Social Spotlight - YouTube Archives

Broken City Knows Its Social Media

2013-01-10T19:00:29Z

Here is a trailer for the upcoming movie, “Broken City” starring Mark Wahlberg, Russell Crowe and Catherine Zeta-Jones that I’ve seen on TV a lot in the past few weeks. Notice anything?

Reviews to promote movies were once reserved for notable publications, but this entire trailer is built on Twitter and viewers’ reviews. It’s a creative spin on promoting the movie through what “real” people are saying and encouraging the movie’s audience to give feedback on social media. The end of the trailer, the build up to the title of the movie, shows #BROKENCITY and a URL for Facebook.com/BrokenCityMovie.

This movie is just another example of how social media is becoming more prominent in our everyday lives and how it is a very effective marketing tool. Events, movies, products and companies are legitimized with taking advantage of the vast amounts of social media opportunities. The YouTube page for Broken City is completely decked out with a customized username, custom background and a playlist of ten videos, including interviews with Mark Wahlberg, the official trailer and other commercial spots for the film, and links to the film’s official website, Facebook page and Twitter page.

Year in Review -- 2012 on Social Media

2012-12-27T17:06:29Z

As we inch closer to the New Year, social networks are rounding up 2012 with the top highlights, trends and events of the past 12 months. Most of these reports came out before the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT shooting and Christmas -- two 2012 events that dominated social media and I think belong on all of these lists.

By now, we’ve gathered that if something big is going on, you can always count on Facebook to find out a) what is happening and b) what all of your friends think about it. As a population, it’s just what we do – share.

With Facebook’s 2012 year in review, users can revisit the 20 biggest moments on their Facebook Timeline including life events, highlighted posts and popular stories. Here are some of the top trends on Facebook this year by categories.

2012 was the year of memes.

TBH (to be honest)
YOLO (you only live once)
KONY
One-word comment
Gangnam Style
Cinnamon challenge
Cray
SMH (shaking my head)
Big Bird
Linsanity

Events

U.S. Presidential Election
Superbowl XLVI
Death of Whitney Houston
Superstorm Sandy
London 2012 Olympics
Death of Trayvon Martin
Facebook IPO
Aurora shootings
Death of Dick Clark
Obama’s endorsement of gay marriage.

Television

Duck Dynasty
Honey Boo Boo
Big Bang Theory
Game of Thrones
Downtown Abbey
Breaking Amish
Ink Master
Long Island Medium
Wife Swap
Two Broke Girls

Top 2012 Google searches included Whitney Houston, Gangnam Style and Hurricane Sandy. Image searches were for One Direction, Selena Gomez and iPhone 5, athlete searches were for Jeremy Lin, Michael Phelps and Peyton Manning, events were for Hurricane Sandy, Kate Middleton Pictures Released and Olympics 2012 and top feature film searches were for The Hunger Games, Skyfall and Prometheus.

Twitter has quickly become a blend between being a real-time news source, an instant source of memes and a personal diary for users’ opinions on everything happening in the world. Included in the year wrap-up includes Golden Tweets, Pulse of the planet, Only on Twitter, Trends, New Voices and Your year on Twitter. Partnering with Vizify, a personal website that provides interactive infographics powered by your data, your year on Twitter includes a golden tweet from 2012, a golden follower, key words I tweeted and how many responses, and how many tweets since January 2012. Users have the option to share the golden tweets and most talked-about topics, as well as issue a “Thank you” to your golden follower.

The top tweet of 2012 is by Barack Obama after the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election, which he tweeted, “Four more years,” accompanied by a photo of the first couple hugging. Other golden tweets included tweets by Justin Bieber, TJ Lang, Team GB and actor Kouichi Yamadera.

When it comes to taking a look at past events, there’s no better medium than the social media photo sharing site that gives us a visually appealing look at these events. From Lo-Fi and X-Pro II to Amaro and Nashville, if there’s a photo, there’s a filter for it. Instagram helps judge what were considered some of the biggest events based on how many users tag a photo with a hashtag or location.

Besides the top events Instagram listed, users can also browse more photos of events from around the world in 2012 by browsing blog posts with the “Current Events” tag.

Each year brings more infamous statuses, tweets, photos and searches. However, 2012 wouldn’t be complete without sharing videos. YouTube’s 2012 rewind featured the most popular clips, including Call Me Maybe covers, Gangnam Style and Flex Baumgartner’s supersonic freefall. In 2012, users watched four billion hours of video a month.

“Millions of creators are using YouTube channels to experiment with innovative forms of entertainment, explore their passions and interests, and take creativity and pop culture to new levels. 2012’s top trending videos showcase this creative ingenuity in ways we'd never before thought possible,” said YouTube in a blog post.

Here's an infographic of the 2012 in a summary. (Click for larger image)

That wraps up some of the 2012 reviews for the major social media sites used by billions of users around the world. Stay tuned for what 2013 has to bring and what we will do to document it! Happy New Year.

Share Videos Instantly with YouTube Capture

2012-12-17T20:16:24Z

If you’ve ever become frustrated with the middle step of uploading a video to YouTube through the site’s browser, today is your lucky day. YouTube has introduced the YouTube Capture app for iPod touch or iPhone that allows you to upload videos instantly to YouTube after filming. You also have the option to share to other social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ simultaneously with the upload process.

The app was introduced today in a YouTube blog post, which can basically do it all: capture, enhance and share all from one app. YouTube Capture can continue uploading even if it is minimized, and it will remind you to rotate your phone to a horizontal position for filming, so videos are high-quality and free of “Vertical Video Syndrome,” a hilarious but true “PSA” about filming videos vertically, therefore cutting off the video frame and giving users no freedom for fixing and/or editing.

There are also YouTube enhancements for corrections such as color and stabilization, or there are options to trim the length and add free background music from YouTube. These enhancements are also available on existing videos on your device, and you can always undo enhancements later on YouTube.com.

Videos can be set to private, unlisted or public. It’s available today on the App Store and is coming soon to Android.

It’s about time YouTube joined the world of video sharing apps. Apps such as Viddy, Cinemagram and Vimeo are popular examples of apps that let you enhance, edit and share videos. Even Snapchat, an app that has gained tremendous popularity, has added video capabilities, although the videos aren’t intended for sharing.