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Call of Duty rules YouTube's top trailers list for 2012

Which trailers did people flock to view on YouTube this year? Those for the game Call of Duty dominated, but a few popular films heated up the site as well.

The 2012 YouTube Top Trailers Leaderboard revealed the top 10 most-viewed movie, TV, and video game trailers of the year. Combined, the 10 trailers scored more than 170 million views through both promotion and sheer popularity.

Capturing the top spot was a live-action trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2. The game's other trailers also won the 2nd, 8th, and 10th spots in the list.

Batman swung his … Read more

YouTube looks back at 2012 with eye on Sandy, Syria

YouTube has revealed which news stories riveted the video-watching masses during 2012.

As part of its year in review, YouTube noted that Superstorm Sandy was a popular, if sobering, topic on the site this year, with 39,000 hurricane-related videos showing up on the video site in just one week. A video of an exploding substation caused by the storm topped 4 million views in just 24 hours.

Moving to the U.S. presidential election, YouTube revealed that videos tagged "Obama" or "Romney" were viewed 2.7 billion times and that the candidates' debates nabbed 27 … Read more

Shoot and share videos with YouTube Capture for iOS

Google just made it easier to capture and upload videos to YouTube from your iPhone or iPod Touch. Its new YouTube Capture app lets you share a video with as little as two taps (including the tap to launch the app). Here's how it works.

When you first launch the app, it'll ask you to sign into your Google account. You can skip this step and sign into your account later, and instead swipe through a brief, four-slide tutorial.

After the tutorial, you'll be taken to the capture screen, which, when held in landscape mode, features two … Read more

'Gangnam Style,' 'Barack vs Mitt' among YouTube's champs

YouTube watchers kept busy this year checking out videos related to "Gangnam Style," the presidential elections, and Facebook parenting for the troubled teen.

Rewinding back through 2012, YouTube yesterday posted its list of the Top 10 trending videos for the year.

A video devoted to Korea's "Gangnam Style" craze took the top spot. A music video of the song "Somebody that I Used to Know" by Canadian band Walk off the Earth took second place.

Going viral and taking third place was Kony 2012, a video campaign urging the capture and arrest of … Read more

Porn bigwig extradited to Germany for tax evasion

The owner of the world's largest network of porn Web sites was arrested in Belgium and extradited to Germany for alleged tax evasion, according to the Associated Press.

Fabian Thylmann -- the man behind the Manwin porn empire -- is German but lives in Belgium. Local authorities arrested him last week on a German warrant for suspicion of tax evasion. According to the Associated Press, Thylmann did not dispute the extradition.

Manwin specializes in making its Web sites like YouPorn and PornHub optimized for the Internet, which garners the sites an obscene amount of traffic. Daily, Manwin says its … Read more

How to stand out among birthday well-wishers on Facebook

"Happy birthday! Have a great day!"

Perhaps you're a bit more creative than the above greeting, but even the most clever among us have probably run out of ways to wish friends a happy birthday on Facebook.

Thankfully, an enterprising Reddit user whose handle I do not wish to repeat in this space offered a handy and simple tip: search YouTube for "happy birthday" and your friend's name. You will be surprised by the volume and variety of videos available.

Sure, your friend will be sung happy birthday wishes by a random stranger or … Read more

How to create a playlist with YouTube's iPad app

Google finally got around to releasing a YouTube app for the iPad, and after using it for a few days, I applaud the search giant's efforts. The app feels quick and responsive, and all of the basic features -- accessing your account, commenting on videos, subscribing to channels, AirPlay support -- are present. (The ability to play audio of a video in the background after closing the app, however, is not.) The app also lets you create playlists, but this feature is somewhat buried. In this post, I'll show you where to go to create a playlist and … Read more

Premium YouTube Downloader betters the free competition

YouTube downloaders tend to fall into two types: freeware that does the basic job of downloading and saving files from YouTube and maybe a few more sites, and premium (that means pay) tools that typically offer more features and capabilities to justify the cost, such as compatibility with many more sites, the ability to save videos in different file types and quality levels, and no ads or watermarks. Kotato's YouTube Downloader is the latter type, with an emphasis on convenience. For example, you can save videos from just about any hosting site, and in HD and HQ, too. It … Read more

Find your favorite videos with YouPlayer

As anyone who has spent evenings searching for and watching the occasional grumpy or existential cat video (don't look at us), you know that there are a ton of videos to weed through before finding the right one. YouPlayer offers users a way to search for their favorite video, and while it doesn't really offer anything different from the official YouTube app in terms of search, it performed as promised.

YouPlayer opens with a self-explanatory interface. Search options reside at the bottom of the screen. You can search by Featured videos, Most Viewed, and Trending. If you can'… Read more