At midnight tomorrow, April 2, YouTube will cease to exist.

Google has announced the decision to shut down YouTube and revealed the real reason behind the world’s largest video site in a post on the official YouTube blog.

Google has revealed that the site is just a massive contest that has run for eight years.

According to Google’s Tim Liston, the YouTube Competition director, they set out in 2005 to swiftly increase user engagement through an inventive way to draw people in and catalyze these people’s creativity.

Now that the massive video site has enough material, the competition is coming to an end. Hence, YouTube will also be closed.

“Nearly eight years later, with 72 hours of video being uploaded every minute, we finally have enough content to close the competition,” Liston writes.

“We’ve started the process to select a winner and as of tomorrow at midnight, we will be closing the site to submissions,” he adds.

YouTube will cease operations tomorrow midnight but will come back up again 10 years later and will only feature one video – The Best Video on YouTube.

Watch the YouTube explainer video below.

Happy April Fool’s Day!

This isn’t the first time Google has released outrageous news on for April Fool’s Day. Read below to see another example.

Google Introduces Gmail Motion Technology, Guess Why

List Of Google’s Hoaxes and Easter Eggs

Google Is Shutting Down YouTube Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Not all meme videos are funny and have a happy ending, as one company will attest why it fired workers with high-paying jobs for their version of “Harlem Shake” on YouTube.

A newspaper from Down Under reported on Monday that up to 15 miners got sacked from work in an Australian gold mine after a thought-provoking YouTube video performance to the tune of American DJ Baauer’s song “Harlem Shake” captured the wrong audience.

Last week eight brave miners in the Agnew Gold Mine wore their safety gears, recorded and performed the epidemic, spastic dance, and uploaded it to YouTube.

The West Australian paper said one of the unnamed sacked workers clarified that up to 15 people lost their jobs. Seven other miners were on-the-scene but merely watched.

Agnew Gold Mine owner Barminco was not amused. It highlighted concerns about safety and a failure to follow the company’s “core values of safety, integrity and excellence” in their dismissal letter.

The missive mentioned that the dancing miners are not allowed to work under any mining site owned by Barminco worldwide. The company operates in Africa and Australia.

All of the dancing workers wore helmets but five of them removed their shirts. The unnamed sacked worker told the paper that some were shirtless to protect the name of Barminco on their uniforms.

Mining operations Down Under have increased over the past few years. Thousands are drawn in by high salaries to work in Never-Never (the remote outback in Australia). The paper said the fired miners had six-figure salaries.

The unnamed source who spoke to West Australian said the miners simply only had “a bit of fun.” Someone has created a Facebook page that seeks their reinstatement, with comments of support and obedience to safety rules.

More than 4,000 “Harlem Shake” videos are uploaded to YouTube every day. The song, recorded by Brooklyn-based producer and disk jockey Harry “Baauer” Rodrigues, is No. 2 on the Australia’s singles chart and No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

The song was uploaded to YouTube on August 23 last year.

The original “Harlem Shake” video meme started on January 30, when video blogger Filthy_Frank uploaded an episode with four people dressed in rubber suits who danced to DJ Baauer’s song “Harlem Shake.”

The form of the popular meme as we know it began in a video uploaded on February 2 by a group of five Australian teenagers from Queensland known by their YouTube account as The Sunny Coast Skate.

As of February 11 this year, around 12,000 versions with more than 44 million unique views had been uploaded to the online video-streaming site.

YouTube reported that on February 15, around 40,000 “Harlem Shake” videos had been uploaded for a total of 175 million views.

Most of the videos last from 30 to 36 seconds and play the same part of the song used by Filthy_Frank. Some video creators go past that limit and add whatever comes out of their silly minds.

A “Harlem Shake” video often starts with one masked person who dances to the song for 15 seconds in an attempt to liven up a room full of busy people minding their own business. When the bass drops on the 00:15 mark, the video comes to life with everyone dancing their hearts out to a paralytic dance (or whatever comes to mind) for the rest of the clip.

Featured image by Nick Lee / Flickr (CC)

Also, people often take their shirts off or wear silly outfits or costumes while holding a prop.

