Where is the most dangerous place on Earth? While there are many options — on top of volcanoes, the tip of Mt. Everest, the bottom of the ocean, warzones, etc. — what’s the very worst?

Popular YouTube channel VSauce has explored various places with low and high temperatures, thin air, insane pressure, diseases, murder rates, and more to answer that question.

Check out the great video above for the answer (or answers, if you will).

July 9-10, 2013
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You’ve probably already seen almost every one of YouTube’s 10 most popular videos of 2012 – but plenty of gems are out there that didn’t quite hit critical mass.

So we’ve compiled a list of staff favorites and popular videos that made us laugh, cry, or ponder the universe. We’re not including anything from the top 10 list, because, let’s face it, you don’t need to watch Gangnam Style again.

Instead, check out the clips below for some entertainment and insight you might have not seen. And do let us know in the comments what other great viral videos people missed this year.

1. A conversation with my 12-year-old self

What happens when a budding filmmaker talks to himself from 20 years ago? Jeremiah McDonald cut clips of himself from past and present to make a surprising hit that collected more than nine million views.

2. Dollar Shave Club: Our blades are f***ing great

The startup Dollar Shave Club decided the best way to sell its straightforward service was through a hilarious off-the-cuff ad. This ad helped give the young company buzz, and it was more funny than most professionally made ads. Recently, the company raised $9.8 million in new funding.

3. Mister Rogers Remixed: Garden of your mind

Many folks remember Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood from their childhoods, as the show aired 1968 to 2001. So when this autotuned remix of Mister Rogers clips from PBS and popular YouTube user melodysheep hit the web, it transported us back in time. The song’s quite catchy, too.

4. Never, ever give up: Arthur’s inspirational transformation

This video tells the tale of Arthur Boorman, a disabled veteran of the Gulf War. Doctors told him he would never been able to walk unassisted again. Through yoga, training, and instruction from former professional wrestler Diamond Dallas Page, he was able to lose a lot of weight and regain the ability to walk on his own. While the video is cheesy to the max, its inspirational message and positive tone have attracted 7.1 million views.

5. Catch the Ice Dude

A word of caution that we shouldn’t have to tell you — don’t jump into a swimming pool that has iced over. You’ll probably hurt yourself and look dumb doing it. Just like this guy.

Check out videos 6-10 on the next page!

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July 9-10, 2013
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Popular video production company Maker Studios is apparently raising a new round of funding led by old media entertainment company Time Warner, according to AllThingsD.

Maker Studios does online video production that can be found on YouTube. It’s video partners have over 80 million subscribers and 1 billion monthly views across more than 1,000 channels, which put it on par with Google-owned Machinima. Its most popular shows/channels range in topics, and include everything from Epic Rap Battles of History to The Moms View. (See below for an Epic Rap Battle between Back to the Future’s Doc Brown and the Doctor.)

Time Warner Investments is said to contribute $40 million to the round, which could reach a total of $150 million at a $200 million valuation.

If true, this could be a very big deal for YouTube, which has made a massive effort to boost the level of premium content on its site in the last year. Google has already invested $200 million into its premium channel partners, and also acquired video game video company Machinima for $35 million back in May. It’s also significant because media conglomerates like Time Warner are finally starting to see the business potential in producing quality YouTube videos.

Photo via NoBizPlan

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Microsoft has unveiled several fun video ads that encourage people to dive into its new Windows 8 operating system, which debuts this Friday.

“As we enter the final countdown to the global launch of Windows 8, today marks the global unveiling of the Windows 8 advertising campaign going live in 42 countries,” Microsoft communications manager Brandon LeBlanc wrote in a blog post today. “With the reimagining of the Windows product experience, marketing is breaking from the past, as well. The idea behind the campaign is to be more motivating, more rooted in the product experience — less tell and more show — by connecting in an emotional and culturally relevant way that maps to the breadth of the global reach.”

8 things you need to know about Windows 8

The new ads all emphasize music in some way. Whether they focus on a band playing songs or people moving to music, they want Windows 8 to represent a casual OS that can also do work.

“Music, the universal language, is at the heart of this campaign, highlighting a variety of indie and up-and-coming bands across the globe, such as Best Coast in the U.S., Lenka in China, and Hogarth in Brazil,” wrote LeBlanc. “Regardless of country or language, the music universally is upbeat, positive, and encouraging [of] self-expression and experience.”

Check out the ads below.

This first ad will run in the United States and features music from indie rock darlings Best Coast.

This ad will focus on Asian markets and features Parkour performances.

This ad will hit Asia & South East Asia, with an emphasis on a relationship between work and play.

Finally, in Latin America, this ad focuses on spending time with friends and family and Windows 8 connecting you.

July 9-10, 2013
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If someone has ever sent you a long YouTube video and told you to start at a certain time, it can take a few moments to find what the heck they want you to watch. New startup ClipClock wants to solve this problem by letting you start right at the timestamp.

