Google is well known for testing the hell out of even the smallest of changes. When it couldn’t decide between two shades of blue, it tested 41 different shades of blue on users to statistically determine which one yields best results. In fact, most of the new features that were revealed in the recent YouTube redesign were spotted by users months in advance. At any point of time, there are dozens (hundreds?) of different variations of Google services being tested in the wild. Earlier this week, two hawk-eyed Neowin users spotted a couple of YouTube features that we haven’t seen before.

The first screenshot, shared by FMH, shows a revamped video suggestions sidebar. The new sidebar looks a lot more attractive, thanks to the increased prominence of images. Compared to the current sidebar, it’s also a lot more compact, but it loses several pieces of metadata about the video, including duration, uploader, and view count.

The second variant, which was spotted by bogas04, features an improved seek bar. When hovering over the video timeline, a thumbnail preview of the frame you are about to seek to pops up. Unlike the first change, which I have mixed opinions about, this seems to be a nice usability improvement that should make rewinding and jumping ahead to a particular moment more convenient.

After Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Opera, YouTube is the latest bigwig to publish its own annual top 10 list. If 2009 was the year of Miley Cyrus and 2010 was the year of Justin Bieber, 2011 will go down as the year of Rebecca Black. Rebecca Black’s Friday, which often appears to have more haters than admirers, collected more than 180 million views. Other entries in the list include viral sensations like talking dog, talking twin babies and Nyan cat.

YouTube received more than 1 trillion playbacks in 2011, which amounts to about 140 views for every person on Earth! The most viewed channels were Machinama, IGN, and RayWilliamJohnson. Among videos from major music labels, Jennifer Lopez’s On The Floor and LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem proved to be the biggest hits.

You can head over to YouTube.com/Rewind to browse through some of the biggest sensations of the year. YouTube has put together top 10s for a wide range of categories including fashion, beauty, sports, gaming, travel, fitness, food, science, tech reviews, family, pets, and wedding proposals.

Most viewed YouTube videos globally (excluding videos from major music labels)

Rebecca Black – Friday (OFFICIAL VIDEO)
Ultimate Dog Tease
Jack Sparrow (feat. Michael Bolton)
Talking Twin Babies – PART 2 – OFFICIAL VIDEO
Nyan Cat [original]
Look At Me Now – Chris Brown ft. Lil Wayne, Busta Rhymes (Cover by @KarminMusic)
The Creep (feat. Nicki Minaj & John Waters)
Maria Aragon – Born This Way (Cover) by Lady Gaga
The Force: Volkswagen Commercial
Cat mom hugs baby kitten

Most viewed YouTube channels globally (excluding channels from major music labels)
machinima
IGNentertainment
RayWilliamJohnson
expertvillage
BlueXephos
smosh
realannoyingorange
roosterteeth
thelonelyisland
barelypolitical

Most watched videos from major music labels globally

Jennifer Lopez – On The Floor ft. Pitbull
LMFAO – Party Rock Anthem ft. Lauren Bennett, GoonRock
Bruno Mars – The Lazy Song [Official Video]
Nicki Minaj – Super Bass
Pitbull – Give Me Everything ft. Ne-Yo, Afrojack, Nayer
Pitbull – Rain Over Me ft. Marc Anthony
Jessie J – Price Tag ft. B.o.B.
LMFAO – Sexy and I Know It
Katy Perry – E.T. ft. Kanye West
Katy Perry – Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)

Some highlights from other categories:
Zach Wahls Speaks About Family was the most-watched political video
Japan Earthquake: Helicopter aerial view video of giant tsunami waves was the most-watched news video
25 Ways to Wear a Scarf in 4.5 Minutes! was the most watched how-tovideo
iPhone 5 Concept Features was the most-watched science/technology video
Immortals was the most-watched movie trailer
Mountain Biker gets taken out by Buck was the most-watched sports video was the most-watched political video

YouTube has unveiled what is possibly the biggest redesign since its launch. The new design makes a conscious effort to increase user engagement by leveraging channels and social media. The homepage makes it easier than ever before to view videos that you want to watch. A Facebook-like activity stream is at the front and center of the new design. Tabs on the left hand side allow instant switching between different streams, while the right hand side houses video and channel recommendations. Facebook and Google+ streams feature videos shared by your friends and contacts, while Trending and Popular steams house the latest viral sensations from across the web.

