TheNewsGuru

Tag: youtube

  • YouTube appoints Nigerian Okosi MD of Europe, Middle East, Africa

    YouTube appoints Nigerian Okosi MD of Europe, Middle East, Africa

    YouTube on Tuesday appointed Nigerian Alex Okosi as Managing Director of Emerging Markets for YouTube in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) to further drive expansion and fuel growth in these areas.

    Okosi will be responsible for running YouTube’s business and partnership teams across emerging markets in EMEA including Russia, the Middle East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

    The Head, YouTube EMEA, Cecile Frot-Coutaz. based in London office, said Okosi would be responsible for running YouTube business and partnership team across emerging markets in EMEA including Russia, middle East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa.

    Frot-Coutaz said that Okosi would resume in April 2020 and will be reporting to her to the London office.

    “I look forward to welcoming Okosi to our YouTube EMEA leadership team.

    “He brings a wealth of experience in the content industries and has a track record for building businesses and audiences in established and new markets.

    “Okosi will be leading our existing teams in Russia, Sub-Saharan Africa, Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa (MEAN) to drive further expansion in these key markets,” she said in a statement.

    According to her, Google and YouTube have long invested in growing its business across its EMEA emerging markets with some recent milestones.

    She said that the milestone included most recently at the annual Google for Nigeria event in July 2019, YouTube announced its commitment to support emerging talents across Nigeria.

    Frot-Coutaz said it was by teaming up with Mr Eazi and the emPawa initiative to support 10 emerging Nigerian music artists to build their craft, increase their fan base and connect with the world through YouTube.

    She said throughout the years, YouTube had played an essential role in the discovery and development of African sound and exporting African music to listeners worldwide.

    According to her, in fact 70 per cent of the views from the 25 most-watched Sub-Saharan African artists come from outside the continent.

    She said that in September 2019, YouTube successfully launched YouTube Music and YouTube Premium in MENA which further exemplified the opportunities offered by this high-growth region.

    She said that Russia was one of YouTube EMEA’s highest growth markets with the number of YouTube channels with more than one million subscribers growing by more than 70 per cent in the last year.

    ‘’Alex’s appointment will only further fuel the development of our creative ecosystem in the region,’’ Frot-Coutaz.

    Okosi described YouTube is a game-changing platform that plays an increasingly important role in our lives today.

    He said that it was through the dynamic content and innovation that it delivered.

    ‘’I am very excited to be joining Frot-Coutaz’s leadership team to continue empowering creators and elevating value for viewers and partners across the region,’’ Okosi said.

    Prior to joining YouTube, Alex served as a long-time TV Executive.

    Most recently he was Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Viacom/CBS Networks Africa & BET International.

  • Davido becomes most viewed Nigerian artiste on YouTube

    Singer, David Adeleke, popularly known as Davido has become the most viewed Nigerian artiste on streaming platform, YouTube.
    News Agency of Nigeria reports that the ‘Aye’ singer has amassed over 500 million views across all his uploads on the platform to achieve this feat.
    In January, Davido’s hit song, ‘Fall’ beat Yemi Alade’s ‘Johnny’ to become the most viewed Nigerian music video on YouTube.
    He then became the first Nigerian artiste to reach over 100 million views on YouTube racing ahead of Yemi Alade and Tekno.
    As the head of his label, DMW, Davido’s YouTube page also streams the tracks and videos of his label mates including Mayorkun, Peruzzi and Dremo.
    Davido was the first Nigerian artist to reach one million, two million, five million and nine million followers on Instagram and is now one of the most bankable Nigerian on the platform.
    NAN reports that he recently sold out London’s O2 Arena and recorded the longest-charting Nigerian single in Billboard history.
     
     
     