ClipClock’s service helps users collect and share the best moments from YouTube and Vimeo videos by starting them at a certain point. People can comment on these best moments and share them with their family and friends using Facebook and Twitter. ClipClock also has an iPhone app so someone can shoot a video on their phone, comment on it, and upload it to ClipClock.

“I founded and took up the CEO role in this company with the belief that people will need to handle online video differently,” ClipClock CEO Alexey Krainov told VentureBeat via email. “It is so huge a market with so big players that it’s hard to think about changing the game. But the simplicity of our idea, the need for relevant content and fun products — really [made us] go for it.”

The company claims that its mobile app can help videos go viral. “Moments are more relevant than the entire video,” Krainov told the audience on stage at DEMO today (pictured, left). “We can highlight the best moments from a video from any mobile phone.”

Krainov argues that ClipClock is important because the number of videos online is rapidly growing and the lengths of these videos are growing. “The more and the longer videos are, the more important becomes the availability of the relevant video content for each user of online video,” he said.

The panel of sages that took the stage after the company’s launch were impressed, but had some advice for the founders. Dave Hagan, CEO of Boingo Wireless, said the key to successful video technology is that it’s intuitive and easy to use — “it’s all about the UI.”

Moscow and San Francisco-based ClipClock has raised $750,000 in seed funding, and Krainov says a $2 million first round is “on the way.” The company has nine employees.

Check out the video below for more on ClipClock:

ClipClock is one of 75 companies and 6 student “alpha” startups chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2012 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After we make our selections, the chosen companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

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Popular video-sharing service Vimeo has introduced new ways to reward the creators of videos posted on the site, with the ability to put videos behind a paywall and a new “tip jar” so people can contribute to video artists.

Vimeo has made a lot of big steps in 2012, and the site currently claims to attract 75 million monthly unique visitors. Thus far, the company brought in new CEO, redesigned its main site, launched a wide array of apps to bring in more mobile users, and integrated with Dropbox. Now Vimeo wants to give its deep community ways to make money using the service.

First up, it will immediately offer a “tip jar” on all videos so viewers can throw a little cash at the creators they love. Vimeo will pay 85 percent of the gross revenue to video creators.

The paywall situation is a little more complex. In the first quarter of 2013, Vimeo will offer a “pay-to-view” platform to Vimeo Pro subscribers that want to make money showing films and episodes. It will be a flexible platform that allows creators to set control over the price, rental duration, and other settings. The company will take a cut of each transaction, but it is still figuring out what that cut should be.

“We’ve wanted to offer this for a long time,” Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor told me. “We don’t know how big this will be, but we’re excited to see what it becomes.”

Offering a paywall for videos is a big step for IAC-owned company. It represents a way for Vimeo to attract more Pro subscribers and earn more revenue on taking a cut of a video or film rental. The company’s largest revenue generator is subscriptions, second is advertising, and third is transactions. Ideally, this could bump up how much money it gets from transactions and boost subscriptions. “We’re bullish on the growth of our subscription service,” Trainor said.

As for advertising, Trainor told me the company is looking into new ideas for ads as well. One way the company made some cash recently was by partnering with Old Spice and Wieden + Kennedy to bring a crazy interactive ad starring Terry Crews to life. It will continue to explore its options like this. Trainor said the company would have other announcements this year, so we’ll see if new ad products come into play.

Check out the video below for more on video monetization.

Photo credit: Vimeo

July 9-10, 2013
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Popular video-sharing site Vimeo has launched a new Enhancer tool that makes it possible to seamlessly add more than 50,000 music tracks from the Vimeo Music Store directly to online videos, the company announced today.

Vimeo has always focused on bringing the highest-quality experience to online videos and its emphasis on quality separates itself from YouTube. Now, with the Enhancer tool and a new partnership, Vimeo builds on that reputation by making it easier to add a soundtrack to an already uploaded video, change audio levels, and change the start and end times of a track.

The company also has added a new music partner with SmartSound that will let users add about 4,000 customizable tracks to their videos. The offering is unique in that you can do a lot to change the mood of SmartSound track, including speed it up, slow it down, or change the musical arrangement. SmartSound tracks cost $1.99 per track for a personal use license and $19.99 per track for a commercial license.

Check out the video below for a quick look at Enhancer:

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When streaming video service Vimeo launched brand-new Android and Windows Phone applications in early January, the company teased that it was also working on a major update for iOS so it could support the iPad. Now that wait is finally up, with Vimeo launching its much improved iOS app today at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Vimeo told me back in January that total traffic coming from mobile was at 7 percent in Jan. 2010 and that now sits at 15 percent. So clearly the company has realized how important it is to cater its service to the throngs of mobile users trotting iPhones, iPads, Android phones, and Windows Phones.

“We’ve seen mobile traffic triple since we launched our original iPhone app in early 2011,” said Joseph Schmitt, lead mobile developer at Vimeo, in a statement. “Now, we’ve taken what we learned while creating our previous apps and applied it to the updated iOS to improve overall design and usability. We’re especially pleased with the awesome iPad user interface, which the Vimeo community has eagerly awaited.”