Company Fires Workers Over “Harlem Shake” Video Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Internet users are uploading hundreds of films to the video-sharing website YouTube, but some movie studios are not taking action to stop or block copyright infringement on their flicks.

According to the Wall Street Journal on Friday, blockbusters from Walt Disney, Sony’s Columbia and Tristar, and hundreds of full-length films from other movie studios are available for free viewing on the YouTube, the world’s most popular site for sharing video clips.

Viacom, the owner of MTV, sued YouTube in 2006 for alleged copyright infringement, but the legal battle has dropped since the website rolled out a new mechanism that spontaneously deals with illegal uploads in 2007.

YouTube’s Content ID is an automated system that works against a massive online database of 15 million song and movie samples.

Featured image by leti_valde94 / Flickr (CC)

Music labels and movie studios pass audio or video clips of their content to the database – often done daily for some companies – and pick an action after finding a match.

If a company finds content that violates its copyright, it can request YouTube to delete the offending video immediately, leading to the sad face screen users usually see on a removed video.

Labels and studios can ask YouTube to put an advertisement next to the post to generate revenue from it, or follow what some producers have been doing – nothing.

A spokesperson for YouTube said that their Content ID system allows copyright holders to find, stop, advertise, and monetize their content automatically.

YouTube’s Content ID has partnerships with more than 4,000 media companies.

Disney and Sony have yet to respond to requests for comment on their use of Content ID.

On Thursday morning, visitors could watch “Fantasia,” “Peter Pan,” and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” on YouTube without advertisements.

Although it likely means uploaders fooled the database and illegally uploaded films with warped sections, it’s more likely that the companies failed to submit clips of their films to the database and omitted them by mishap.

Disney and Sony have avidly led the fight against piracy and copyright infringement over the years, so the accidental passage of their YouTube videos seems an odd error on their part.

In the 90s, Disney supported the Copyright Act that held Mickey Mouse closer and out of the public domain for another two decades.

Disney and Sony are members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which had a key role in the campaign of controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in 2011.

In an apparent reaction to the WSJ’s query, Disney pulled some films from YouTube on Thursday.

Still, a few uploaders managed to put “Back to the Future,” “Rango,” and “The Lion King” online through Vimeo, a small YouTube rival without the Content ID system.

Internet Users Illegally Upload Disney Movies On YouTube Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

“Gangnam Style” on YouTube by the Korean rapper Psy has racked up a total of $8 million in advertising revenue, Google has revealed.

According to reports, Google Senior VP and Chief Business Officer Nickesh Arora said during Google’s earnings call that the video which has become a worldwide viral hit has “generated over $8 million in online advertising deals.

On YouTube, a video’s creator gets half of all the advertisement revenue generated by his or her video. This means that Psy and company have netted over $4 million from the “Gangnam Style” video alone.

Uploaded on YouTube in July 15 of last year, “Gangnam Style” overtook Justin Bieber’s “Baby” in views towards the end of November.

Roughly a month later, the video made history again by being the first ever video on YouTube to pass the 1 billion views mark.

Of course, “Gangnam Style” has earned Psy more than revenues generated through YouTube as the rapper now has more engagements, concerts, merchandize sales and also track sales.

Psy ‘Gangnam Style’ Earns $8Mn On YouTube Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

A motorist on Saturday captured video of a plane crash in Moscow that killed five crew members on board.

First posted on December 29 on YouTube, the video now has over 5.1 million views.

The video was first noticed by LJ-Toys followed by other Russian sites before breaking to news outlets like the Daily Mail in the UK and popular site Reddit.

Five people died in the crash of the Red Wings Tu-204 airliner just off a highway near Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport.

The plane was carrying eight people on board, all of them crew members of the airliner, when it crashed, reports say.

As the plane crashed, it broke into pieces and some of which slammed into cars on the highway near where it crashed.

Three survivors of the crash are reportedly in critical condition in different hospitals in Moscow.

Authorities are investigating the cause of the crash.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEQdW6yS5o4

Motorist Captures Awful Russian Plane Crash Beside Highway [Viral Video] Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

The Pakistani government lifted on Saturday its YouTube ban after an anti-Islam video on the website stirred riots among Muslims, but reimposed it three minutes later when they found irreverent clips were still on-site.