  • Yemi Alade becomes first female African artiste to hit 1m YouTube subscribers

    Yemi Alade becomes first female African artiste to hit 1m YouTube subscribers

    Music diva, Yemi Alade has made history as the first female African artist to hit one million subscribers on video streaming platform, YouTube.
    News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that this feat comes months after Alade became the second Nigerian artist to hit hundred million views on YouTube for the song, ‘Johnny’.
    The ‘Oh My Gosh’ singer took to her Instagram page @yemialade to announce the feat and reflect on her musical journey of six years.
    She wrote, “God is the GREATEST, started this journey six years ago. Thanks to everyone streaming / watching my videos and music. Godbless us all.”
    With this feat, Alade joins other entertainers who have over one million subscribers, including the defunct P-Square (1.2 million), Davido (1.5 million) and Diamond Platnumz (2.1 million).
    Her debut studio album ‘King of Queens’ was released on October 2, 2014, by Effyzzie Music Group.
    Alade collaborated with producers such as Selebobo, Sizzle Pro, Shady Bizniz, Philkeyz, Young D, GospelOnDeBeatz, DIL, OJB Jezreel, Mr Chidoo, Fliptyce, EL Mcee and Beat Nation.
    The album was preceded by three singles: “Johnny”, “Tangerine” and “Kissing”. It features guest appearances and skits from Bovi, R2Bees, Phyno, Chidinma, DIL, Selebobo and Diamond Platnumz.
    She has performed around the world and shared the stage and songs with the likes of Mary J. Blige, Shina Peters, Wizkid, Becca, M.I, Waje and others.
     
    https://www.instagram.com/p/BzT1aVGnygu/

  • D’banj to launch YouTube reality show

    Superstar singer, Daniel Oyebanjo aka D’banj is set to launch a reality show ‘Adventures of a Kokomaster’ on YouTube.

    News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that D’banj, who is also known as the ‘Kokomaster’, announced the upcoming show on his Instagram page @iambangalee on Wednesday.

    He said, “Adventures of the Kokomaster launches on YouTube on August 2019. Who wants to feature in it. Subscribe to my YouTube Channel.”

    NAN reports that the show comes after he was hosted and honoured by YouTube with a silver plague to mark his 100,000 subscribers on the platform.

    The musician, entrepreneur and television personality on Monday received a ‘Silver Creator award’ from YouTube and was a panellist at the ‘YouTube Week’.

    At the event, D’banj revealed some tips and tricks behind his impact in various sectors of the Nigerian economy through his multiple award-winning music career.

    NAN reports that in 2016, he launched the Creative, Reality, Entertainment, Arts and Music (CREAM) platform to support upcoming Nigerian talents.

    He revealed that the ‘CREAM’ platform has generated over 15 million dollars and gathered over 3.5 million subscribers since its inception in 2016.

    D’banj has won several music awards, including the awards for Best African Act at the MTV Europe Music Awards in 2007 and Artist of the Year at the MTV Africa Music Awards in 2009.

    He also won the Best International Act: Africa at the 2011 BET Awards, Best-selling African Artist at the 2014 World Music Awards and Evolution award at the 2015 MTV Africa Music awards.

  • YouTube, SnapChat, several Google services suffer massive outages

    YouTube, SnapChat, several Google services suffer massive outages

    Several Google services and some services hosted on Google’s Cloud service, suffered massive outages on Sunday.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the massive outages was due to apparent problems with Google’s Cloud service.

    The internet giants confirmed the development, saying “Our team is continuing to investigate this issue”.

    However, Google has said normalcy has been resolved, after its engineering teams completed a first phase of mitigation work and implemented a second phase.

    “The network congestion issue in eastern USA, affecting Google Cloud, G Suite, and YouTube has been resolved for all affected users as of 4:00pm US/Pacific,” Google said.

    The disruption affected not only Google’s own properties in the G Suite – Drive, Gmail, Hangouts and other applications, it also took down prominent websites that run on the Cloud service on the backend, like Snapchat and Vimeo.

    YouTube, Discord and Gmail all experienced outages, as well, in what seemed like over half of the internet experienced total blackout.

    “We will conduct an internal investigation of this issue and make appropriate improvements to our systems to help prevent or minimize future recurrence.

    “We will provide a detailed report of this incident once we have completed our internal investigation,” the firm said.

    The high levels network congestion in the eastern USA, affecting multiple services in Google Cloud, G Suite and YouTube meant that users suffered slow performance or intermittent errors.

    Meanwhile, reactions have trailed the outages, which practically left people on the internet with an unexpected amount of time on their hands.

    https://twitter.com/madamerosiee/status/1135342475864944640?s=19

    https://twitter.com/madamerosiee/status/1135333784444964870?s=19

    https://twitter.com/kazweida/status/1135340672356048896?s=19

    https://twitter.com/oreotommy/status/1135344735181320193?s=19

  • EU countries endorse copyright reforms targeted at Google, Facebook

    European Union countries on Wednesday supported an overhaul of the Union’s copyright rules which would force Facebook and Google to pay publishers for news snippets.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the copyright reforms would also force the two internet giants to filter out copyright-protected content on YouTube or Instagram.

    A majority of EU diplomats agreed to the revamp while Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Poland refused to back the deal and two other EU countries abstained.

