Well, Nominet has the owners of youtube.co.uk registered as an Australian company, so there may not be much to see there on Tuesday

Some guys think YouTube hit's germany at the same date ... or some days/weeks later...

http://googlefokus.blogspot.com/2007/06/youtube-kommt-nach-deutschland.html

http://www.youtube.com/?hl=fr
redirects to
fr.youtube.com

Thanks Max!

I edited the article to add the following sentence based on your link to GoogleFokus.de:

<<German Focus magazine on the other hand reports that a German version of YouTube is launching "within the next weeks" according to unnamed "high-level television sources." Focus speculates that perhaps the YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen will be surprise guests in Paris on June 19th.>>

Yes in fact it's not "Youtube France" but "Youtube Europe" ;-)

Channels do that because they think that it's more secure to be on youtube legally than found their shows illegaly in Youtube. If only they know, just as example, that the new player of Real Player allow to download Google's videos, I'm not sure they'd be so excited... :)

I must say unless it is Youtube Europe, which makes total sense, then I can't see it happening.

Why France? Why not the two bigger European markets – Great Britain and Germany? Germany has bigger population and economy, Britain has better internet user stats.

I can't see how "Europe" is a region that makes sense for a website as we all have different languages here. I wouldn't understand most French videos for instance. Granted many videos are funny or cool even if you don't understand them, but usually you have e.g. "Google Video Germany" (video.google.de) and not "Google Video Europe", which would be hard to market here in Germany. Also, let's not forget the Press Day takes place in Paris. Maybe language is also a reason why YouTube UK may be rolled out slower, if ever (not that I'm saying it's not likely it will be launched on 19th) – UK users can already understand all English videos on YouTube.com, and they can already upload their English videos.

[I edited the post to add the sentence "(Another source confirmed this to me.)".]

Phillip, I see but even still Germany would make much more sense than France and I do believe for content licensing it might be needed to make region-specific sites even for the UK.

I think France has stringent copyright protection which would simply wrap the site in legal troubles, more than the original.

Maybe they should get their hands on YouTube.fr first (they got the .de today).
http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?o=l&c=1&f=555555&u=youtube.fr&u=&u=&u=&u=&r=6m&y=r&z=1&h=300&w=610

I posted a huge list today on my blog that Google or YouTube does not yet own.

perhaps they will also launch YouTube on the AppleTV the same day?

OK I get it
One of the French TV to be aired on youtube has already its account
http://www.youtube.com/france4

PS : new design on Google Video (frame at top), but as usual Ionut is quickest than me and already post that on his blog :-)
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/06/google-videos-new-frame.html

BTW, I don't know if it's new but there is a nice animation at the top of Youtube homepage, with "videos being watched now". Niiiice! :-)

Yeah its new and full of adult stuff as Philipp points out in Ionuts comments section

Another confirmation:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/06/15/Google-may-launch-YouTube-Europe_1.html

France24 is already on youtube too : http://youtube.com/france24 (in French, English and Arabic)

Marissa Mayer will be in Paris next week? Oh, why will I not be in Paris next week ? :'-(
Lucky Tony.

I may come, but do you have to have some kind of accreditation ?
When and where ?
I'd be glad to meet Tony and a few others in person.

Pierre S: AFAIK it's invite only.

There is also Direct 8: http://www.youtube.com/direct8

and NT1: http://www.youtube.com/nt1

and even more: Europe1, MotorsTV, ...

Most of these channels added videos a few days ago, confirming the upcoming Paris launch

Merci Frenchy ;-)

TOMHTML > Will Zorgloob publish the scoop? ;-)

http://bp0.blogger.com/_HnJWdpHmv6A/RnT3I9IjNcI/AAAAAAAACHo/EE_t0spq8Q0/s1600-h/googlpressday07.jpg

Thank you very much Stefan. They choose very luxous hostels...

Frenchy > if you want to write an article, you're welcome! I have a lot a thing to say, but absolutely no time for write an article... For example, I have to give a report of my internship tomorrow, and at 01:30 AM I'm still writing it...
Contact me if you want ;-)

I don't know how new is this but I'm seeing ads in spanish at Youtube right now.

