What’s Happening or Latest News

The Straits Times is an English-language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore currently owned by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). It is the country’s highest-selling paper, with a current Sunday Times circulation of nearly 365,800. Originally established on 15 July 1845 as the The Straits times and Singapore journal of commerce, in the early days of British colonial rule, and may be considered the successor to various other newspapers during the time such as the Singapore Chronicle. After Singapore became independent from Malaysia on 9 August 1965, the paper became more focused on the island leading to the creation of the New Straits Times for Malaysian readers. SPH also publishes two other English-language dailies; the broadsheet The Business Times and The New Paper tabloid. The Straits Times is a member of the Asia News Network.

History

The Straits Times was started by an Armenian, Catchick Moses. Moses’s friend, Martyrose Apcar, had intended to start a local paper, but met with financial difficulties. To fulfil his friend’s dream, Moses took over and appointed Robert Carr Woods as editor. On 15 July 1845, The Straits Times was launched as an eight-page weekly, published at 7 Commercial Square using a hand-operated press. The subscription fee then was Sp.$1.75 per month. In September 1846, he sold the paper to Robert Woods because the press proved unprofitable to run. On 20 February 1942, five days after the British had surrendered to the Japanese, The Straits Times became known as The Shonan Times and The Syonan Shimbun. This name change lasted until 5 September 1945, when Singapore returned to British rule.

Coverage

The Straits Times functions with 16 bureaus and special correspondents in major cities worldwide. The paper itself is published in four segments: the main section focuses on Asian and international news, with sub-sections of columns and editorials and the “Forum Page” (letters to the press). The “Home” section focuses on local news, together with sports and finance pages, which sometimes may be separated into a different section themselves. There is a classified ads and job listing section, followed by a separate lifestyle, entertainment and the arts section that is titled “Life!”. On Saturdays, there is a separate “Saturday” section, which includes a special report (feature), and a science section, which reports on latest scientific developments. Currently the newspaper publishes three weekly pull-outs (“Digital Life”, “Mind Your Body”, and “Urban” on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday respectively). All three pull-outs are printed in tabloid format. The newspaper also publishes special editions for primary and secondary schools in Singapore. The primary-school version contains a special pull-out, titled “Little Red Dot” and the secondary-school version contains a pull-out titled “In”. The Straits Times is the only English language newspaper with an active Internet forum in Singapore. A separate edition The Sunday Times is published on Sundays.

Straits Times Interactive

Launched on 1 January 1994, The Straits Times Interactive was free of charge and granted access to all the sections and articles found in the print edition. On 1 January 2005, the online version began requiring registration and after a short period became a paid-access-only site. Currently, only people who subscribe to the online edition can read all the articles on the Internet, including the frequently updated “Latest News” section. A free section, featuring a selection of news stories, is currently available at the site. Regular podcast, vodcast and twice-daily—mid-day and evening updates—radio-news bulletins are also available for free online. The Straits Times’s decision to make its online edition almost entirely subscription-funded is in contrast to other traditional newspapers online editions, which often charge only for certain sections, such as archives, or for digital editions.