Channels themselves have been updated with new templates to make discovering videos easier. Users can check on their favorite channels without leaving the homepage or subscribe to channels while watching a video. The overall design has also been improved vastly. Google has incorporated the best aspects of Cosmic Panda to create a livelier and richer experience. “We’ve used your feedback to improve our overall design, and today, we’re presenting a cleaner and simpler YouTube, with a consistent gray background, bigger video thumbnails and a more streamlined watch page”, read the official announcement.

Head over to YouTube.com or view the video embedded above to check out the new YouTube. In the short time that I have used it, I have found the new design to be a lot more intuitive and elegant, besides being functional. There are a few oddities here and there though. Videos shared by people not in my circles show up in my Google Plus stream on occasions, and videos that you have watched aren’t automatically replaced with newer ones. However, as is typical with any redesign, there is already a minor backlash against it from avid YouTube users. Don’t forget to let us how you feel about the new YouTube.

YouTube is probably the only Google service which hasn’t been redesigned for a while. We have recently learned that YouTube is testing another major design overhaul in the lines of Cosmic Panda, a fresh version of the 6 month old redesign experiment. No wonder the upcoming YouTube redesign is synonymous with the redesign of Gmail, Google Reader, Google Adsense and other Google services;   the sole aim being Google Plus integration.

The new homepage and design changes on YouTube haven’t been rolled out yet, but you can preview it using the following hack:

1. Open YouTube.com on Google Chrome and fire up the developers tools panel by hitting Control + Shift + J. Firefox users should use Control + Shift + K instead.

2. Click Console and enter this string as it is:

document.cookie=”VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=ST1Ti53r4fU”;

3. Hit the Return key once.

5. Refresh the page by hitting F5 on your keyboard.

Done!

The page will reload and YouTube’s hidden design will be brought into light. Have a look below:

Instead of the classic 2 column layout, YouTube plans to go three column over a subtle grey background. The subscription timeline is centered while channel recommendations and related videos lay on both sides of the timeline. Video pages will remain 2 column though.

The left column has a new member in the form of G+, clicking which shows all the YouTube videos your Google Plus friends have shared recently. You can also click trending videosand currently popularon the left column to see which videos are being watched by the entire community of YouTube users across the globe.

The new design feels good to my eyes and unlike Gmail or Google Reader, this one is a little more compact and has better calls to action. Barring colors, Google Plus video stream and minor modifications on the layout, it is still the old YouTube where I spend more than an hour daily.

If you would like to take an inside peek into YouTube’s upcoming design changes, watch the following screencast:

Thanks Jatin for the tip

Katy Perry can breathe a little easier now. It turns out she wasn’t the steamiest thing to hit Sesame Street after all. According to ABC affiliate, KGO, YouTube took down the children’s entertainment channel for  ”repeated or severe violations of our Community Guidelines”. The violation you ask? Porn!

Before you fall out of your chair, know that Sesame Street’s channel was hacked. The hackers uploaded several porn movies to the site. According to an article by Naked Security (no pun intended) author, Graham Cluley, the porn was available for the world to see for about 20 minutes before being taken down. At this time, YouTube and Sesame Street are staying silent about it.

Not only did the hacker’s upload porn, they also managed to change the profile page for the channel. Here is an excerpt, which was caught by Naked Security’s blog:

WHO DOESN’T LOVE PORN KIDS? RIGHT! EVERYONE LOVES IT! IM MREDXWX AND MY PARTNER MRSUICIDER91 ARE HERE TO BRING YOU MANY NICE CONTENT! PLEASE DON’T LET SESAME STREET TO GET THIS ACCOUNT BACK KIDS :( PLEASE…LET ME AND MRSUICIDER91 HAVE IT AND WE GONNA MAKE ALL THE AMERICA HAPPY!

The YouTube profile MrEdxwx, mentioned in the quote is a legitimate channel, but they are adamantly denying having any role in this hack. It appears they are a gaming channel. According to their profile  they state, “Please understand i did not hack sesame street , i RESPECT youtube community guidelines !” They also posted a plea in the form of a video, which you can view below.

It has barely been a year since Sesame Street pulled a duet between Katy Perry and Elmo from their show. Her outfit is pictured at the top of the article. You can see why some parents were a little concerned about the amount of cleavage their 6 year olds were going to be exposed to. Compared to today’s events, Katy Perry pales in comparison.

