Upwards of 35 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, making it impossible for anyone to view a fraction of whatever good stuff is available.  Even trying would be a waste of time.  YouTube’s launched a new site called YouTube Trends to highlight the popular clips, however.

This isn’t a matter of two or three editors picking out content they happen to see that suits their tastes.  True to Google’s data-focused traditions, algorithms will instead be responsible for judging which clips are trending.  Blog posts on YouTube Trends will only complement the algorithm and provide extra data as time goes by.

Anyway, the popular clips will be displayed in several different ways.  The most basic display concept is pretty simple: a column on the right-hand side of the YouTube Trends homepage will feature said clips.

Then, to up the ante a little, collections of four videos will be released twice every day.  YouTube’s calling the idea "4 at 4" (and surprisingly, the releases will occur at 4 A.M. and P.M Eastern time, never mind that Google’s based in California).

Finally, for folks who are interested in what’s popular with a specific set of people, a YouTube Trends blog post introduced "a brand new dashboard that allows you to quickly explore what’s popular in different cities in the United States and in countries around the world, as well as within specific demographic sets."  (Look for it in the upper right-hand corner of the site.)

It should be interesting to see if YouTube Trends is widely accepted, or if people decide to continue stumbling across popular videos as they always have.  YouTube’s goal, at least, is to offer "a destination for daily insight into the zeitgeist of the world’s largest video site."