For example:
http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1482962/ES_music_728x90.gif

But also...

http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1482962/FR_music_728x90.gif

More:

http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1482962/ES_announcement_728x90.gif
http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1482962/FR_announcement_728x90.gif

They link to http://es.youtube.com and http://fr.youtube.com

PD: Sorry for the spam

Well done Pau! /// it's not spam, it's information! =)

de.youtube.com too ;)

Anyway (I'm spamming too :-P) I can't see the ads you show :-/

I see the ads in the profile pages

e.g.
   http://pl.youtube.com (Poland)
   http://it.youtube.com (Italy)

forwards to YouTube, but e.g.

   http://ee.youtube.com ("ee" being something random)
   http://to.youtube.com ("to" being the valid but unlikely country domain Tonga)

isn't found. Does that mean we'll see one local YouTube per European country?

You're absolutely right Pau, thank you again (and again : http://www.zorgloob.com/2007/06/youtube-sous-les-feux-de-lactualit.asp)

I see 5 differents banners.

"Does that mean we'll see one local YouTube per European country?"
> Do you remember when I said "Youtube Europe" ? ;-)

Am I right in thinking since uk.youtube.com redirects to youtube.com and not a DNS error, then they will (atleast at somepoint) launch a UK version?

I understand as YouTube.com is in English anyway it isn't a huge deal, but I've got to think if they are planning on signing more content deals here, they'll really need a UK page.

I've tested uk, ie, nl and they work, to make sure they haven't simply added every country code I tested cm (Cameroon), tw (Taiwan) and got no reply, seems like YouTube Europa is on the cards!

http://jp.youtube.com and http://br.youtube.com

hmm, More countries on the cards? I tried au for Australia and nothing, same with nz for New Zealand ...

Equally se.youtube.com didn't work for Sweden, which is odd if they were launching European versions.

This is funny...
The UK one has a period and the IE (Ireland) one has an exclamation mark while they have the same text (in same language).
http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1482962/UK_music_728x90.gif
http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1482962/IE_music_728x90.gif

This is the Brazil one, btw.
http://m1.2mdn.net/viewad/1482962/BR_music_728x90.gif

OK, NOW it works, well-translated in many languages, and featured with a announcement by video on the home page of locale versions

Yes!

If you click "Country:" the countries are as follows:

Brazil
France
Ireland
Italia
Japan (in their script)
Nederland
Polska
Espana
United Kingdom
United States

where is GERMANY ??? http://de.youtube.com works but...

...redirects! to your local version

Thanks James for the pointer!

Why is there no Germany though? Is there a more powerful rival in Germany so they are holding off the release? I'll check alexa

Philipp, you should update Google Blogoscoped. Today in the morning I first checked Google Blogoscoped, read all the posts, and haven't got a clue. Than I go to the big Polish portal (something like Polish Yahoo!) and there it was – big news about Polish and other localized versions of YouTube. Thats not right ;) I'm suppose to get my Google news from Google Blogoscoped, not from Polish main-stream media ;)

Youtube is the 5th most visited site in Gremany, in Ireland the 4th. Hardly enough to justify not getting one

Er-- I have a problem. I don't now how to go back to the standard YouTube. It remembers what localized version I was on last time and when I type "www.youtube.com" it redirects me to this version. But there is no "United States" on the list....

There is United States on the list

Ohhhhh! I understand what happened. The rest of the menu with localized versions goes UNDER the featured video, so I get only first 6 of them. Thats a know bug of flash under Linux, but there is a workaround, that Google use on Google Video.

"Why France? Why not the two bigger European markets – Great Britain and Germany?"
> According to a study by Comscore*, average French spent 13% of their time to watch streaming, that is much more than US and Germany. 79% of French have seen a streaming video in April, only 76% in the US and 70% in Germany.
There is the reason

(*) http://actu.voila.fr/Article/mmd--francais--journal_internet--hightech/Les-internautes-francais-passent-13-de-leur-temps-a-regarder-du-streaming-.html