Pakistani officials lifted the ban on YouTube after months of continuous bashing from locals to restore access to the popular online video-sharing site.

The authorities said filters were in place to hide offensive content, but quickly retraced their course in a seemingly miscarried attempt.

On September 17, Pakistanis went to the streets furious over a US-made YouTube video that poked fun at Prophet Muhammad.

The government immediately told the country’s telecoms companies to prevent online content regarded as anti-Muslim and advised locals to inform them on such material.

Around 25 million Internet users in the country griped that the ban on YouTube is merely government censorship to control its people.

The Express Tribune, an English language gazette based in Karachi, wrote on Friday in a column that the move exercises ‘naked power play’ by the Pakistani.

“This is about controlling our behavior and denying us access to the Internet. We need to make it clear that we do not wish to regress to a dark age when a centralized authority controlled all access to information. Retreating to such an era would essentially mean that we were longer living in a democracy,” read the editorial to mark the 100^th day of the ban.

According to The New York Times, Rehman Malik, the country’s interior minister, said on Friday evening that the government will lift the ban by Saturday or Sunday and security systems installed by computer experts will block pornography and sacrilegious content.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority ordered local Internet service providers (ISPs) to open their doors to YouTube on Saturday.

Geo, a private TV news network with a large following, reported by Saturday afternoon that anti-Muslim and blasphemous content were still accessible on YouTube.

Ansar Abbasi, editor of Investigations at The News International and a right wing journalist who frequently opines on morality and religion, spearheaded the criticisms.

Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf gave in to the demand of critics and directed ISPs to reinstate the ban on YouTube.

The U-turn generated severe censures from users and ignited a rapid active commotion of jests on Twitter on the Pakistani government’s nervous actions and turnabout.

Zubair Kasuri, the editor of Karachi-based telecoms mag Flare, shared with The NY Times his astonishment on the government’s failure to set up a working firewall when it had several months to perfect it.

Image: Claudia Liliana via Flickr (CC)

Pakistan’s YouTube Ban Lifted For Three Minutes Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

YouTube has stripped more than two billion views from the world’s largest recording companies after the video-sharing website clamped down so-called ‘fake viewers’.

The biggest loser was Universal, the music label of popular singers Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Nicki Minaj, after YouTube removed one billion views from it in the Google-owned site’s largest crackdown on paid views, whereas Sony, the home of Alicia Keys and other famous artists, lost more than 850 million views.

The quick reduction of views followed YouTube’s investigation and immediate crushing of fake views, mostly coming from paid services to inflate figures, but sources from the music industry blasted maintenance-related migration of their videos around various channels.

Universal had five videos left and Sony with only three videos in their respective channels after YouTube imposed the unheard-of crackdown.

YouTube said the move does not involve security flaws or hacking incidents but only an ‘enforcement’ of its policy for view counts.

Currently the most critical channel for releasing music videos to the public, YouTube’s restriction strikes hard on major music labels in a big commercial setback to all their artists.

YouTube caters to more than 800 million unique visitors, plays more than 4 billion hours of video every month, and receives 72 hours of uploaded videos every minute.

SocialBlade released YouTube statistics to show the downfall after the Google site scrutinized its view counts to fight alleged ‘black hat’ techniques, which describe hackers’ way of generating likes or views on YouTube to make popular videos appear hotter on the site and raise the clips’ exposure.

YouTube view counts are looked upon as the world’s unofficial measure of popular music, and people started to point fingers at the recording industry once the site exposed the inflated views.

Financially, the number of views is valuable to music labels’ channels as it also helps them deliberate how to share revenues generated from advertising with partners.

According to The Daily Dot, many channels, including those of Michael Jackson, Beyonce and Chris Brown, had many deleted videos.

The YouTube channel of X Factor UK product Leona Lewis, the protégé of music industry magnate Simon Cowell, was also hit hard and lost almost 24 million views.

The massive cuts happened on the day hundreds of YouTube users vented frustrations on online forums about a series of video removals for violations of the site’s terms of service.