Community programmes

The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund: The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund was initiated on Children’s Day (October 1) in the year 1993 by The Straits Times, to heighten public awareness of the plight of children from low-income families who were attending school without proper breakfast, or pocket money to sustain their day in school. The aim is to alleviate the financial burden faced by parents in providing for their children’s education. At the same time the funds will help children who are already facing difficulties in remaining in school to stay on. In the past few years, members of the public, schools and corporations responded generously after reading stories highlighting children especially those from single parent families who were most affected. Since donations to the fund are collected prior to the year it is disbursed, donations received in a given year go on to help the people who apply to the fund the following year. An estimate on the amount that needs to be raised is based on the projection provided by the National Council of Social Service. The National Council of Social Services which administers the funds, makes quarterly disbursements to agencies, such as the Family Service Centres (FSC) Special schools and Children’s Homes to benefit their eligible clients. Currently 38 FSCs, 22 Special Schools and 13 Children’s Homes have been commissioned to administer the scheme. Agencies approval is based on a set of eligibility criteria and assessment of the family’s financial situation. Based on the assessment of the case, social workers recommend the disbursement. The approval of either the Director of the Family Service Centre, Principal of a Special School or Head of a home is required for each application. 10% of all donations go to the National Council of Social Service for their administrative costs. Singapore Press Holdings does not take any cut of any donations. From 1 January 2008, primary school pupils will receive $45 a month, up from $35, while secondary school students will get $80, up from the current $60 Chua, Grace & Lim, Jessica (2008). More help for pocket money fund students. Other qualifying criteria will also be tweaked Children from families earning up to $450 a person, or $1,800 for a family of four, can now apply for help from the fund. Previously, the income cut-off was $300 a head. Students will also be eligible for funding until they complete secondary school, instead of up to age 17, as was the case previously. The Straits Times Media Club: The Straits Times Media Club is a youth programme to encourage youth readership and interest in news and current affairs. Schools will have to subscribe for at least 500 copies, and will receive their papers every Monday. A youth newspaper, IN, is slotted in together with the main paper for the students. The Straits Times School of Rock Competition: The Straits Times School of Rock Competition was incepted in 2005. Budding young bands with members aged between 13 to 18 compete to be the ultimate youth band in Singapore. The finals of the competition was held at a local shopping mall in small town, Junction 8 Shopping Centre on 1 January 2005. The Straits Times National Schools Newspaper Competition: The National Schools Newspaper Competition started its inaugural year in 2005. Although 20 schools qualified for the semi-finals based on their school newsletters, only 10 schools made it to the finals. These 10 secondary schools then participate in the finals at the SPH News Centre.

Criticism

The Straits Times has been criticized as being the mouthpiece of the ruling party, the People’s Action Party, and lacks the freedom to criticize the government. The Newspaper and Printing Presses Act of 1974 requires all newspapers to be publicly listed into both ordinary and management shares, with management shares having 200 times the voting rights of ordinary shares and approval from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts needed for any management share transfers. Past chairpersons of Singapore Press Holdings have been civil servants. SPH’s former executive president, Tjong Yik Min, served as the head of the Internal Security Department from 1986 to 1993. In his memoir OB Markers: My Straits Times Story, former editor-in-chief Cheong Yip Seng recounts how, since 1986, there has been a government-appointed “monitor” at the newspaper, “someone who could watch to see if indeed the newsroom was beyond control”, and that disapproval of the “monitor” could cost a reporter or editor their job. Cheong identifies the first monitor as S. R. Nathan, director of the Ministry of Defence’s Security and Intelligence Division and later president of Singapore. Former Minister George Yeo, when he held the portfolio of Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, stressed that the media was not to be a “fourth estate” in ruling the country; the role of the press was to aid “nation building”, in view of Singapore’s heterogeneous society and peculiar vulnerabilities as a small nation. Cherian George, a former art editor of the paper, has once described press workings in Singapore in a convention conference in 1998 at the University of California, Berkeley: In the Singapore model, the elected government is the expression of democracy, and it is protected from the press, which is unelected and therefore undemocratic…. “the ‘freedom from the press’ model does mean that newspapers must operate within much narrower perimeters than their counterparts in most parts of the world. It must accept its subordinate role in society…The tone of stories must be respectful towards the country’s leaders. They can be critical, but they cannot ridicule or lampoon.

Other incidents

Owing to political sensitivities, The Straits Times is not sold in neighboring Malaysia, and the Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times is not sold in Singapore. The ban was imposed before the 31 August 1957 general election in Malaysia. On 1 January 2005, the governments of both countries discussed lifting the ban with Singapore’s former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew speaking in favour of such a move, although Malaysian politicians were more wary. At one point during a dispute over the sale of water, the newspaper was banned in Malaysia.

MediaCorp

MediaCorp Pte Ltd, better known as MediaCorp, is a group of commercial media companies in Singapore, with business interests in television and radio broadcasting, interactive media, and, to a lesser extent, print publishing and filmmaking. Currently, MediaCorp runs 7 television channels and 13 radio channels, making it the largest media broadcaster and provider in Singapore, and the only terrestrial TV broadcaster in that city-state. It is wholly owned by Temasek Holdings, a government-owned investment arm.

