YouTube Movies has just taken a turn for the better thanks to a huge influx of new content. YouTube has taken the opportunity to talk up the variety of videos it now offers. And who can blame them?

YouTube Movies

As expected YouTube Movies is changing, with the company having added a lot of new content to service. The number of films available to rent on YouTube has more than doubled to 6,000 thanks to new deals with major Hollywood studios Sony Pictures, Universal, and Warner Brothers.

The new content is much fresher than most of what was previously available, with the new movies on offer being fresh new releases such as Inception, The King’s Speech, and The Green Hornet.

An industry standard price of $3.99 has been set for new releases, and the movies are available to rent by all U.S. residents with a YouTube account. All major credit cards are being accepted for the one-off transactions, with viewers having 30 days to watch their film after purchase, 24 hours after viewing begins.

There’s more than just Movies available on YouTube though…

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Over 100 million people watched the royal wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton on YouTube. While that may not be able to compete with the number of people who watched it on television, it’s still a great number.

The Royal Wedding

The Royal Wedding was just the latest in a long line of tests for online video. It passed, and with flying colors, as it has with every other test it has faced.

The wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton was available to watch from a number of sources on the Web, but YouTube was the official site chosen, and thanks to its notoriety was the choice most people made.

On April 29 the happy couple finally made their alliance legal, and millions watched them do it online. So much for the supposed desire for a republic…

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Call me psychic but I’m pretty sure you’ll all be aware of the royal wedding taking place on Friday morning. Prince William and Kate Middleton are getting married, and the event is being streamed live online. Will the Internet be able to cope?

Kate and William Royal Wedding

Prince William of Wales is marrying Kate Middleton (officially known as Catherine) on Friday April 29 in a ceremony set to begin at 10 am BST and last until around 2pm BST. Whether you personally are interested in seeing the nuptials taking place and all the surrounding hubbub, a significant proportion of the population is.

Hundreds of television channels around the world are showing the royal wedding live, but the event is also being streamed in full online. The official YouTube channel of the Royal Family is hosting the full ceremony, as is the NDN, and any other website which has paid the asking price to embed the feed.

In all, around 2 billion people are expected to watch the royal wedding between William and Kate, with 400 million of those estimated to be doing so on the Web. Which begs the question: Will the Internet with the bandwidth demands?

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Although YouTube has been offering movie rentals for a while now, very few people have been using the service. But maybe, just maybe, getting the major Hollywood studios on board, and offering newer movies, will make a difference. Yes, that should do it.

YouTube Movie Rentals

YouTube began offering movies for rent at the beginning of 2010 in partnership with the Sundance Film Festival. Thanks to that connection the films were all independent offerings, but the results of the experiment were good enough for YouTube to open the store permanently.

In May of that year YouTube Partners were added to the mix, and in August rumors abounded of negotiations taking place between YouTube and the major Hollywood studios which would see big, new releases added to the service.

Lo and behold, this week saw the following news emerge…

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If Google is really good at one thing, and one thing alone, it’s listening to its users. Which is exactly what it has done when it comes to Google Video and the imminent closure of the surplus-to-requirements site.

Google Video…

In January 2009 Google announced Google Video was being killed off as the new, shiny YouTube had made it unnecessary. A few months later and the site was frozen for posterity, with no new uploads allowed.

We then heard nothing for over two years until earlier this month when Google finally announced the dates when Google Video would be culled for good. However, those dates have now been wiped from the schedule, and Google has began endeavoring to make the transition to YouTube an easier one for all.

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The latest royal wedding, between Prince William, second in line to the throne behind his father Charles, and Kate Middleton, is taking place on Friday, April 29.

For the first time in history, a royal wedding is being live streamed on the Internet, and with a little help from YouTube we’ll all be able to watch Kate and William tying the knot.

The Royal Wedding Streaming Live

The Royal Family have had a presence on YouTube for over three years now, with the Queen and her clan having posted hundreds of videos of events and speeches in that time. But the royal wedding between Kate and William calls for something altogether more ambitious.

As announced on the Official Royal Wedding Blog, the wedding will be live streamed on YouTube on The Royal Channel. Google has produced “a live stream ‘gadget’” which will air from 10am until 2pm on the big day. That means the journey to and from Westminster Abbey, the balcony appearance, fly past, and of course, the ceremony itself, will all be aired live on the Web.

The live video stream will be accompanied by a commentary on Twitter, and additional clips, photographs, and links.

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Google Video is finally being put out of its misery, over two years after Google effectively decided to kill its own baby to let its adopted child YouTube to blossom.

Google Video Killed Off

It was really no surprise to anyone when, in January 2009, Google announced it was killing Google Video. This came almost three years after the search giant had acquired YouTube for a tasty $1.65 billion, and it didn’t really make sense to keep them both going.

Google Video was just one of the sites and services which were culled at the time, with Google Catalogs, Dodgeball, Google Mashup Editor, Google Notebooks, and Jaiku also shuttered.

A few months later and the ability to upload videos to the site ended, but existing content remained on the site. Until now.

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