I remember back when Miss Piggy and Kermit were the only “steamy” romance on the block. It is a real shame that people have nothing better to do with their time than try to expose millions of children to pornography. I have to wonder if this has anything to do with Reddit’s recent decision to ban /r/jailbait, which was a very controversial child porn site, being shut down recently. Who knows? What I do know is that if these folks have the knowledge to hack a site like this, they ought to have the knowledge to do something constructive for society at large. Instead, they spend their time victimizing the most innocent of us all, our children.

The much anticipated and very soon-to-be-announced Nexus from Google and Samsung has been teased. If you watched the video, you’ve been longing for a bit more. A bit more has been provided.

If the snapshot above looks a bit too curvy, it’s because it’s emphasised by the contrast and then drawn out by a razor-thin light shining from behind. We can easily make out 3 contact pins which are likely for a dock, a camera shutter button and a rather bulbous housing at the rear. Chances are, you’re going to watch the video again and pause it to try and make out some more detail. Don’t bother.

A cleaned up and modified image from the Samsung Teaser video has been floating around the web. Some kind chap took the liberty of putting his photoshopping skills to work. After removing the backdrop, punching up some color compensation and I’m sure a bit of the clone tool was used, the image left is one to behold.

If the rumoured specifications are true, the next Google flagship is going to absolutely be the next clamoured-after device. BGR, having a penchant for posting ‘sourced’ exclusive rumours, has published full specs of the upcoming device.

• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• 9mm thin
• 4.65-inch 1280 x 720-pixel Super AMOLED HD with curved glass
• TI OMAP 4460 dual-core Cortex A9 processor clocked at 1.2GHz
• 1GB of RAM
• 32GB of built-in storage
• 5-megapixel camera on the back, 1.3-megapixel in the front
• 1080p HD video capture support
• LTE/HSPA depending on carrier
• Wi-Fi a/b/g/n
• NFC
• 1,750 mAh battery

The specs are nothing crazy, making them that much more believable…except the powerhouse stuffed inside the Android slab. TI’s OMAP 4460 is a beast of a SoC to dump into a phone, but OMAP4 is the reference platform for Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0) so, again, it’s very likely believable. The screen size and resolution are perfectly aligned with what’s been trending in the industry. Competitor devices, such as the recently announced HTC Sensation XL, are hitting 10mm measurements and come packed with the full gamut of connectivity. Huge batteries are getting shoved inside small phones in order to power larger screens and NFC chips, while still allowing you to get a day’s worth of work done on a single charge.

Even if none of the extremely likely, highly believable and trending rumours are true, one thing is for sure, Samsung’s UNPACKED event is highly anticipated and I hope they can deliver.

Shahrukh Khan, arguably the biggest Bollywood superstar, has upped the ante for digital marketing for his upcoming film Ra.One. The movie, a superhero flick, has an official YouTube channel with videos of making, the cast and crew interviews, and the promotional events. Another partnership with Indiagames has seen the launch of Ra.One social game that would reach out to over 500 million users through DTH and a Facebook game.

The latest step in the digital arena is Shahrukh Khan being the first verified Indian celeb on Google+. Over the last 2 weeks, Google has reactively removed many fake Shah Rukh profiles. Of course, this is a move from Google to popularize its new social network: Google+. In the US, celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton already have verified profiles on the social network.

Shahrukh Khan might be cheesy in his interviews and mass-market in his approach to cinema, but is well respected as a keen businessman. His indulgence in cricket where he owns the Kolkata Knightriders franchise has seen the company profiting even when the team hasn’t done well on the field. His star power is infectious, and he has always garnered successful partnerships with brands.

Going digital with Ra.One is probably the first step in a continued and sustained effort. While a movie builds digital content in an organic, steps like online premiere and digital music downloads further the reach and also gain mindshare amongst digital industry.

Google Everywhere

It is hard to go online today without touching one or more Google products or services. If it is not search, it may be email, YouTube, Blogger, Picasa, Docs, or Calendar. Google has truly blanketed us with their web-based app offerings. Heck, even the Google Doodle is a conversation topic!

In this editorial, I shall discuss how you can kick the Google habit, what I am using now as alternatives and why you probably won’t be able to replace certain Google products today. Ready to move away from Google? First, some background.

Why un-Google?