History

Before 12 February 2001, MediaCorp was formerly known as: Television Singapore (TV Singapore, 15 February 1963 – 30 December 1963) Television Malaysia (Singapore) (28 December 1963 – 8 August 1965) Radio and Television Singapore (RTS, 9 August 1965 – 31 January 1980) Singapore Broadcasting Corporation (SBC, 1 February 1980 – 30 September 1994) Television Corporation of Singapore (TCS), Radio Corporation of Singapore (RCS) and Singapore Television Twelve (STV12) (1 October 1994 – 11 February 2001)

TV

MediaCorp offers seven free terrestrial television channels, and one high-definition channel. As a result of the MediaCorp-MediaWorks merger in late 2004, Singapore Press Holdings currently holds a 20% interest in MediaCorp’s TV operations. (Channel 5, Channel 8, Suria, Vasanthm, Channel U, Okto, ChannelNewsAsia, HD5)

Radio

MediaCorp offers thirteen free-to-air radio channels, as well as Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) service. DAB Radio is set to be discontinued on 1 December 2011 due to low listenership. (Ria 89.7FM, Gold 90.5FM, Symphony 92.4FM, Y.E.S. 93.3FM, 938LIVE, Warna 94.2FM, Class 95FM, Capital 95.8FM, XFM 96.3FM, Oli 96.8FM, Love 97.2FM, 987FM, Lush 99.5FM)

Channel NewsAsia

Channel NewsAsia (abbreviated CNA) is an English language Asia-Pacific news network based in Singapore and owned by MediaCorp. Started on 1 March 1999 based in Singapore by Television Corporation of Singapore, it was launched internationally on 12 February 2001 as the international broadcasting arm of Channel NewsAsia. It is now viewed in 24 territories across Asia. The satellite footprint of the channel stretches across the Middle East, much of Asia, and Australia.

Unique features

When an interviewee gives his/her views in a language other than English an Channel NewsAsia does not superimpose the original audio with a voice translation unlike other news organisations. Instead an English subtitle appears preserving and complementing the original audio. This includes programmes that use Indonesian and Malay as their main language.

Key Personnel

Managing Director: Debra Soon Chief Editor, English News Output: Lian Pek Vice-President, English Current Affairs: Tan Lek Hwa Vice-President, Production Services: Norraine Yusof Vice-President, Network Programming and Promotions: Donovan Castillo Mohlman Vice-President, Network Distribution: Woon Chuk Chan Vice-President, Corporate Communications: Han Chuan Quee Vice-President, Regional Sales: Jeanie Ho Assistant Vice-President, Business Development: Yong Chung Jin Assistant Vice-President, Network Programming and Promotions: Rohana Mohamed Voice-Over Announcer, Andrew Crothers

Programmes and presenters

Channel NewsAsia is an international news channel focusing primarily on Asian news, information and current affairs. Each of its news bulletins run for half-hour, starting at the top of the hour except for AM Live! which runs for two consecutive hours and Primetime Asia which runs for one hour. The bottom of the hour features documentaries, lifestyle programming, health programming, current affairs and business news. The channel now airs programmes 24 hours a day with some programmes broadcast from the channel’s new studios at the DBS Building in Marina Bay. The station also produces news stories for the newscast on Singapore’s only English language general-entertainment channel, MediaCorp TV Channel 5. In addition, after major regional or international news bulletins, a weather forecast of key global cities is shown. Also, before the top of selected hours the World Live by EarthTV is also shown.

Feeds and ticker

Channel NewsAsia has two separate feeds namely a Singapore feed — Channel NewsAsia Singapore — and International feed — Channel NewsAsia International. Both feeds have the almost the same programmes especially since Singapore Tonight and Singapore Business Tonight started airing live Internationally in July 2008. The exception to this is 20/20 and Singapore Connect @ 6 which only air in Singapore. Other important differences include a short, one-minute Singapore Update at various times of the day in the Singapore feed, the content of advertising where those in the Singapore feed cater to local audiences and the order in which magazine programmes/documentaries are aired within the week. In addition, the Singapore feed is supplemented by a Teletext service. Furthermore during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, viewers in Singapore were given more highlights of the games than regional viewers. Channel NewsAsia Singapore feed is available as a free-to-air television network in Singapore hence cable or IPTV subscription isn’t required to receive the channel. Channel NewsAsia International is available on the AsiaSat 3S satellite as well as various cable/satellite operators. The news and stock ticker tape is a permanent feature on Channel NewsAsia International and since 12 February 2001 has not been taken off the air during commercials. This allows for uninterrupted viewing of the latest news and stock prices. Singapore viewers are given local news and live prices from the Singapore Stock Exchange (SSX) as well; regional viewers are given delayed stock prices from various regional exchanges. In addition Singapore and international viewers do get a timepiece on Primetime Morning.