Most complainants thought they had fallen victim to a system glitch, but YouTube responded that they were punished after violating Terms Of Service item 4, Section H, which forbids artificial inflation of view counts.

The Daily Dot said the Black Hat World forum, where visitors discuss about unethical search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, talked about last week’s crackdown.

On thread starter on the forum confirmed that someone who sold YouTube ‘likes’ had received messages from four customers that the site deleted their videos because of violations to YouTube’s TOS.

Music industry sources charged the drop in number of views on YouTube’s modification in the way it handles view counts.

According to Billboard, YouTube started to delete view counts for alleged dead videos that no longer exist on the site.

A record label executive said that the videos’ accumulated views while on dedicated label channels were removed in YouTube’s crackdown since thousands of videos had moved to Vevo.

The Daily Dot received word from Universal, which confirmed the drop in views but said its channel had remained dormant since its migration to Vevo.

Vevo is a joint venture founded by Universal, Sony Music, Abu Dhabi Media Company, and E1 Entertainment in 2009.

Sony’s YouTube channel received comments that crowed over its comeuppance.

Image: Eric Schnakenberg via Flickr (CC)

YouTube Takes Down Billions of Fake Video Views Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

PSY’s viral “Gangnam Style” music video has raised the bar and achieved on Friday, December 21, a milestone where no other YouTube video ever set foot in.

While it already is the most popular YouTube video in history, ”Gangnam Style” now is the first clip to pass one billion views on the Google-owned online video sharing site.

“Gangnam Style” passed by Justin Bieber’s “Baby” music video last month to become the most popular YouTube upload of all time.

Uploaded on July 15 to YouTube, the clip (below) is the official music video for South Korean rapper-singer PSY’s catching, horse dance driven hit song.

“Gangnam Style” only needed five months to surpass the top three YouTube megahits: Justin Bieber’s “Baby” (currently at 813.5 million views), Jennifer Lopez’s “On the Floor” (632.7 million views), and “Charlie Bit My Finger” (502.9 million views).

Guinness World Records awarded “Gangnam Style” the most liked video in YouTube history when it eclipsed over two million thumbs up on the site.

YouTube followed the trend and came up with the graph that pitted the success of “Gangnam Style” against “Baby.”

Image: YouTube

In November, Wordstream followed the video’s view rate over its run and came up with 4,000 times per minute, but its predictions of one billion views by December 11 missed the mark by 10 days to December 21 – the Mayan calendar’s end of times.

While it’s unsurprising the world didn’t end on December 21 as predicted by alleged experts in the field, “Gangnam Style” passed one billion views and started the count above the mark on the same day.

Leading up to the Mayan calendar’s doomsday, the contagious video caused a pop culture movement worldwide, including prominent personalities breaking signature “Gangnam Style” horse dance moves in different public venues.

One thousand persons performed a flash mob in Jakarta, Ai Weiwei and Mitt Romney did their own cover versions, and YouTube received hundreds of thousands of uploads of “Gangnam Style” parodies, some of which have strong followings in the tens of millions of views.

YouTube said that fan tributes to the hit are now being viewed 20 million times every day.

The successful run of “Gangnam Style,” as The Verge notes, certainly proves how technology has entrenched in our culture and the pure strength of uncontrolled Internet memes.

PSY’s megahit not only registered YouTube records for number of views but also record number of likes and like-to-dislike ratios.

While “Gangnam Style” passed Justin Bieber’s “Baby” as the most viewed video on YouTube on November 24, it now holds a record of over 6 million likes on YouTube as of this writing.

In addition, “Gangnam Style” has only pulled in a little over 450,000 dislikes at the time of this writing, which means it now has a like-to-dislike ratio nearing 14:1, as opposed to “Baby” with around 1.5 million likes but 3.3 million dislikes.

“Gangnam Style” is the lead single of PSY’s latest and sixth Korean pop album,“PSY 6 (Six Rules), Part 1,” which will have a companion album, “PSY 6 (Six Rules), Part 2”, in March 2013.

According to media reports, the sixth album has sold less than 100,000 copies in PSY’s native country, South Korea.

