Tag Archives: Livestream

#PrayWithMe: Connect online with your faith community

This week, millions of Canadians will celebrate Passover and Easter. And in the coming weeks, many more will observe Ramadan. This year, these important religious holidays will feel very different, as faith organizations all over the world look for new ways to celebrate safely in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19 within their communities.

During these difficult times, it’s important for us to continue to connect with each other and feel part of our wider communities, even from home.

While some faith organizations have used digital tools to connect with their congregations for many years, this year’s broadly mandated orders to stay home will make it essential for communities, families and individuals to find new ways of coming together, online.

The shift has already begun. Since the start of March, the combined subscribers of all Vatican News channels has more than doubled.

To assist faith organizations everywhere who are new to online services, YouTube has brought together helpful information to get started with live streaming. Please visit our Playlist and Help Centre for best practices, or check out instructions for hosting a live stream event either from a mobile device or desktop.

For those who are marking Passover this week, synagogues are offering many ways to share and celebrate online. Beth Torah Congregation, based in Toronto, is live streaming seders and festival services throughout the week, as is Shaarey Dezek Synagogue in Winnipeg and the City of David Messianic Synagogue, also in Toronto.

For those celebrating Good Friday and Easter, churches are hosting live streams for their local congregations, including The Archdiocese of Toronto from St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica, St. George’s Anglican Church in St. Catharine’s, St. Mary’s Church in Brampton, St. Mary & St. Joseph Coptic Orthodox Church in Richmond Hill, Saint-Joseph Centre in Saint-Césaire, Quebec and more. The Vatican will live stream all of its Holy Week services from St. Peter’s Basilica, including Easter Sunday mass at 11AM CET.

Renowned opera singer Andrea Bocelli will perform live at 7PM CET on Sunday, April 12 from Milan’s historic Duomo Cathedral, available exclusively on YouTube. The concert entitled, “Music For Hope,” will represent a message of love, healing and hope to Italy and the world. The Duomo, currently closed, will open its doors exceptionally for Andrea Bocelli who will be accompanied only by the cathedral organist, Emanuele Vianelli, playing one of world’s largest pipe organs.

Wishing faith communities across Canada safe and healthy holidays.

Posted by the YouTube Canada Team

Updating Your Holiday Hours on Google? Easy as Pumpkin Pie.

Heather Mohorn, owner of Momo’s Tree House, adds special hours on Google to let last-minute shoppers know when her business is open. “The holiday hours feature makes it easy to communicate [changes in hours] to customers,” she says. “It reduces the number of phone calls we receive to ask whether we’re open, which is nice when we’re busy wrapping those last-minute gifts on Christmas Eve.”

With Google My Business, you can update your business info on Google for free to ensure that your phone number, address, and hours of operation are correct so customers can find you this season (and beyond).

To help you make the most of the season, we put together a holiday workshop filled with tips for using the web to connect with shoppers. Preview the section on updating your holiday hours above, or watch the entire workshop at gybo.com/livestream.

For a list of step-by-step instructions on how to update your hours on Google My Business, visit our help center

We hope this is one thing you can easily check off your holiday to-do list.

Cheers,
Emily Harris, on behalf of the Let’s Put Our Cities on the Map team

YouTube’s your one stop shop for U.S. politics this week

It’s a busy week in Washington, but you don’t need to be in the nation’s capital to be a part of it. YouTube will deliver each big moment live.

Tonight at 9 p.m. ET, President Obama’s fifth State of the Union address will stream live on the White House’s YouTube channel, followed by the Republican response by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers on Speaker Boehner’s channel. Senator Mike Lee will deliver the Tea Party response and Senator Rand Paul will offer remarks as well. Several of our news partners will also share their coverage of the event on YouTube, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, The Young Turks, and NowThis News.


This Friday at 2 p.m. ET, President Obama will participate in the first-ever Presidential Hangout Road Trip. He’ll “travel” the country and hop into Google+ Hangouts with people from across the nation to answer their questions and hear their thoughts about the topics he addressed in tonight’s speech.

If you’d like to join the Hangout, record a 60-second video with your name, location, a bit about yourself and the question you’d like to ask the president. Then post it on YouTube with the hashtag #AskObama2014.

Tune in all week and keep up with the latest news by subscribing to youtube.com/news.

Posted by Brandon Feldman, News Content Partnerships, recently watched "Kid President's Letter to a Person on Their First Day Here."