Website

The Channel NewsAsia website features news and video reports from Singapore, Asia and international locations as well as business, sports, technology, entertainment and special reports. Various presenters and correspondents maintain blogs on this site. The site also has a 7-day archive of news. A live stream of Channel NewsAsia International is available on the channel’s website in areas covered by AsiaSat 3S (including Singapore). “YOURNEWS” is a feature on this site where viewers can upload first-hand footage of news events happening in their area and visitors can also view such footage. The channel used to maintain a website in Mandarin, which was discontinued in 1 January 2005.

Today (Singapore newspaper)

Today (Chinese: 今日报) is a free English-language compact in Singapore published by government-owned MediaCorp print media arm. It is distributed from Monday to Saturday. The newspaper is distributed to selected homes and at MRT stations, bus interchanges, selected food and beverage outlets, shopping malls and other public areas. There are two editions to the paper, a morning and an afternoon edition. Its circulation is around 300,000, with more than half of its readers being professionals, managers, executives and business people.[citation needed] It is the second-most-read English-language newspaper in Singapore, after The Straits Times.

History

It was launched on 10 November 2000, as a rival to Streats, another English-language freesheet published by the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH). Initially, the newspaper was available only on weekdays. On 27 April 2002, a weekend edition, Weekend TODAY, was launched, which is available on Saturdays. Weekend TODAY was developed as a longer and leisurely read for the weekends, is distributed to more than 150,000 homes and available free of charge at the usual distribution outlets. In 2004, Streats was merged into the newspaper as a result of SPH and MediaCorp merging their television and free-newspaper operations. On 29 May 2011, a Sunday edition was launched, making TODAY a daily newspaper which provides news updates seven days a week.

TODAY Online Easy Reader

In addition to the print version of the newspaper, the TODAY Online Easy Reader is an application which allows readers to read the newspaper online as they do in print. It also allows for the downloading of the digital version as a PDF document.

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005 and owned by Google since late 2006, on which users can upload, view and share videos. The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5 technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, the BBC, Vevo, Hulu, and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can watch videos, while registered users can upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users at least 18 years old. YouTube, LLC was bought by Google for US$1.65 billion in November 2006 and now operates as a Google subsidiary.

