YouTube API Documentation Adviser

This form lets you choose the YouTube API features that you want to implement and then customizes the API documentation to match your selections. The adviser can help you navigate the API documentation by hiding information about features that you don't plan to use.

• Check the boxes in the form below to identify the features that you want to implement.
• Some information, such as the structure of video feeds or the list of possible error responses, is included in all customized document sets.
• You can bookmark your customized document set to save your preferences.
• Customized document sets display the word Customized! in the left menu as well as a link to modify your feature selections.
• The tooltip icons () provide additional information about the features listed on the page.

Authentication  AuthSub for Web Applications You should use AuthSub authentication if you are building a web application that will let users link videos, comments, ratings, contacts or other information to their own YouTube accounts.  OAuth for Web Applications You may want to use OAuth authentication if your application also integrates with other APIs besides the YouTube API, and those APIs also support the OAuth protocol.  ClientLogin for Installed Applications You should use ClientLogin if you are building a standalone, single-user, installed client, such as a desktop application.  Authentication for Flash Applications Search options Your search results page can display results for videos, channels and/or playlists that match the user's search term. Click the tooltip link to see an example.  Video search  Channel search  Playlist search Uploading videos  Browser-based uploading Browser-based uploading lets you accept video uploads from users without having to handle, host or proxy the actual video files. Choose this option if you do not want to host or store uploaded video files.  Direct uploading Direct uploading lets you add videos that are in your video library to YouTube. Choose this option, or the resumable upload option, if you want to host or store videos uploaded through your site and also add those videos to YouTube.  Resumable uploads Resumable uploads are direct uploads that can be restarted from the point of interruption if the connection between your application and YouTube is lost at any point during the uploading process. Choose this option if you have a collection of videos that you want to upload to YouTube, or if you want to host or store videos uploaded through your site and also add those videos to YouTube. Related features  Updating and deleting videos Developers who incorporate this functionality typically also incorporate either browser-based uploading or direct uploading functionality.  Providing captions for a video Adding captions to your video files can help users to locate and understand your videos.

Community features  Adding a rating  Comments A comment is a text response to a video. Users must be logged in to add comments. Users cannot modify or delete comments.  Video responses A video response is a video that is associated, as a reply, with another video. A video can be designated as a video response to exactly one other video. Logged-in users can add or delete video responses, but the user must have uploaded the video that is being added or deleted.  Adding a complaint A complaint flags a video for containing inappropriate content. Complaints can be inserted but cannot be updated or deleted. Saving and collecting videos  Favorite videos A favorite video is a video that a user has explicitly flagged as a favorite. Logged-in users can add or delete favorite videos.  Playlists A playlist is a collection of videos that can be viewed sequentially and shared with other users. Users must log in to create, modify or delete playlists.  Subscriptions A subscription notifies a user when new videos are uploaded. A user can subscribe to another user's channel, another user's list of favorites, a playlist or a keyword tag. Logged-in users can create or delete subscriptions.  Video recommendations YouTube generates video recommendations for logged-in users based on their recently watched videos, favorite videos, ratings of other videos, playlist videos and so forth. Enabling user interaction  User profiles A user profile contains information about a user, such as the user's hobbies, occupation, or favorite books, music and movies.  Contacts  Messages and video sharing Video messages let YouTube users share videos with each other. The API lets you retrieve video messages sent to the logged-in user's inbox, send a video message from that user to another user, and delete video messages from that user's inbox.  Activity feeds Activity feeds list actions that a particular user or set of users has taken on the YouTube site. Additional features  Retrieving live events Live-streaming events are broadcast on YouTube as they occur. The API lets you retrieve live event charts, which are standard feeds listing featured, upcoming, current, and recently broadcast live events. You can also retrieve a feed of live events created by a specified user.  Using the Simple Update Protocol The Simple Update Protocol (SUP) enables an API provider to notify API users when a feed is updated. It is particularly useful for API users that want to monitor many feeds at once. The YouTube API enables API users to use SUP to monitor user activity feeds. This functionality will be most appealing to sites that maintain their own friend graphs or that want to monitor the activities of many users.  Batch processing Batch processing lets you execute up to 50 operations with a single API request rather than submit a separate request for each individual operation.  Retrieving partial API responses You can retrieve partial API responses in which you specify the fields that will be included in the API response. By only requesting information that it will actually display, your client application can more efficiently use network, CPU, and memory resources.  Submitting partial API updates You can submit partial API updates in which your request only specifies the fields that will be updated for a specific video, playlist, or other resource.  Retrieving Insight data for a video YouTube Insight is an analytics and reporting engine that provides viewing statistics, popularity metrics and demographic information for videos.