YouTube goes international

YouTube has launched nine country-specific versions of the site. Local versions of YouTube are now available for Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the U.K.

The [localized editions of YouTube][1] feature fully translated content and at some point in the future will track country-specific popular content.

The new sites can be round at their country specific addresses such as [youtube.fr][5] or [youtube.jp][6] (note that all those URLs work, they actually redirect to fr.youtube.com, etc.).

YouTube rather conspicuously has left Germany out of the initial launch of its international sites. Epicenter [posits][3] that it might have something to do with the age-verification restriction in place in Germany.

Flickr, which also [recently went international][4], [upset users in some countries][2] (including Germany) by censoring content. Though it took them two whole days to explain themselves, Flickr says the censorship is due to stringent German age-verification laws. If that statement is correct then YouTube's decision to skip Germany for the time being makes sense.

YouTube plans to roll out more country-specific versions of the site in the coming weeks and has already announced plans for a Chinese version.

[1]: http://br.youtube.com/blog?entry=ktewBXNbyTw "YouTube Speaks Your Language"
[2]: http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/06/german_users_in.html "German Users In Revolt Over Flickr Image Restrictions"
[3]: http://blog.wired.com/business/2007/06/youtube_goes_in.html "YouTube Goes International...Sans Germany"
[4]: http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/06/flickr_speaking.html "Flickr Speaking In Tongues: Photo Sharing Site Adds Additional Language Support"
[5]: http://fr.youtube.com/ 
[6]: http://jp.youtube.com/