For years people have been clamoring for YouTube to increase their 10 minute video length maximum. Apparently only YouTube "partners" (usually major media corporations) had been allowed to upload much longer length content. Some would say that's unfair. Of course others would argue most YouTube videos are about 10 minutes too long. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

As of Thursday, July 29th, YouTube has announced its increased its video content duration limit to 15 minutes. There's even a "15 Minutes of Fame" contest where if you tag your new 15 minute video, you may get your video featured on YouTube in a future spotlight.

The great thing about this is a lot of short films made by a lot of indie filmmakers could find there way on YouTube without having to edit them down. 10-15 minutes are the usual short film average running times but with the old 10 minute mark it was always cutting it close. Of course, this also means that awful YouTube films just got more awful, now taking even longer to end. All in all, it's a feature update most YouTube users and their audiences will appreciate.

Maybe the time has finally arrived after all, Mr. Warhol.

So YouTube has finally added a video editing capability. It's actually pretty snazzy, though its not likely to revolutionize video editing in general, but it does give you some added creative possibilities with your online videos.

Up till now, all you could do was upload to YouTube whatever video you've got, whether its something taken with a point and shoot in a dark bar or your film school magnum opus, and that's that. Hopefully you'd remember to actually title it something. In that case you were way ahead of the game compared to most. 

Now, you have the added capability of taking pieces of your uploaded videos and combining them into whatever new videos you'd like to create. Kind of like a DJ mash up, a VJ mash up if you will (Bonus points to anyone who remembers where the term VJ actually originated from). You can take cuts from a single video multiple times and just keep repeating their placements in the timeline to create a shorter, condensed, and better edited version of the video, and also combine other video footage with it. It's actually pretty cool.

Audio is a bit tricky, unless you want to replace the sound entirely from YouTube's built in library. That'll put some banner advertisements on your page, but music is definitely an added plus considering there really isn't any special audio editing you can do. So unless you like abrupt sound cuts and audio spikes, I suggest rethinking your opinion on montages. They maybe cliche, but they always work in a pinch.

Some of you maybe thinking you can now create a completely new video from scratch using this new YouTube feature as an "online video editor," but that's really not the case. In theory you could try, but it would be a pretty painstaking process, especially if you've got a lot of footage to parse and edit. But if you have only a few clips of video you'd like to string together, this new YouTube editor will do just that.

Overall, a much needed and appreciated extra perk from the folks at YouTube.

What a week on YouTube. First, they launched an experimental version of an HTML5-supported player in TestTube. This new player means that the user no-longer needs a Flash plug-in to view YouTube content. Although the majority of users already have Flash installed on their machines, this will speed up playback, as HTML is the native language for browsers. I've had a chance to play around with it, and there are a few limitations with the experimental version.

1. It's not available in all browsers yet. If you are using Chrome, Safari, or ChromeFrame for IE you can start using it. Firefox, Opera, and IE users will have to wait.
2. It doesn't support videos with ads, captions, or annotations yet. If you are viewing a video that has those, then YouTube will automatically switch over to Flash.
3. It doesn't appear to support HD playback yet. We'll see what happens in the next few months - I bet that all the issues above will be resolved by April. Vimeo also launched an HTML5 player this week.

YouTube also launched a music discovery service that will compete with Songza, Pandora, and Last.fm. We're big Songza fans at Martini, but I LOVE the URL youtube.com/disco. The search button even says "Disco!" Yes, complete with an exclamation point. I entered "Hot Chip" (then pressed "Disco!"), and YouTube listed all of Hot Chip's videos and started playing the video for "Ready for the Floor," the first on the list. There was also a band bio section, related artists, and a suggested "Mix Tape" with Hot Chip and other titles I might like. Like the other services, I can save the songs I like in my playlist. Pretty impressed so far. The last major announcement is their redesign. They've done away with the 5-star rating system and replaced it with like and dislike buttons, which makes more sense since that's how people think. There is also a much greater emphasis on sharing (bigger buttons) and viewing related videos (related videos now take up the whole right panel). Saving and statistics also received a greater emphasis. There is no longer an "HD" option - that has been replaced with 360p, 480p, and 720p, perhaps reflected the growth of HD content online and a more video-savvy audience. The new design can be seen here, you can opt out by selecting "Return to the old YouTube" in the upper-right corner.

Google announced last week that they will release a new feature on YouTube that automatically captions YouTube videos. This means that not only will videos be more accessible to people with disabilities, but they can also be translated into other languages based on browser settings. These are two huge barriers for video content that will be overcome once Google starts rolling out the technology to a broader audience. This news also means that video content will be more searchable. Currently, most video SEO is determined by titles, file names, and various tagging. With the new caption system, searchers can achieve richer results by discovering snippets of text that may have been left out of the tags or titles. We're excited to see the captions when they launch, and to see the results they can bring for our clients!