    Negotiators from the EU countries, the European Parliament and the European Commission sealed a deal last week, two years after the EU executive proposed changes to protect the bloc’s cultural heritage and ensure that publishers, broadcasters and artists are remunerated fairly.

    Romania, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, said in a tweet that the copyright agreement had been approved by the EU Council.

    The dissenting countries said the proposed changes could hinder innovation and hurt the bloc’s competitiveness in the digital market.

    “We regret that the Directive does not strike the right balance between the protection of right holders and the interests of EU citizens and companies,” they said in a joint statement.

    The next step in the process is a vote by a committee of lawmakers next week followed by a parliamentary vote either next month or early April before the changes can become law.

    The revamp would require Google and other online platforms to sign licensing agreements with rights holders such as musicians, performers, authors, news publishers and journalists to use their work online.

    Google’s YouTube and Facebook’s Instagram and other sharing platforms will have to install upload filters to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials.

    Google, which has lobbied against both features and has even suggested that it might pull Google News from Europe, said last week it would study the text before deciding on its next steps.

     

  • YouTube features Tenientertainer as ‘Artist On The Rise’

    YouTube features Tenientertainer as ‘Artist On The Rise’

    Rave of the moment, Teniola Apata, a.k.a ‘Teni the entertainer’ has been featured by YouTube as its trending ’Artist On The Rise’ in 2019.

    The talented singer, attained the feat with her hit single ‘Case’, making her the latest artist to look out for on ‘Artist On The Rise’ platform dedicated to highlighting new music star.

    The song ‘Case’ has earned her recognition from video streaming platform, especially YouTube, who announced her as its latest trending for the year.

    The singer released of her hit singer ‘Case’ has over 4 Million views, making the singer to rise to fame.

    By virtue of this recognition, the video streaming site would promote Teni’s videos on its US trending page, in social media ads and fan event appearances at YouTube Spaces.

    In 2018, it was described that Teni took the industry by storm, with hit singles after another, making the singer emerged as the break out star of the year.

    The singer who was awarded as Headies Rookie of the Year Award in 2017 has also won the Soundcity MVP Award for ‘Best New Artist’.

    Teni becomes the second Africa artist to be named YouTube Music’s Trending Artist on the Rise.

    The ‘Artist On The Rise’ features were rolled out by YouTube last year as a platform where it spotlight new artists in the various Trending tabs.

  • Google announces top YouTube ads of 2018

    YouTube on Friday announced the top advertisements (Ads) of the year globally for 2018, with Nigeria’s top ads representing 17 million views, an official has said.

    The Google Country Manager, Mrs Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, said that the top 10 ads on the Nigerian Leaderboard represented over 17 million views.

    According to her, the top ads of the year represented brands that have executed the most popular ads, as determined by YouTube’s strongest signals of viewer choice.

    She added that the popular ads were also determined by factors like watch time, views and mix of paid/organic views.

    “YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of all people on the Internet, and each day those users watch a billion hours of video, generating billions of views.

    “YouTube users spend over an hour a day watching videos on mobile and it is not surprising, then, that some of this audience is choosing to watch ads online,” she said in a statement.

    The Google country manager said that looking at the year’s top ads on YouTube, a few key trends were observed at the Leaderboards, such as keeping it in the family, culture connect, music, connecting to 2018 and connecting to trends.

    She said that keeping it in the family had to do with telling emotive storytelling which was key to building brand love and preference.

    Ehimuan-Chiazor said that it was an insight into this year’s top performers that quite literally brought home, with family and emerging as key ad themes, as shown in Airtel NG – The-Inlaws.

    “In the culture connects, more and more brands are infusing culture into their storytelling to boost resonance, as MTN did with its Traditional Wedding Day ad.

    “Music has found a place at the heart of YouTube and so, it is no surprise to see many of our winners riffing on musical themes this year, like Uba did with 919 Dance video.

    “For connecting to 2018, amid a year of political and social turmoil, many brands chose to take a stance on social topics, leading to some of the year’s most thought-provoking work, including Union Bank’s Enabling success.

    “Connecting to a trend has to do with infusing popular offline trends into YouTube ads to help brands build authenticity and connect to the heart like P&G Nigeria did in its Ariel Assurance ad,” she said.

    She listed the 2018 Nigeria Year-End YouTube Ads Leaderboard as: MTN – Traditional Wedding Day 2.6 million views, Jumia Black Fridays 2018 2.3 million views, Stanbic IBTC – Enabling you to be you 2.1 million views, Union Bank of Nigeria – Enabling Success 2.7 million views, United bank of Africa (UBA) – 919 Dance Video 1.6 million views.