Company history

YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. According to a story that has often been repeated in the media, Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen’s apartment in San Francisco. Karim did not attend the party and denied that it had occurred, while Chen commented that the idea that YouTube was founded after a dinner party “was probably very strengthened by marketing ideas around creating a story that was very digestible”. Karim said that the inspiration for YouTube came from Janet Jackson’s role in the 2004 Super Bowl incident, when her breast was accidentally exposed during her performance. Karim could not easily find a video clip of the incident online, which led to the idea of a video sharing site. Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service, and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. YouTube began as a venture-funded technology startup, primarily from a $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006. YouTube’s early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California.The domain name http://www.youtube.com was activated on February 14, 2005, and the website was developed over the subsequent months. The first YouTube video was entitled Me at the zoo, and shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo.The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and can still be viewed on the site. YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005, six months before the official launch in November 2005. The site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. According to data published by market research company comScore, YouTube is the dominant provider of online video in the United States, with a market share of around 43 percent and more than 14 billion videos viewed in May 2010. YouTube says that roughly 60 hours of new videos are uploaded to the site every minute, and that around three quarters of the material comes from outside the U.S.The site has 800 million unique users a month. It is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000. Alexa ranks YouTube as the third most visited website on the Internet, behind Google and Facebook. The choice of the name http://www.youtube.com led to problems for a similarly named website, http://www.utube.com. The owner of the site, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being overloaded on a regular basis by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to http://www.utubeonline.com. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006. Google does not provide detailed figures for YouTube’s running costs, and YouTube’s revenues in 2007 were noted as “not material” in a regulatory filing.In June 2008, a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 revenue at $200 million, noting progress in advertising sales. In January 2012, it was estimated that visitors to YouTube spent an average of 15 minutes a day on the site, in contrast to the four or five hours a day spent by a typical U.S. citizen watching television. YouTube entered into a marketing and advertising partnership with NBC in June 2006. In November 2008, YouTube reached an agreement with MGM, Lions Gate Entertainment, and CBS, allowing the companies to post full-length films and television episodes on the site, accompanied by advertisements in a section for US viewers called “Shows”. The move was intended to create competition with websites such as Hulu, which features material from NBC, Fox, and Disney. In November 2009, YouTube launched a version of “Shows” available to UK viewers, offering around 4,000 full-length shows from more than 60 partners. In January 2010, YouTube introduced an online film rentals service, which is available only to users in the US, Canada and the UK as of 2010.The service offers over 6,000 films. In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, including 60 cricket matches of the Indian Premier League. According to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event. On March 31, 2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface and increasing the time users spend on the site. Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented: “We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter.” In May 2010, it was reported that YouTube was serving more than two billion videos a day, which it described as “nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major US television networks combined”. In May 2011, YouTube reported in its company blog that the site was receiving more than three billion views per day. In January 2012, YouTube stated that the figure had increased to four billion videos streamed per day. In October 2010, Hurley announced that he would be stepping down as chief executive officer of YouTube to take an advisory role, and that Salar Kamangar would take over as head of the company. In April 2011, James Zern, a YouTube software engineer, revealed that 30 percent of videos accounted for 99 percent of views on the site. In November 2011, the Google+ social networking site was integrated directly with YouTube and the Chrome web browser, allowing YouTube videos to be viewed from within the Google+ interface. On December 1, 2011, YouTube launched a new version of the site interface, with the video channels displayed in a central column on the home page, similar to the news feeds of social networking sites. At the same time, a new version of the YouTube logo was introduced with a darker shade of red, the first change in design since October 2006. In May 2013, YouTube launched a pilot program to began offering some content providers the ability to charge $0.99 per month or more for certain channels, but the vast majority of its videos would remain free to view.

