John Hennessy will also address those gathered and awards will be presented to the graduating students.

Whether you’re a relative or friend of a graduate unable to attend the day’s events, or simply interested in tuning in to catch the speeches, we hope you enjoy your front row seat at the ceremonies. Hats off again from YouTube to the graduates of 2011!

Will Houghteling, YouTube Marketing Manager, recently watched “Justice series: What’s the right thing to do?”

More about → YouTube EDU partners Dartmouth College and Stanford University to live stream commencements on YouTube

Music Tuesday: Battles, Vetiver and the power of CANADA

This week, Coldplay returns with a brand new song, Duncan Sheik covers ‘80s classics, Youssou N’Dour celebrates reggae, Branford Marsalis keeps jazz vital and country star Randy Travis celebrates 25 years in music. But we first turn our attention to a math-rock supergroup some had written off after they lost their lead singer -- until their new album landed on critics’ laps, four years after their lauded debut.

Battles curate the YouTube homepage
Battles’ 2007 debut Mirrored still amazes with its precise shards of sound and wholly formed aesthetic. It integrated electronics and rock instrumentation into such a seamless whole that some hailed the band as the future of rock — and avant-garde vocalist Tyondai Braxton as its voice-manipulating headman. Braxton’s departure from the band left doubt about their future, but four years after their lauded debut, they’re back: sans Braxton, but full of sonic innovation and a bevy of guest vocalists. Gloss Drop is an engrossing listen, and it gains in texture with contributions from Gary Numan (yes, the man behind the ‘80s classic “Cars”), Kazu Makino of Blonde Redhead, Chilean producer and vocalist Matias Aguayo and Yamantaka Eye of Japanese rockers the Boredoms. Battles bring their heady, wonky, original aesthetic to the homepage today, choosing their favorite videos and debuting a new version of their video for “Ice Cream.”



The Power of CANADA
Battles are likely to gain fans on the strength of their new video, and they have the amusingly-named Spanish video director collective CANADA to thank for that. The team features three directors: Luis Cervero, Nicolas Mendez and Lope Serrrano. After spending years as the go-to videographers for Spain’s indie rock artists, CANADA gained a massive following from their provocative video for El Guincho’s “Bombay.” El Guincho has a growing U.S. fan-base, and his global ghetto pop/electronic sound mashed perfectly with the directors’ aesthetic: bawdy (which has earned their videos more than a few age restrictions), comic and flooded with images that often find their power in rapid-fire juxtaposition. Their videos poke fun but also celebrate everything from bad ‘70s flicks and European art films to Carl Sagan. They seem to have an endless storehouse of images at their fingertips, and their editing borders on revelatory. We share some of their best work today on youtube.com/music.



Vetiver “Wonder Why?”
They’re transplanted San Franciscans (native to North Carolina), friends of freak folk luminaries Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, and willing slaves to harmony and twang. Vetiver make the kind of urban roots music that feeds people looking for organic, unprocessed music in our highly digitized age. Check out the brand-new video from their upcoming album, premiered on youtube.com/music today. It takes a city’s inanimate landscape and brings it to life; watch as sandwich carts mouth the words to the song and buildings blink their windows in time.



Sarah Bardeen, Music Community Manager, recently watched “J Rocc - Stay Fresh.”

More about → Music Tuesday: Battles, Vetiver and the power of CANADA

US gamers look out, E3 gaming expo is live on YouTube

It’s one of the most wonderful times of the year for gamers with the return of E3, the gaming industry’s annual tradeshow in Los Angeles. The E3 YouTube channel will be carrying live streaming coverage from the gaming experts at IGN, starting with today’s pre-E3 press conferences and through the first two days of the show.

For our casual and non-gaming readers, E3 is an annual showcase where gaming companies go all out to create buzz around their upcoming titles. You typically need to be connected to the games industry to attend, but as we continue to give you front row seats to local and world events, you can now share in the E3 excitement as it happens. Expect to see new game demos, developer interviews, expert analysis and more. Check the E3 channel for a daily schedule of events.



The E3 live stream is only available to US gamers, but there will be plenty of up-to-the-minute content posted on the channels of IGN and many other gaming-focused partners. If you’ve been waiting all year for E3, it’s time to sit back and salivate, as gaming’s big guns attempt to wow their way onto your holiday shopping list.

Mark Day, YouTube Gaming, recently watched "WipEout 2048 NGP: Wipeout Your Enemies Trailer."

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This week's Trends: twisters, drive-thrus, and backflips

Each weekday, we at YouTube Trends take a look at the most interesting videos and cultural phenomena on YouTube as they develop. We want take a moment to highlight some of what we've come across this week:

• We saw damage from twisters that touched down in Massachusetts and learned that searches for the word "tornado" have been hitting a high.
  
  
• We found that the trend of singing your McDonald's drive-thru order has now gone international.
  
  
• We highlighted dramatic footage from a protest in Bahrain
  
  
• We discovered a 75-year-old man who'd become a soccer star in Europe.
  
  
• We looked at the "Nyan Cat" phenomenon with the help of What's Trending.
  
  
• And we watched New Zealand BMXer Jed Mildon set one of two incredible, high-flying records this week:

Check back every day for the latest about what's trending on YouTube at: www.YouTube.com/Trends

Kevin Allocca, YouTube Trends Manager, recently watched "Thumbs Up for Rock and Roll!."

More about → This week's Trends: twisters, drive-thrus, and backflips