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One of our favorite things about YouTube is that "Oh Man!" moment when you stumble across that cool new channel you've never heard of, or that awesome video from the other side of the planet you know everyone's going to be talking about tomorrow.

Now there's a new way to connect with all those videos, people and stories. Launching today from DreamWorks Animation, YouTube Nation is a new daily web show on YouTube -- with new episodes every day at 6 p.m. PT/ 9 p.m. ET. Hosted by Jacob Soboroff, the show is made by a team of creators, producers, and video nerds who can’t wait to talk about all that amazingness with you. Check out episode one right here:


YouTube Nation is a channel focused on helping you discover great creators and channels through daily videos and playlists. And we need your help to do it, too! Jacob and the team want to hear from you with your favorite videos, top picks and recommendations on what to feature -- let us know what you’re loving right now.

We come to YouTube to laugh, to learn, and to be inspired, to discover what's new and to dive deeper into what we already know we love. People are making and sharing so many amazing things each day it blows our minds. YouTube Nation is about sharing that feeling with all of you.

Hope you come by and subscribe!

Posted by Kevin Allocca, YouTube Culture & Trends

Google confirmed the news that Schemer will be discontinued.

The time has come for Schemer to power down.

Schemer launched in beta over a year ago to help inspire and motivate people to do more awesome stuff, and though it's shutting down, the adventures will continue. You can use the "Explore" section on Google Maps for Android and iOS to find interesting things to do around you, or Field Trip to uncover hidden or unique things in your city, among others.

All your schemes are available for download until February 7, 2014, after which all data will be permanently deleted. Before then, we recommend you use the button below to get a copy of your schemes for download.

In the meantime, stay curious, ambitious, daring, and above all, stay adventurous; thank you for all your support on this journey!

-The Schemer Team

Go to schemer.com to export your schemes. Since it was a small experimental project, you'll only get your data by email.


Schemer was one of the few Google projects with a distinct user interface. It started as an invitation-only service, it required a Google+ account and it lived in its own cocoon far away from other Google services. Google didn't promote the service, didn't integrate it with other services and eventually stopped updating it.

"Whether it's exploring a new city, checking out a friend's movie recommendation, or just finding new activities for your weekends, Schemer lets you discover new things to do, share schemes with friends, and make the most of your day. We started out as a scrappy team of Google engineers who wanted to help people do fun stuff in the real world. So we went ahead and built Schemer! We hope you like it," informs the About page.

Google no longer shows the square profile image in the navigation bar. Now it shows a round image, just like in Google+.


The new version looks nice and makes the Google bar more consistent. Some Google services still use the old version: YouTube, Blogger.



{ Thanks, Florian K. }

Usually, if you want to send someone an email, you are supposed to know the email address, but that's not always the case. Many sites use contact forms and now it's very easy to create one using Google Drive. A few years ago, Google Profiles added a contact form, but it was disabled by default. Google+ made it easy to send someone a message: just add "+", mention his name and he will probably receive a notification, depending on his notification settings.

Now you can send email to the people from your Google+ circles even if you don't have their email addresses. Gmail will show suggestions from your Google+ circles when you compose an email and will send your email without showing you the address. "Your email address isn't visible to a Google+ connection unless you send that person an email, and likewise, that person's email address isn't visible to you unless they send you an email."


Suggestions from Google+ are placed at the bottom of the list, below the suggestions from your address book. As you can see, email addresses aren't included. Google will only show suggestions from your circles, but you can add anyone to your circles.

What happens when you send an email to someone? If you are in his circles, the message will be placed in the Personal inbox tab. Otherwise, it will be added to the Social tab and you won't be able to send another message until the person responds or adds you to his circles.


By default, anyone who circles you can send you an email message in Gmail. If you have many followers, the default setting will limit the messages to your circles. You can alway edit the scope of this feature in Gmail's settings. Find the "Email via Google+" section and choose from "Anyone on Google+", "Extended circles", "Circles" and "No one". Pick "No one" to completely disable this feature.


The feature is gradually rolled out. You'll receive a message from Google with the following subject: "Gmail update: Reach more people you know". It starts like this: "Ever wanted to email someone you know, but haven't yet exchanged email addresses? Starting this week, when you're composing a new email, Gmail will suggest your Google+ connections as recipients, even if you haven't exchanged email addresses yet." Even if you receive the message, you might still have to wait until the feature is enabled. "You can only send emails to your Google+ connections with the desktop version of Gmail," informs the Gmail help center.

Gmail is now even more integrated with Google+. Gmail shows your circles in the sidebar, loads Google+ notifications and allows you to reply from the Gmail interface and now it lets you send email to Google+ users without knowing their addresses.

The new feature makes Gmail more useful because it unlocks the power of circles, but it can also lead to more spam. Since anyone who adds you to a circle can send you an email, you'll have to deal with that. If you have many followers, Google already limits this feature to your circles. You can also receive spam messages in Google+, so that's not something new.

It's interesting that the default setting for most people is "anyone". The default setting for notifications and the contact form is "extended circles", which include your circles and your circles' circles. The contact form from the profile is even disabled by default.