Several assessments have circulated to claim that “Gangnam Style” has earned over $8.1 million in advertising agreements and generated more than 2.9 million audio downloads since its release.

Starting late November, music lovers have purchased the track on iTunes more than 600,000 times, helping PSY become the first Korean artist to reach number one on the U.S. iTunes chart, along with number one rankings in more than 30 countries.

As if you needed help finding the video, here it is for those who just can’t quite get enough:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

PSY’s remix with Hyuna has 200 million views by itself.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcLNteez3c4

‘Gangnam Style’ Makes History Yet Again, Raises The Bar With One Billion Views On YouTube Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

PSY’s “Gangnam Style” surpassed on Saturday Justin Bieber’s “Baby” as YouTube’s most-watched video of all time after it registered over 805 million views.

Park Jae-Sang, 34, popularly known as PSY, skyrocketed to fame only four months ago with the world release of his “Gangnam Style” music video, where he popularized his catching horse-riding dance move.

On Saturday, November 24, YouTube posted in its blog that PSY’s music video had tallied more than 805 million views to Bieber’s 803 million.

The online video streaming service said it continues to be “a massive hit at a global level unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.”

Image: Scene from PSY’s official “Gangnam Style” music video

“Each day, ‘Gangnam Style’ is still being watched between 7 and 10 million times,” wrote Kevin Allocca, manager, Trends, YouTube. This rate is well over the 350 thousand to 500 thousand for Bieber’s two-year-old music video, “Baby”.

PSY’s Korean song, which refers to an upscale neighborhood and business district in Seoul, has topped charts worldwide, including English-speaking countries such as Britain and Australia. It has gained the attention of world leaders such as U.S. President Barack Obama and United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon.

It has spawned many tribute videos copied by an astonishing roster of celebrities and personalities, including Chinese political dissident and artist Ai Weiwei, who helped PSY land a contract with Scooter Brauns’ Schoolboy Records – Bieber’s management agency.

YouTube said that if we add up views from the tribute videos and the official video, PSY’s song now has at least 2.2 billion views under its belt.

“Gangnam Style” has already passed the 813 million milestone at the time of this writing.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0

PSY’s ‘Gangnam Style’ Overtakes Bieber’s ‘Baby’ as Most-Watched YouTube Video Ever Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media

Invisible Children, a non-profit organization that seeks to stop atrocities committed by Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Central Africa, has announced it will release “MOVE: A Movie About A Movie About A Movement About You” on October 7, 2012, 7 p.m. PDT.

MOVE, the first film released by Invisible Children since the return of founder and chief creative officer Jason Russell, is a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the most viral video ever, the organization behind it, and the movement that made an African warlord famous. In this new movie, which was co-directed by Russell, who also directed KONY 2012, a generation is challenged to stand for justice.

“KONY 2012 was the start of an experiment about what our generation is capable of and it’s not over yet. How we finish will determine where international justice will fall from here,” stated Jason Russell. “Through MOVE we seek to hold world leaders accountable to their promises and challenge viewers to move their digital efforts into the physical world because children are still being abducted by Joseph Kony and the LRA. Where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live, but whether you move will determine where you stand.” MOVE asks the viewer: Will you take a stand for international justice and join us in Washington, D.C. on November 17^th?

Invisible Children, founded in 2004, is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization based on the belief that there is equal and inherent value in all human life. Our mission is to bring a permanent end to atrocities committed by Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) through an integrated four part model; media, mobilization, protection and recovery. We are focused on the LRA because they have been abducting children and committing atrocities in East and Central Africa since 1987. For additional information please visit www.invisiblechildren.com.

Invisible Children’s KONY 2012 swept the globe, garnering over 100 million views in six days. It was called the most viral video of all time and inspired more than 3.7 million people to sign a pledge demanding justice for Joseph Kony. In the following months, seven pieces of LRA-related legislation were introduced in U.S. Congress; the EU made a statement of commitment; and the AU and UN created a new strategy for ending LRA violence.
Source: Invisible Children

Image: Ryohei Noda, via Flickr (CC)

Invisible Children Unveils Release of ‘MOVE’ After ‘KONY 2012′ Social Barrel - The Latest on Social Media