Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Google Businesses The Internet

YouTube Goes International 78

Posted by Zonk from the kitty-washing-machine-en-espanol dept.
Bizzeh writes "YouTube has announced that they plan to go international. The video site, owned by Google, has launched nine country-specific versions across Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK. The BBC reports: 'YouTube is now stressing its credentials as a platform not just for user-generated content but also for professional broadcaster and advertisers. The company says it has more than 1,000 global partners, with more than 150 deals signed in Europe since March. [Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder] said: "We respect copyright and we want to create new revenue streams to create opportunities. "We have been working with rights holders to help them leverage new audiences."'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

YouTube Goes International More

YouTube Goes International

Comments Filter:

  • No German version? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MavEtJu ( 241979 ) <[gro.ujtevam] [ta] [todhsals]> on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @03:28AM (#19575719) Homepage
    Interesting that they left out a German version. After all, there way much more Germans than Dutchmen.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Eddi3 ( 1046882 )
      It's also possible the Germans weren't interested.

      • Re: (Score:1, Interesting)

        by pazZz ( 1025442 )
        what a bullshit. No interesseted in a german youtube version. OF COURSE ^^ Its more about Copyright i think because in Germany Copy right seems to be really hard and other companies like pandora for example closed there services for Germany and other European Countrys. Maybe they were just to lazy to do a german version ;)

      • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        They probably decided it would be too expensive to dub every clip into German.
    • It's probably because they didn't sign any deals with German content providing companies.
    • ... an dumped the idea of a german version.

      Next: the great german firewall, build by american companies unable to understand foreign rules and laws... ;)

    • Re:No German version? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @04:04AM (#19575917)
      The Germans will take over the Polish and French versions.
    • ...and there's a damn good reason for that:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO10s_HK6d0 [youtube.com]

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Simon Donkers ( 950228 )
      Do note that Netherlands has a far higher broadband penetration. From the first result in Google Netherlands has 22.5 broadband connections per 100 inhabitants ranking #2, Germany ranks #18 with 10.2%. Belgium, partly Dutch ranks #8. Full stats [oecd.org].
      Also in the Netherlands online video is very popular, the public broadcast puts all self created shows on the internet, other providers also have online offerings. The VPRO [youtube.com] already has a Youtube channel, so has the Public broadcasters in general [youtube.com] and the institute fo

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Catil ( 1063380 )
      The German newspaper "Ruhrnachrichten" reported today that Google is still in negotiations with the musicrights organisation GEMA (German RIAA eqivalent) about copyrighted music used in videoclips on Youtube without royalties getting paid.
      They quote an unnamed Google spokesman saying that a German Youtube site will hopefully follow in a few month.

      I really don't see how the GEMA could now demand their cut on behalf of a simple German translation of Youtube. It seems that the other already translated sites
    • Indeed, an German is spoken in far more nations than dutch. It is arogant to say the least.

  • Channels (Score:5, Interesting)

    by interiot ( 50685 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @03:35AM (#19575753) Homepage

    Well-known examples of producer-specific channels include BBC [youtube.com], NBA [youtube.com], and Al Jazeera [youtube.com].

    So major content providers are partnering with YouTube, but their YouTube videos are essentially DRM-free (they can still be downloaded [javimoya.com] like normal youtube videos can). So are content providers starting to care less about DRM now? Or since most of them are putting teaser promotional videos up, not full-length content, they don't worry so much if the short snippets are copied elsewhere?

    • While the article states that the site text has been translated into various languages, the video itself remains unchanged. What is really needed is a viable multi-language subtitlng solution for online video.

      I'm too lazy to look up who owns the patents to see why Google/YouTube is NOT doing this... Anyone care to do a little research on that?
      • Google has the technique to add subtitles available for Google Video. It likely won't take them to much work to apply this technique in Youtube as well. With all Google Video users being able to add subtitles there's a grand total of 27 videos [google.com] with subtitles. Making subtitles is expensive, the audience for it is simply to small to actually make this affordable. Perhaps Google could give broadcasters easy means and an incentive to upload subtitles for shows which they already subtitled for TV distribution bu
    • BBC blocks parts of its content, from outside its country.
      I hope google doesnt start that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by suv4x4 ( 956391 )
      So are content providers starting to care less about DRM now? Or since most of them are putting teaser promotional videos up, not full-length content, they don't worry so much if the short snippets are copied elsewhere?