Features

Video technology: Playback: Viewing YouTube videos on a personal computer requires the Adobe Flash Player plug-in to be installed on the browser. The Adobe Flash Player plug-in is one of the most common pieces of software installed on personal computers and accounts for almost 75% of online video material. In January 2010, YouTube launched an experimental version of the site that uses the built-in multimedia capabilities of web browsers supporting the HTML5 standard. This allows videos to be viewed without requiring Adobe Flash Player or any other plug-in to be installed. The YouTube site has a page that allows supported browsers to opt into the HTML5 trial. Only browsers that support HTML5 Video using the H.264 or WebM formats can play the videos, and not all videos on the site are available. YouTube experimented with Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH), which is an adaptive bit-rate HTTP-based streaming solution optimizing the bitrate and quality for the available network. Currently they are using Adobe Dynamic Streaming for Flash. Uploading: All YouTube users can upload videos up to 15 minutes each in duration. Users who have a good track record of complying with the site’s Community Guidelines may be offered the ability to upload videos up to 12 hours in length, which requires verifying the account, normally through a mobile phone. When YouTube was launched in 2005, it was possible to upload long videos, but a ten-minute limit was introduced in March 2006 after YouTube found that the majority of videos exceeding this length were unauthorized uploads of television shows and films. The 10-minute limit was increased to 15 minutes in July 2010. File size is limited to 2 GB for uploads from the YouTube web page, or 20 GB if up-to-date browser versions are used. YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most container formats, including .AVI, .MKV, .MOV, .MP4, DivX, .FLV, and .ogg and .ogv. These include video formats such as MPEG-4, MPEG, VOB, and .WMV. It also supports 3GP, allowing videos to be uploaded from mobile phones. Videos with progressive scanning or interlaced scanning can be uploaded, but for the best video quality, YouTube suggests interlaced videos are deinterlaced prior to uploading. All the video formats on YouTube use progressive scanning. Quality and codecs: YouTube originally offered videos at only one quality level, displayed at a resolution of 320×240 pixels using the Sorenson Spark codec (a variant of H.263), with mono MP3 audio. In June 2007, YouTube added an option to watch videos in 3GP format on mobile phones. In March 2008, a high quality mode was added, which increased the resolution to 480×360 pixels. In November 2008, 720p HD support was added. At the time of the 720p launch, the YouTube player was changed from a 4:3 aspect ratio to a widescreen 16:9. With this new feature, YouTube began a switchover to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC as its default video compression format. In November 2009, 1080p HD support was added. In July 2010, YouTube announced that it had launched a range of videos in 4K format, which allows a resolution of up to 4096×3072 pixels. However, it was lowered to 2048 x 1536 as of 2012. YouTube videos are available in a range of quality levels. The former names of standard quality (SQ), high quality (HQ) and high definition (HD) have been replaced by numerical values representing the vertical resolution of the video. The default video stream is encoded in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format, with stereo AAC audio. 3D videos: In a video posted on July 21, 2009, YouTube software engineer Peter Bradshaw announced that YouTube users can now upload 3D videos. The videos can be viewed in several different ways, including the common anaglyph (cyan/red lens) method which utilizes glasses worn by the viewer to achieve the 3D effect.The YouTube Flash player can display stereoscopic content interleaved in rows, columns or a checkerboard pattern, side-by-side or anaglyph using a red/cyan, green/magenta or blue/yellow combination. In May 2011, an HTML5 version of the YouTube player began supporting side-by-side 3D footage that is compatible with Nvidia 3D Vision. Content accessibility: YouTube offers users the ability to view its videos on web pages outside their website. Each YouTube video is accompanied by a piece of HTML that can be used to embed it on any page on the Web. This functionality is often used to embed YouTube videos in social networking pages and blogs. Users wishing to post a video discussing, inspired by or related to another user’s video are able to make a “video response”. On August 27, 2013, YouTube announced that it would remove video responses for being an underused feature. Embedding, rating, commenting and response posting can be disabled by the video owner. YouTube does not usually offer a download link for its videos, and intends for them to be viewed through its website interface. A small number of videos, such as the weekly addresses by President Barack Obama, can be downloaded as MP4 files. Numerous third-party web sites, applications and browser plug-ins allow users to download YouTube videos. In February 2009, YouTube announced a test service, allowing some partners to offer video downloads for free or for a fee paid through Google Checkout. In June 2012, Google sent cease and desist letters threatening legal action against several websites offering online download and conversion of YouTube videos. In response, Zamzar removed the ability to download YouTube videos from its site. The default settings when uploading a video to YouTube will retain a copyright on the video for the uploader, but since July 2012 it has been possible to select a Creative Commons license as the default, allowing other users to reuse and remix the material if it is free of copyright. Platforms: Some smartphones are capable of accessing YouTube videos, dependent on the provider and the data plan. YouTube Mobile was launched in June 2007, using RTSP streaming for the video. Not all of YouTube’s videos are available on the mobile version of the site. Since June 2007, YouTube’s videos have been available for viewing on a range of Apple products. This required YouTube’s content to be transcoded into Apple’s preferred video standard, H.264, a process that took several months. YouTube videos can be viewed on devices including Apple TV, iPod Touch and the iPhone. In July 2010, the mobile version of the site was relaunched based on HTML5, avoiding the need to use Adobe Flash Player and optimized for use with touch screen controls. The mobile version is also available as an app for the Android platform. In September 2012, YouTube launched its first app for the iPhone, following the decision to drop YouTube as one of the preloaded apps in the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 operating system. A TiVo service update in July 2008 allowed the system to search and play YouTube videos. In January 2009, YouTube launched “YouTube for TV”, a version of the website tailored for set-top boxes and other TV-based media devices with web browsers, initially allowing its videos to be viewed on the PlayStation 3 and Wii video game consoles. In June 2009, YouTube XL was introduced, which has a simplified interface designed for viewing on a standard television screen. YouTube is also available as an app on Xbox Live. On November 15, 2012, Google launched an official app for the Wii, allowing users to watch YouTube videos from the Wii channel. An app is also available for Wii U, and videos can be viewed on the Wii U Internet Browser using HTML5. According to GlobalWebIndex, YouTube was used by 35% of smartphone users between April and June 2013, making it the third most used app. Localization: On June 19, 2007, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was in Paris to launch the new localization system. The interface of the website is available with localized versions in 61 countries, one territory (Hong Kong) and a worldwide version. The YouTube interface suggests which local version should be chosen on the basis of the IP address of the user. In some cases, the message “This video is not available in your country” may appear because of copyright restrictions or inappropriate content. The interface of the YouTube website is available in 54 language versions, including Catalan and Slovene, which do not have local channel versions. Access to YouTube was blocked in Turkey between 2008 and 2010, following controversy over the posting of videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and some material offensive to Muslims. In October 2012, a local version of YouTube was launched in Turkey, with the domain youtube.com.tr. The local version is subject to the content regulations found in Turkish law. In March 2009, a dispute between YouTube and the British royalty collection agency PRS for Music led to premium music videos being blocked for YouTube users in the United Kingdom. The removal of videos posted by the major record companies occurred after failure to reach agreement on a licensing deal. The dispute was resolved in September 2009.In April 2009, a similar dispute led to the removal of premium music videos for users in Germany.