Some of the reasons I personally decided to look for alternatives:

• Google became a part of virtually everything I did online. I used GMail, Google Reader, Google Finance, Blogger, Picasa, Picasa Web, Google Docs, Google Search, Google Calendar and Google Maps. I felt uncomfortable putting such a large portion of my online life in Google’s hands.
• Google morphed from the cool little startup building fun stuff for consumers, to a dominant public company whose revenues essentially came from just one product. That’s the key most (96%) of its revenues (and profits) came from search advertising. In other words, it needed other ways to make money. The most obvious way to do so would be to extend the arm of advertising, their main revenue-generating product, into other products. I realized I was the merchandise.
• Google seemed to get Apple and Facebook envy. Apple was growing rapidly across all their product lines and at very high profit margins, and Facebook was taking eyeballs and key talent away from Google. This led to some bad attempts to mock Apple and Facebook publicly, which of course delighted the Google developer and enthusiast community but came off as being negative to me. If you make a great product, you don’t need a negative campaign.
• Aside from philosophy, some of the competing products started becoming better, and Google’s products started getting worse (more on that within my descriptions) prompting me to start Project Un-Google which was an effort to use fewer and fewer Google products, hopefully reaching a point where I did not depend on any Google product at all.

Whether it is for philosophy, or hedging your web app bets, it is good to know there is life outside Google when it comes to products and services online and offline. There is usually a strong resistance to change, especially if you have a long history with a product. There is a high cost for transferring the old stuff, and learning your way around a new product/service. However, these challenges are not insurmountable, and I hope you take a look at some or all of the products I list here as an alternative to Google. If you have ideas of other products I may not have mentioned, please let me know!

Popular Google products

Here are some of the Google products/services I will be comparing to competition:

• Search
• Picasa
• GMail
• Calendar
• Documents
• Groups
• Finance
• Blogger
• Chrome
• Maps/Directions
• Talk/Chat/Voice

I realize Google has many more products, appsand services, but I did not look at products like Book Search which are very niche. My attempt here is to look at the commonly used products and services only.

On September 11th 2001, al-Qaeda  terrorist attacks in the United States rocked the entire  world leaving them distressed and terrified. The devastating terrorist attack took away more than 3,000 lives, and the day still remains engraved in the minds of not only the Americans, but also the entire world.

YouTube in collaboration with The New York Times is marking the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attack by launching a dedicated YouTube Channel  called “Reflections on 9/11“, featuring special videos and content from the New York Times, archived news broadcasts from September 2001, and personal stories of those people whose lives were deeply affected by the attacks.

Olivia Ma, YouTube News & Politics Manager, wrote in a blog post stating, Through telling and sharing stories, we can all hope to make sense of an event that, for many of us, was one of the defining moments of our lives. Thank you for sharing yours.

YouTube is seeking its subscribers to create videos by sharing their stories, and uploading them on the site. It is working to  collaborate  with Storyful, which will pick some of the best videos, and feature them on The New York Times websites and also on the YouTube home page on September 11 this year.

Users need to create a video based on the following questions -

• Your strongest memory of that day or that time period
• How 9/11 changed you, and how you believe it changed America
• What you lost – or gained — because of 9/11

The videos must be submitted to –  http://www.youtube.com/September11

Currently the channel hosts a story told by 9/11 widow Alissa Torres, who was seven months pregnant at the time of the attack. Torres went on to write the comic book, “American Widow.”

Heeeeeeere’s some fun news for you! YouTube’s Official Blog  announced yesterday the official    Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson  channel. For those of you who may be to young, or have lived under a rock all your life, Johnny Carson was considered the king of late night TV. For 30 years his show dominated late night TV. His show was the platform that launched the careers of many of today’s  stars. Most any late night host today will tell you of Johnny’s influence on their personal style.

Courtesy of YouTube

The new YouTube channel plans to add new Carson clips each week. They are also taking requests from subscribers to their channel. When you go to the channel, make sure you take a look at Howie Mandell’s picks. He has hand picked some of his favorite videos to share with the community. He also shares some of his own personal memories of the show.

The timing of this announcement by YouTube is interesting, because Fox News also reported yesterday, in an article entitled “YouTube Joins Wal-Mart in Streaming Video“, that YouTube is in the final planning stages to offer a paid movie streaming service. According to the article, YouTube hopes to capitalize on the Android market’s success and offer it’s streaming video service hopefully before the end of the year. This seem like a natural transition for them and they certainly have the brand recognition to pull it off. Now one can only hope that this doesn’t negatively affect the YouTube service that so many of us already enjoy.