      Both, but mostly the latter. As for their DRM concerns: YouTube is just more convenient than bothering to download the videoa nd use a special FLV player to play it. Why do that when you're a click away. It's what RIAA doesn't understand about making business on the Internet, but I bet they w
  • can the PornoTube be far behind?

    • Re: (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Nope [pornotube.com]

  • Thought provoking (Score:2, Insightful)

    by jandersen ( 462034 )
    It is noteworthy that they felt they had to stress the fact that they respect the law, in this case copyright law, isn't it?

    However, what it really means is 'We want to squeeze as much money out of this as we can' - they probably have a close partnership with the RIAA on this.

    • However, what it really means is 'We want to squeeze as much money out of this as we can' - they probably have a close partnership with the RIAA on this.

      Clarification please: A partnership to achieve what exactly? The RIAA has little to say outside of their borders - though we have similar, though less aggressive, organizations. Did you mean to refer to them? Otherwise I fail to see the connection and would appreciate details.

  • That's curious... considering China is a larger market than all of Europe, you'd think that a Chinese YuTube would be their first move. I wonder what the reason could be for ignoring the largest market of all?

  • Video.Google (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Enderandrew ( 866215 ) <enderandrew@NOsPAM.gmail.com> on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @03:51AM (#19575843) Homepage Journal
    Can someone please explain to me why Google bought YouTube, merged the search results for the two sites, etc. but still hasn't ported over some of the nicer features of the video.google.com player?

    Doesn't it make sense to merge the best features of the two sites and the two players?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tknd ( 979052 )
      What are the nicer features of google video? Are you talking about the fact that it always fills up the browser screen? I didn't really find that to be a nice feature since most videos were of low bitrate and on a big monitor that turns into giant pixel blocks. With google video I almost always found myself resizing the browser window smaller just to avoid the big pixel blocks but when I was done or I flipped to another tab, I had to resize the window larger again. I also found that youtube's "related video

  • Oh wow... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kitsunewarlock ( 971818 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @04:03AM (#19575909) Journal
    This is amazing. At last the international world can explore the wonderful technology that has brought together so many, using an effective comment and rating system to ensure that each video posted is as high quality as the last (the infallible "5 star system").

    No but seriously, YouTube is like a cesspool. There is no quality control for comments. There are no moderators who bann idiots who do stuff like chain letters and spamvertising their own videos. People are now using videos of themselves talking for what the comment box was supposed to originally be. And this is not just the fault of the stupid users on youtube. The limited size of the comment box and the ease of posting comments is all their issues.

    Lets not ignore the fact that people are trying to make this like a second my-space. I'm tired of getting e-mails from people who just want to say "hi" to me over and over again for no god-damned reason. Its nice and all, but its not a "comment" or appropriate "message". Your not telling me what I can do to make better videos. Your not critiquing my videos or even asking me what the source of my video files are (to which I usually reply "it costs money" and never hear from you again).

    Furthermore, the lack of quality control of videos (I'll just say it: reposts) and lack of meta-tag control is absurd. I see people copying-and-pasting lists of every anime ever created (or at least most of them) followed by every number from 1 to 400 to ensure there SLIDE SHOW OF GOOGLED IMAGES can be found. 90% of the "anime music videos" on the bloody site are either slideshows that don't even match the beat of the music or use a single image size for consistency, or else videos copied and pasted from AMV.org.

    Lets not forget the flagging system. With this wonderful system, even the most innocent of videos can be tagged as inappropriate, nevermind that it was tagged simply because its a "rival video" of another creator...

    This isn't even looking at the fact every video uploaded on youtube ends up having lower quality then an AVI washed through windows-movie maker with the default render settings.

    I'll stick to Crunchy Roll and Stage6 for now, thank you very much.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by BBird ( 664014 )
      youTube is accessible worldwide, just like most of the
      internet content, be it from the US or anywhere.

  • Censorship by another name (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jonnyj ( 1011131 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @04:14AM (#19575969)

    From the article: "It's not just about translating, it also about creating content unique to certain countries."

    This is marketing double-speak for 'we want to restrict certain users from accessing certain content.' It'll start with pressure from commercial organisations (MPAA, TV networks, etc) and gradually move towards yielding to government pressure - as we've already seen with Google's search engine censorship antics. Anyone in China want to see footage of Tiananmen square? Forget it. It's not in Google's best commercial interests.

