Last fall, we announced the release of YouTube Direct, a tool that allows media organizations to request, review and rebroadcast YouTube clips directly from YouTube users, and on their own website. In addition to our launch partners (ABC News, the Huffington Post, NPR, Politico, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, and WHDH-TV/WLVI-TV in Boston), many other news organizations and websites -- including the Tribune Company, Gannett, Al Jazeera, and ITN News -- have signed on and are using the platform to collect citizen reporting and commentary around news events all around the world. There are nearly 400 news partners on YouTube able to use YouTube Direct to generate news content that helps them extend and engage their audience.

Today, we’re rolling out the latest version of YouTube Direct, which includes substantial upgrades that make it easier for news organizations to test and customize the platform. In addition to several back-end changes, we’ve also added new features including:

• Mobile application code for both the iPhone and Android
• Ability to view and edit YouTube captions for any video submitted (with support for all caption languages)
• Multiple YouTube Direct upload modules now possible on a single page
• Additional customization and messaging options

If you’re already using YouTube Direct, we strongly encourage you to upgrade. And if you haven’t yet embraced the platform, but want to use YouTube to connect with a larger audience, now is the perfect time to get started.

For more information, visit youtube.com/direct. And to receive updates and announcements in the future, please subscribe to the YouTube API Announcements Google Group.

Posted by Olivia Ma, YouTube News Manager, recently watched "Eyjafjallajokull volcano and ash clouds".

Recently we debuted an Ideas Page for YouTube, where users from around the globe could contribute ideas and feedback to make YouTube better. It was a success, receiving almost 3,000 ideas and more than 300,000 votes. We even launched a few features that directly addressed some of the requests -- namely, an HTML5 Beta (there were many HTML5 advocates who participated) and a sneak peek of our new cleaner video page (some desired a "less cluttered" YouTube).

Today, we are creating a similar Ideas Page specific to our YouTube Partners, where you can post ideas about how we can improve the site and your experience as partners, and see what other people are suggesting, too. If you like their suggestion, vote for it!

Whether it's an idea for a brand new feature, a small tweak that would simplify your work flow or just feedback about our Partner Program, we'd love to hear it. While we aren't able to guarantee that all ideas will be implemented, we can promise that we'll take the top ideas (as voted by you) and bring them to the YouTube Partner Team for review.

This series will be closed to new submissions and votes on April 12, so be sure to submit your ideas soon. We look forward to hearing from you!

Posted by Filipe Lima, Strategist, Europe, Middle East & Africa