A Celebration of the Arts on YouTube

As a prelude to the Grammys tomorrow, we're highlighting the importance of the arts in society on the homepage today, with top user-created videos about arts organizations that make an impact.

Many of you accepted Dr. Phil's Video Volunteers challenge to demonstrate how arts nonprofits are changing your community for the better, and you sang, danced, vlogged and even tapped your appreciation for your charity of choice.

As Video Volunteers heads into its fifth round (we'll kick off February's installment on Monday with the issue of health, featuring guest curator Jesse McCartney), we'd love to know what issues you'd like to see in the future. Are there topics that are important to you that we haven't addressed? Famous philanthropic faces that you'd like to see as curators? Leave your suggestions in the comments below.

And if you're a health organization that needs help creating video, you can sign up to find a Video Volunteer here. You might even see your nonprofit's name in lights at the end of next month.

Ramya Raghavan, Nonprofits & Activism Manager, recently watched "Follow the Money."

Forty-Eight Hours to Submit Your Question for the President

On Monday afternoon, as a follow-up to his State of the Union address, President Obama will give a live interview to YouTube from the White House -- and every single question will come from you. You can submit your questions in video or in text, and you can vote on which questions you think should be asked on CitizenTube. Your votes will determine the top questions posed during the discussion with the President. The deadline for submission is Sunday night at 8 p.m. EST.

What makes a good question? That's entirely up to you. We would love to see as many video questions as possible, so if you can, record your question on camera and upload it to YouTube. Be sure to keep it under 20 seconds, and make sure the video and audio quality is crisp and clear. The Moderator platform allows for text questions, too - so if you don't have time to post a video, feel free to simply type your question. We'll use a mixture of both in the interview.

If you're considering what your question should be, but missed the President's State of the Union speech, here it is:



Don't be afraid to ask tough questions - this is your opportunity to have direct access to the President. Though we obviously won't get to each of the thousands of questions that have been submitted, you'll have a say in which questions are asked by voting on your favorites - so come back to CitizenTube and vote often.

Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics, recently watched "GOP Response to State of the Union"

Live Tomorrow: The YouTube Panel at Davos on Female Genital Mutilation

This year's iteration of The Davos Debates culminates tomorrow as Julia Lalla-Maharajh, the winner of the “Your Pitch to the World” contest, joins Ann Veneman, Executive Director of UNICEF, Kathy Bushkin Calvin, CEO of the United Nations Foundation, and Larry Cox, Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, on a special panel moderated by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. The session will delve into the issue Julia pledged to address with world leaders at the World Economic Forum: female genital mutilation (FGM).



A difficult topic in just about every way, FGM affects an estimated 130 million women around the world, and tomorrow's panel will be the first time it's been brought to the table at Davos, not to mention the first time someone chosen by the YouTube community has had a seat at that table.

You can participate, too, for the first time. Nicholas Kristof will incorporate the questions you've contributed and voted up using the Google Moderator tool on the Davos YouTube channel into the panel discussion.

We’ll be streaming the panel live on youtube.com/davos at 3:30 pm CET (9:30 am EST) on Saturday, January 30, 2010. As your watch, please continue to add your thoughts to the discussion using the Moderator tool.

Also, be sure to watch Julia's video diary of her time here at Davos. She's spent every waking minute talking with the influential world leaders, corporate executives, and global movers-and-shakers at the World Economic Forum, raising awareness about FGM and spreading her message about the importance of ending it now.



We’ll see you at youtube.com/davos tomorrow to watch Julia represent the YouTube community!

Olivia Ma, News & Politics Manager, recently watched "Bill Clinton talks to Julia Lalla-Maharajh"

Film Your Issue, Share it With Thought Leaders

If you've ever wanted the chance to share your ideas about how to change the world with officials in the Obama Administration and filmmakers at Sundance, here it is.

We're bringing the Film Your Issue competition to YouTube this year as part of our Video for Change program. Film Your Issue is a contest for the next generation of global thinkers and social entrepreneurs (ages 14 to 24) to share innovative ideas for improving society. All you have to do to enter is create a three-minute video outlining a front-burner issue and proposing a solution to that issue, and submit it to the Film Your Issue channel. Learn more here:



Prizes include having your winning video shown to senior Obama administration officials in D.C., flying to L.A. for an awards show with Sony Pictures, a Student Pass to the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, and Apple products like a Macbook or iPod Touch. Winners will be selected by a VIP Jury, including Tom Brokaw, our own Chad Hurley, Yoko Ono and Nicholas Kristof, and by public voting on YouTube.

Visit www.youtube.com/filmyourissue to enter before April 19 and peruse past finalist videos, including last year's winner, which tackled Hurricane Katrina's aftermath:



Ramya Raghavan, Nonprofits & Activism Manager, recently watched "2010 State of the Union."

New Thumbnail "Flipbook" in Upload Shows Video Processing Progress

Starting today, when you upload a video to YouTube, you'll see a rapid-fire assortment of thumbnails from the video after it begins uploading to the site. Aside from being fun to watch (it's kind of like a flipbook of your video!), this visual representation of the process gives you further peace of mind that the video is indeed processing and will soon be live on the site.

Shortly after the last thumbnail arrives, your video is ready for viewing and sharing.* If you see the flipbook soon after you begin uploading, this means your video will be processed faster and you won't have to wait long for your video link. Read on for recommendations on how to optimize your video file to do this.

If you're uploading in the .mov or .mp4 (aka Quicktime) format, and you produced your video using Final Cut Pro, iMovie or QuicktimePro, click here to learn how to optimize your files. By ensuring the "index" of your file is in front, we can process your video faster. This is referred to by some as "flattening" a file or creating a "fast start" video file. If you're using FLV, ASF or WMV formats, you're fine. If you're using AVI, we'd want that index in front of the file as well. Most digital cameras producing AVI or MVI formats are fine.

How can you tell if your file is a "fast start file" or not? If you start getting the thumbnails before the upload has completed, then this is a fast start video file. If you get the thumbnails after the upload has completed, then your video file is not a fast start video file.

Dima Broyde, Software Engineer, recently watched "Арефьева Ольга "Театр," and Slave Jovanovski, Software Engineer, recently watched "Pomplamoose Covers Makin Out by Mark Owen."

*Remember, you can always check the processing status of your videos by mousing over your username in the top right and then clicking "My Videos" in the dropdown menu.