    In future you will see only what Google wants you to see. With its increasing dominance of both access to web content and content itself, Google is becoming the new global censor, answerable to no-one but its shareholders. This is very, very scary

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by siddesu ( 698447 )
      well, dunno about the censorship part, but at first sight the localization seems to suck somewhat. the damned thing seems to switch locales by looking up your IP address; and seems to ignore the locale headers sent by the browser, so now I am blessed with a US flag in the right top corner, and Japanese text interspersed all over the page. switching to the japan version removes most of the English labels though.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Sibko ( 1036168 )

      Anyone in China want to see footage of Tiananmen square? Forget it. It's not in Google's best commercial interests.

      Because, as we all know, had Google not censored it, everyone in China would be able to view the footage.

      Oh wait, no. That's not what would have happened. China would've blacklisted Google, so that their citizens couldn't use it, ever. So Google had a choice: Pretend to be 'good' and lock themselves out of a potential multi-billion dollar market; or be evil, and restrict and censor certain things the Chinese government deemed inappropriate [While making lots of evil $$$].

      So was it the right decision?

    • In future you will see only what Google wants you to see. With its increasing dominance of both access to web content and content itself, Google is becoming the new global censor, answerable to no-one but its shareholders. This is very, very scary

      That assumes that Google is the only source of information, doesn't it? But there are many other players. None nearly as large, but there are many. And when you say "answerable only to shareholders" ... to whom do you think they should be answerable? Governmen

  • FTA

    Each site is translated into local languages and has country-specific video rankings and comments.
    Wouldn't national instead of international be more correct, then?
    • If you do business with several nations, you are international, even if you localize and cater your business to each nation.

    • Wouldn't national instead of international be more correct, then?

      Sounds like you're a programmer. You must be thinking of the terms "localization" and "internationalization" (or l10n and i18n).

  • Hmm, it seems to me that the current page is international, because it is intended for use in any country. A page made specifically for one country would then be national

    • Considering that an English-only Youtube also means excluding many countries (whose people might not be fluent in English), adding languages usually makes a project an international one.

  • Awwww. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nixkuroi ( 569546 )
    Does this mean that the Japanese are going to start paying attention to all the copyrighted anime, game shows, talk shows and dramas people have put on there?

    Damn internationalization is going to ruin my interweb. :P

  • Did you know... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by suv4x4 ( 956391 ) on Wednesday June 20, 2007 @05:30AM (#19576349)
    YouTube accounts for 10% of Internet traffic. Imagine that. That's more than milions of other site do, combined.

    And they built that entirely on venture capital (until they got bought by google).

    I read all the time about competing video sites bragging about their high def videos - could they possibly sustain the video playback count of YouTube with such high bandwidth videos? I really doubt that. And no wonder YouTube stays low quality as well.
  • I just checked out a couple of the new YouTube sites (Brazil and France). I tried a few searches on those plus the U.S. site, in English, Portuguese, and French, and it returned the exact same videos regardless of which site is used. Basically, it looks like the same exact damn site, only with instructions and links translated into the appropriate language. I guess that's the extent of "country-specific" content.
  • you know you want it
  • What amazes me is that they can successfully pitch this as a professional-quality product despite the fact that the quality of the video and audio is so bad it's almost unwatchable. It's a weird time in video -- on one hand everyone is up in arms about hi-def DVDs and HDTV, and on the other hand people are running around watching over-compressed clips on a 2" low-res cellphone screen.
  • Kids thirteen and under (or thereabouts) loved YouTube because of the awful, chopped-up anime episodes (and parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 thereof). Now, all that is gone the way of the dodo, leaving a generation of pre-teens surprised, fuming, narrow-eyed and political.

    YouTube's cachet has just evaporated among a few hundred thousand neo movers and shakers, making it the next mortally-wounded Napster. Maybe that was "We Do No Evil" Google's plan from the start? AWTTW: Kids are smarter than you think, and format
    • Most anime viewers I know who don't know how to use IRC or hate torrents still use Youtube...

      And all those viewers are in or graduating from college...

      But what do I know. Its only about 1/20th of the campus.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by grikdog ( 697841 )
        I dunno. I'm 63 and I managed to watch the entire Hikaru no Go series (piece by piece) before My Tubes Not Your Tubes Dot Con started scrubbing it out of their system. I can't imagine the horrible quality posed much threat to DVD sales. It was more like free advertising, in a wonderful search and assemble game sort of way. I was speaking about actual, flesh-and-blood miffed microteens, however. And those kids hold everyone's future in their hands. It will be fun watching a few corporate attention span

Slashdot Top Deals

I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

Close