{ Thanks, Chaim. }

In our monthly On The Rise program, we identify four partners whose channels drive significant YouTube watch time but haven’t yet reached the 100,000 subscriber mark. With your help, we’re sharing with you four dedicated partners who’d like your help to jump-start their audience development and channel growth. In January, we'e excited to introduce you to partners whose content covers the worlds of music, origami, technology and graphic novels.

Here’s where you come in--you actually have the chance to help push these partners even further on YouTube. Review their videos below, vote for your favorite here by selecting the blue checkmark next to the channel name, and one of these candidates will have the opportunity to be featured across YouTube later this month. In addition to your votes, each channel will be evaluated on criteria such as viewer engagement and channel optimization techniques to decide which partner we’ll feature.

In past months, featured On The Rise partners like wranglerstar and Buzz60 have gained many subscribers and seen their careers take off, in large part due to your support. This month’s poll will be open until January 13, 5 p.m. PT, so don’t forget to vote for your favorite channel. Check back to see which channel will be featured on January 31.

THINKAbouttheINK
If you are ever interested in the fast-paced and exciting world of comic books and graphic novels, THINKAbouttheINK is the channel for you. With discussions about upcoming releases and reviews on the movie versions of classic comics, THINKAbouttheINK has been featured on Bleeding Cool and puts out new videos every week so you never miss a beat.

 

happypuppytruffles
Feeling crafty? This channel will help inspire you with a new origami project every day as well as free origami paper that you can print and use to make everything from origami animals to pop-up cards and gift card envelopes.


activemelody
Brian has been playing the guitar for more than 20 years and shares his passion for music via tutorials on his channel. If you play the guitar or just like listening, go check out his channel for lessons based on the blues, jazz and country.

 

ThatSnazzyiPhoneGuy
Not sure which new smartphone to buy or if the newest laptop is really the best on the market? ThatSnazzyiPhoneGuy features all things technology-related. Quinn gives his thoughts and insights about new products, how they function and look. You can look forward to new videos every month to ensure that you are informed about everything tech.

 

If you’re interested in participating or have suggestions for partners you think should be featured, we encourage you to visit our On The Rise homepage. You can check out all of our past featured partners on the Featured Partners tab, or nominate a YouTube partner to be considered for the program on the Nominate tab. Feel free to submit nominations for your own channel, or for channels you follow that you think deserve more attention, or could be the next YouTube sensation. We’ll continue to feature promising partners who drive YouTube watch time, have fewer than 100,000 subscribers, and produce engaging content on a regular basis.

Kathryn Sahr and Christine Wang, YouTube Partner Support, recently watched “Top 10 NBA Dunks of 2013.”

Back in 2009, when HTC HD2 was released, many people complained that it had a huge screen: a 4.3-inch display. Now it seems quite small. Even iPhone's 3.5-inch display seemed very big back in 2007. As you can see, context matters and it puts things into perspective.

When searching Google for [Saturn size], you used to get an answer that was useful, but not that revealing. So the radius is 58,232 km (36,184 miles). It's obviously very large, but how does it compare to other planets? Now Google shows other planets and their size below the answer.


Search for [Earth mass] and Google shows that Venus has almost the same mass, while Jupiter's mass is 317.8 times bigger.


The instant answer for [Earth surface area] confirms that Earth and Venus are close in size.


What about gravity? Pretty close.


"The solar system is a pretty big place. To get a quick refresh on astronomy, you can ask Google 'What is the surface area of Earth?' and find out that it's 196.9 million square miles. But how BIG is that? Clearly not as large as some of our waistlines post-holidays—but is it larger or smaller than Jupiter? The size of Earth makes more sense when considered relative to the surface area of other planets; Earth is similar in size to Venus but more than 100 times smaller than Jupiter! Google now provides these comparisons, helping you understand the world (or solar system) around you," informs Google.

For now, this feature is only available for astronomy-related questions. You can find some similar comparisons when you search for things like [China GDP] or [India population].

Google had a cool feature as part of Location History: a dashboard that displayed how you spend your time, how much do you spend at work or at home, the places you've visited, when you visited each country, your flights, the distance you've traveled (including the number of additional miles to the Moon). This feature, which was launched in 2010 as part of Google Latitude and was still in beta, is gone and the dashboard redirects to the Location History homepage.

Google confirmed that the feature was removed last month: "You can continue to view and manage your Location History information by going to https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/, but we've removed the Location History dashboard (the part of the Location History website that provided a summary of your locations, including total miles traveled and trip information). We are not removing Location History entirely or deleting any raw Location History information. We're continuing to explore more useful and relevant ways for you to engage with and view location history."

Here are some screenshots from Bogdan Bele and guao.hk:



And here are the remaining features:


For some people, the dashboard was one of the main reasons to enable Location History. "I thought the dashboard was a nice record of my travels, and it was the only reason I activated location reporting on my Android phone. If the dashboard has permanently disappeared, then it means that Google is tracking my location for their own purposes, and not giving me anything in return," says Rob Fuller, a reader of this blog.

Location History is actually used by some Google Now cards. "Google Now uses your Location History, which may include locations saved from your use of other Google products, to monitor traffic on your commute route and more," informs Google. There's even a card that shows a summary of your activity. Google Maps also uses it to personalize search results.


{ Thanks, Rob. }