Before this update, the company only offered an iOS app to support the iPhone and iPod touch. But now it will work with the iPad, which is especially important because that device is tailor-made for media consumption.

Besides iPad support, the iOS app adds the ability to browse videos while you watch one, making the discovery process better. There’s also a video editor, which is a nice touch especially since the app is free. Additionally, when you edit videos, you can buy and incorporate licensed music from the Vimeo Music Store.

Vimeo has been owned by IAC, which also owns OKCupid, Match.com, Urbanspoon, and The Daily Beast, since August 2006. Vimeo doesn’t reveal paid subscriber numbers, but it does have more than 8 million registered users at present.

The iOS app is free can be downloaded from the Apple App Store. The app is compatible with iOS devices running iOS 4.3 and above.

You can see a few more screenshots of the new Vimeo iPad app below:

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YouTube may have already picked the biggest videos to hit the web this year, but there’s a host of great videos that didn’t make the cut. From vigilante cyclists to deadpan taxidermists to obligatory cute kittens, the web was full of strange, funny, sad and infuriating events and characters.

We decided to cap off the year with a list of 10 viral videos we especially liked. While you’ve probably seen at least half of these, there’s a good chance you haven’t seen them all. In trying to define “viral,” we’ve decided not to count any stunningly made professional videos. No music videos starring the notorious Rebecca Black or mega-popular Katy Perry, no crazy views of Earth from space and no stunning visions of the future are in the mix here.

Here are the top 10 viral videos of the year:

Bike lanes in New York City

New York City has been cracking down hard on cyclists this year for not riding in designated bike lanes. Although there are some cyclists who blatantly ignore laws and streetlights (I live there and constantly worry about being biked down), there’s wide mix of violations from pedestrians, drivers and bikers alike. In a move of defiance, one cyclist who gets an unfair ticket decided to make a video of what happens when he only rides in the bike lane. The results are quite funny.

Cat mom hugs baby kitten

Even though it was included in YouTube’s year-end list, we couldn’t help but include this cat-and-kitten clip in our list as well. It’s one of the most watchable clips we’ve seen in a long while because it’s just so darn cute. As much as my grandmother and I have radically different tastes, we both really love this clip.

Chatroulette Love Song

The Chatroulette service — which lets people video chat with other random people — might have been a fad that died off in 2010, but the site and potential to use the service remains. One enterprising band decided to create the “Chatroulette Love Song,” which features a man and his band singing a love song to a girl he meets on the service. It might be the best thing to ever come from the service. Well, unless seeing random male genitals all the time is your thing.

Japan Earthquake: Helicopter aerial view of tsunami waves

The humongous earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March was one of the most-covered pieces of news of the year. The disaster caused more than 15,000 deaths and 5,000 injuries. Russia Today spliced some of the most harrowing early footage together while the event was still happening and posted it to the web. The result is a terrifying look at the power of a tsunami as it uproots homes and businesses like it’s nothing. It became viral because of the news, but it had staying power as a document to one of the year’s most important events.

Nyan Cat

Whether the flying rainbow “nyan cat” falls into the hilarious, surprising or infuriating camp depends on your personal preference, but there’s no denying the song and video was a meme that wouldn’t go away. The nyan cat video has more than 54 million views to date and has inspired countless parodies and related videos. There’s even someone who liked nyan cat enough to turn the repetitive ditty into a 10-hour-long version, which has more than 9 million views itself. That’s a lot of nyan.

Click this link to see the final 5 viral videos of 2011!

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Movieclips on Tuesday announced that it had raised a $7 million round of funding and partnered with YouTube to bring its 20,000 HD movie clips to a much bigger audience.

“First and foremost, this helps studios eliminate piracy because these are licesened clips,” Movieclips co-founder Zach James told VentureBeat. “And it helps users too. Instead of searching for your favorite scene from Scarface and finding a scene done by kindergartners, you’ll get to watch the actual movie clip.”

Not only will studios have less of their clips pirated on YouTube, but the partnership lets studios, Movieclips, and YouTube split ad revenue. The model is similar to what Vevo and Machinima already do for music and gaming videos.

The $7 million funding round is being led by MK Capital, which is also the largest investor in Machinima.

“As the once-huge DVD market continues to be rapidly replaced by online movie purchases, rentals and subscriptions, we believe a searchable video-based clip experience will be the preferred way most movie fans will discover and select movies,” said Mark Terbeek, a partner at MK Capital, in a statement.

James said Movieclips is working hard to greatly expand its network of clips to 100,000 and plans to include things like trailers, on-set visits, interviews with movie stars, and special features.

“We want this to be the network for video about movies, not just movie clips themselves,” James said. “Soon it will be a much bigger and more diverse collection.”

I for one love re-watching my favorite film scenes (like this one), so the partnership between Movieclips and YouTube is great for movie fanatics, who want high-quality clips, and studios, which are looking for new ways to monetize online videos.