YouTube is about to take a gamble in offering viewers of long-form video content the option of choosing which advert they want to watch, when they want to watch it, or, controversially, whether they want to watch it at all.

Video Advertising

Video advertising takes many forms. From video ads embedded (often annoyingly autoplay) on sites across the Web, to viral ad campaigns such as the ones for Old Spice and Tippex, video advertising is both varied and increasingly popular.

It makes sense for sites which display online video to use video advertising. Hulu does this extremely well, but YouTube has somewhat struggled thanks to concerns over the type and legality of content on the site.

However, YouTube is confident its new approach is a good one.

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It’s not really news that YouTube is insanely popular, being by the biggest online video site on the Web. But the fact it’s now having 35 hours of video uploaded every minute? That’s pretty damn incredible, and YouTube still wants more.

YouTube Growth

YouTube has grown consistently since its inception in 2005, and especially since Google acquired the site in 2006.

By the middle of 2007, YouTube boasted six hours of video being uploaded every minute. Which at the time was seen as a colossal amount. It turned out not to be so colossal, however, as the 10 hours per minute milestone was soon reached.

By January 2009 it was 15 hours, by May it was 20, and by March 2010 it was 24 hours, the equivalent of a full day’s worth of video. Now, just eight months later, and YouTube has announced it has hit 35 hours of video uploaded every minute.

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I was beginning to think YouTube was never going to remove any video from the world’s most popular online video site ever again. But it has proved me wrong by removing some videos showing Imam and Anwar al-Awlaki.

YouTube Censorship

YouTube has always fought hard to keep the site open and free of censorship, with the question of legality (be it copyright, indecency, or whatever) being the ultimate yardstick with which YouTube has weighed each individual case on.

This has meant upsetting whole countries on some occasions, with Thailand, Pakistan, and China all having banned YouTube because of videos the authorities in those countries found distasteful.

The most recent example saw Turkey re-ban YouTube just days after lifting a two-year ban because videos deemed as offensive to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk were reposted to the site after YouTube reviewed their removal and came out in favor of the original posters.

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Well that didn’t last long. Just days after turkey lifted its ban on YouTube, the site has once again been made unavailable to the country’s 70 million residents.

And all because a handful of videos have been deemed as offensive to a guy who died 70 years ago, when the Internet was a figment of a futurist’s wet dream.

YouTube Censorship

YouTube isn’t exactly new to this banning malarkey, with various countries having prevented its citizens from accessing the Google-owned site over the past few years.

Thailand banned YouTube after Google refused to remove a clip deemed insulting to its royal family. Pakistan then attempted to block access to the site over a video deemed offensive to Muslims. And China has banned YouTube a number of times, most recently over a video showing violence against Tibetan protesters.

Turkey, however, provides the best story of all, with its on/off/on again banning drama playing out like a particularly cheap soap opera.

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YouTube continues to be the biggest and best online video service on the Internet. And that means the stories come thick and fast. However, not all warrant full articles, so a news round-up is occasionally the order of the day.

YouTube

If you haven’t heard of YouTube then you must have been living under a rock for the last five years. The Google-owned video-sharing site is now ubiquitous and, with the possible exception of Facebook, the first port of call for most people on the Web.

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Those of you planning on buying a Google TV-powered device in the near future will now be able to make full use of YouTube Leanback, which has now been fully rolled out. And it’s actually pretty damn easy to use, even from 10-feet away.

Google TV Arrives…

The first Google TV products are on sale this weekend in the U.S., with Sony’s impressive yet expensive range of Google TV sets, and the Logitech Revue Google TV set-top box now being available to buy.

There’s no guarantee consumers are going to go for Google TV at this early stage of proceedings, but that isn’t stopping Google forging ahead with its plans to really push itself and its online video properties into the living room.

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YouTube is being used as a means to get Spanish used more extensively on the Web, with the classic novel Don Quixote de la Mancha being read out in 2,149 separate segments.

The Language Of The Web

Like it or not, English is the language of the Web.

There are, obviously, other languages present, with sites in probably every other language of the world. There are also translation options for those sites not available in your mother tongue. But overall these are sidelined somewhat by English

It’s obvious why English became the standard language of the Web, with the U.K., U.S., and Australia all being big users of the Internet. But nations who have given the world other widely-used languages are keen to change this.

One is using YouTube to try and affect this change.

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