    Others are: MTN MPULSE – The Takeover 1.6 million views, Airtel NG – The-Inlaws – Tutorial 1.4 million views, P&G Nigeria – Ariel Assurance 1.3 million views, GTBank – Come Let’s Eat Together – GTBank Food & Drink 2018 1.2 million views and LG INVERTER – The new Inverter equation of home appliances 1.2 million views.

    On the 2018 Global Year-End YouTube Ads Leaderboard, she listed Alexa Loses Her Voice – Amazon Super Bowl LII Commercial, 50.1 million views, YouTube Music: Open the world of music. It’s all here 39.5 million views, OPPO F7 – Real Support Makes Real Hero 31.7 million views, Nike – Dream Crazy, 27.3 million views.

    Also for global are: Turkish Airlines: Safety Video with The LEGO Movie Characters, 25.2 million views, Groupon 2018 Super Bowl Commercial “Who Wouldn’t” 25.5 million views, Samsung Galaxy: Moving On 17.4 million views, HomePod — Welcome Home by Spike Jonze — Apple, 16.3 million views.

    Others are: Gatorade Heart of a Lio, 13.7 million views and Rescue Blue the Dinosaur – LEGO Jurassic World – Pick Your Path, 10.8 million.

    She congratulated each of the brands on this list (and their creative/media agencies) for embracing the storytelling power of YouTube.

    Ehimuan-Chiazor said that in 2018, as in every other year, clarity of purpose, generosity of spirit and finesse in execution mark out top performers.

    YouTube launched in May 2005, is the world’s most popular online video community allowing billions of people to discover, watch and share video.

     

  • Creative industries to benefit from EU online copyright reform

    The creative industries will benefit from online copyright reform as the European Union (EU) is set to rewrite its two-decades-old copyright rules.

    The online copyright reform will force Google and Facebook to share revenue with the creative industries and remove copyright-protected content on YouTube or Instagram.

    Negotiators from the EU countries, the European Parliament and the European Commission clinched a deal after day-long negotiations.

    The commission, the EU’s executive body, launched the debate two years ago, saying the rules needed to be overhauled to protect the bloc’s cultural heritage and make sure that publishers, broadcasters and artists are remunerated fairly.

    “Agreement reached on #copyright! Europeans will finally have modern copyright rules fit for digital age with real benefits for everyone: guaranteed rights for users, fair remuneration for creators, clarity of rules for platforms,” EU digital chief Andrus Ansip said in a tweet.

    Under the new rules, Google and other online platforms will have to sign licensing agreements with rights holders such as musicians, performers, authors, news publishers and journalists to use their work online.

    Google’s YouTube and Facebook’s Instagram and other sharing platforms will be required to install upload filters to prevent users from uploading copyrighted materials.

    Google, which has lobbied intensively against both features and even suggested that it may pull Google News from Europe, said it would study the text before deciding on its next steps.

    “Copyright reform needs to benefit everyone – including European creators and consumers, small publishers and platforms … The details will matter,” the company said in a tweet.

     

  • Yemi Alade’s ‘Johnny’ hits N100m views on Youtube

    Yemi Alade’s ‘Johnny’ hits N100m views on Youtube

    Nigerian afro-pop singer, Yemi Eberechi Alade, a.k.a Yemi Alade, has hit one hundred million view mark on her YouTube platform and emerged second Nigerian artiste to attain the feat.

    Alade made this achievement with the video of her hit single ‘Johnny’ which she released in 2014.

    According to report, the music hit one million view on her YouTube page, making her to become the second Nigerian artist to attain such a feat.

    The singer, who shared her excitement about the feat on her Instagram handle page @yemi_alade, expressed happiness and thanked her fans for their support.

    The songwriter promised her fans that she would be “putting in more work this year” as she was encouraged by the support.

    Alade made her musical debut in an all-girl group called Noty Spices in 2005, but her music became widely popular after she won the Peak Talent Show in 2009.

    She later released her first single “Fimisile”

    Yemi Alade has also won a number of awards including the Best African Female at the 2015 and 2016 MTV Awards and recently, ”Best Performer” at the 2018 edition.

    News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that David Adedeji Adeleke, aka Davido, made history of becoming first Nigerian artiste to hit the one million view mark on video streaming site YouTube with his video ‘Fall’ in December 2018.

    NAN also report a month later, the video ‘Johnny’ has followed suit by achieving the landmark numbers of view on the site.