Social impact

While other video hosting websites had been launched before YouTube in 2005 (including Metacafe in 2003 and Vimeo in 2004), YouTube was conceived to be, in the words of Jawed Karim, a video version of the rating site Hot or Not. Karim commented that Hot or Not was a site “where anyone could upload content that everyone else could view. That was a new concept because up until that point, it was always the people who owned the website who would provide the content.” In December 2006, Time magazine wrote: “YouTube is to video browsing what a Wal-Mart Supercenter is to shopping: everything is there, and all you have to do is walk in the door.” An early example of the social impact of YouTube was the success of The Bus Uncle video in 2006. It shows a heated conversation between a youth and an older man on a bus in Hong Kong, and was discussed widely in the mainstream media. Another YouTube video to receive extensive coverage is guitar, which features a performance of Pachelbel’s Canon on an electric guitar. The name of the performer is not given in the video. After it received millions of views The New York Times revealed the identity of the guitarist as Lim Jeong-hyun, a 23-year-old from South Korea who had recorded the track in his bedroom. This video has since been removed from YouTube. “Charlie Bit My Finger”, which was uploaded on May 22, 2007, is a viral video that holds the record for the most views for a YouTube video that is not a professional music video, with over 500 million views. The clip features two English brothers, with one-year-old Charlie biting the finger of his brother Harry, aged three. In Time’s list of YouTube’s 50 greatest viral videos of all time, “Charlie Bit My Finger” was ranked at number one. YouTube was awarded a 2008 Peabody Award and cited for being “a ‘Speakers’ Corner’ that both embodies and promotes democracy”. In December 2009, Entertainment Weekly placed YouTube on its end-of-the-decade “best-of” list, describing it as: “Providing a safe home for piano-playing cats, celeb goof-ups, and overzealous lip-synchers since 2005.” The most viewed video on YouTube is the music video of the song “Gangnam Style” by PSY. It was added to the site on July 15, 2012, and became the first YouTube video to receive over 1 billion views on December 21, 2012. The video has inspired numerous parodies. Music industry: In May 2011, YouTube launched its own weekly chart, the YouTube 100, which aims to track the popularity of music videos on the site. In 2013, the Billboard charts began including online streams in its Top 100 lists, allowing the popularity of YouTube videos to influence the position of a song in the charts. YouTube and Billboard held talks for nearly two years regarding the proposed changes. As of 2013, the following music charts utilize YouTube views as part of its ranking methodology: Billboard Hot 100 Hot Country Songs Hot Latin Songs Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs Dance/Electronic Songs R&B Songs Rock Songs Besides official music videos, views from user-generated clips utilizing authorized audio are also factored into the Billboard charts.

Acknowledgement