Across the Country: What Final Four Fans are Watching

This weekend marks NCAA basketball's Final Four, the semifinal and final for men's college basketball in the United States. The NCAA tournament is a basketball lover's dream, and it continues to draw out enthusiasm and passion from college sports fans nationwide.

So its no surprise that some of the most-shared and -viewed videos in the hometowns of many Final Four teams are basketball related. We break down a handful below:

TOPEKA: Ultimate Kansas Fan	LOUISVILLE: That Cardinal doesn't like this UK fan's truck
LEXINGTON: Bluegrass in the Big Easy	COLUMBUS: Pre-Final Four press conference

Interestingly, the state of Ohio is enthralled this week not just with Ohio State videos. The most-shared clip in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus is this letter to the Browns football team.

See more of what's popular in different locations nationally and around the world with our Trends Dashboard.

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Unlikely Musical Instruments: Floppy Disk Drives

Performances involving unusual musical instruments have been a longtime YouTube staple, but over the last several months, we've started to see more and more of a particularly strange "instrument" being used to create tunes: old floppy disk drives.

YouTube saw a big spike in searches for "floppy drive" starting this past October, when the Star Wars "Imperial March" below first went viral. It's now been seen over 4.3 million times. It was created by Polish science students at a university.



This week, you can witness how elaborate recycling floppy disk drives for this untended purpose can get. MrSolidSnake745 is an entire channel of retro-tech covers using the drives and his videos have been viewed over 2 million times and counting. Here's the clip that's currently trending...



And that's not even the only channel producing covers like these ongoingly:



While searches since October have been noticeably higher for "floppy drive" videos, the trend is not necessarily a new one and some popular floppy drive covers have been around for longer:



Check out the floppy disk topic page to discover more.

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'Pi Day': The Unlikely Web Video Holiday

Yesterday was "Pi Day." You know, March 14. 3.14?

It's a day some people may remember from geometry class, but its now found a new following on the web, where fans of math and science routinely produce all sorts of "Pi"-related content on this obscure holiday.

In fact, over 1,000 videos tagged "Pi Day" were uploaded this week. Some took a straightforward approach, like this explainer from Numberphile:



While some people were a big more unconventional. The BYU Mathletes, seen here, used the opportunity to do something unique:



But not everybody is a fan. YouTube scribbler and self-described "mathemusician" Vi Hart produced this clip last year, that remains one of the most viewed Pi Day videos.



If you're interested, you can see Hart's 2012 video here.

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Tracking the Popularity of 'KONY 2012'

Last week, the 30 minute "KONY 2012" documentary, produced by Invisible Children, dominated social media feeds and was, by far, the most-viewed video on YouTube. The clip, which has been seen over 75 million times already, has seen unprecedented popularity for a non-profit video.

A look at viewing over time shows that viewing peaked last Wednesday with 31 million views in a single day, coinciding with what seemed to be the period of highest social activity around the clip.



The top rising searches, globally, on YouTube in the past 30 days relate to this subject and over 7 million views were from searches. Over 20,000 "Kony"-related videos have been uploaded in the past week.

Over 20 million views were from social media platforms. Some of entertainment's biggest stars, including Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Diddy, and Oprah, shared the video on their social media accounts, and the video quickly became the most-shared clip around the world. The video continues to spread and the numbers continue to climb, with the video still averaging millions of views per day.

The video has been increasingly popular and it's single day spike in viewing nearly tripled the most-recent video to see this kind of speedy spread.

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Super Tuesday: Most Viewed GOP Videos This Season

Today's Super Tuesday in the United States with 10 states holding primary elections to help determine which Republican candidate will be selected to run against President Barack Obama this Fall.

We went through the data and saw that videos posted by the official GOP candidate channels were viewed over 40 million times since last the start of last June. Taking a look at the top 10 most viewed clips in that bunch (below) reveals that it was Governor Rick Perry who drew the most attention.

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On the Scene Footage: March Midwest Tornadoes

An unusual series of devastating tornadoes tore through parts of the South and Midwestern United States late last week. >Over 100 are said to have been reported on Friday alone. A number of residents -- as well as storm chasers -- captured images of these disasters in action.

In this video, for example, a tornado is seem forming over what's said to be West Liberty, Kentucky on Friday.



Over 4,000 videos with "tornado" in the title were posted in the past week. Several of them have been collected in the playlist below.

(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)



You can follow this story at YouTube.com/CitizenTube

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The New Classical: YouTube Showcases New Music in Old Styles

This post was authored by Bailey Johnson of CBSNews.com's The Feed, for a YouTube Trends series exploring viral video phenomena.

YouTube has led the charge into this brave new world of online content. Video creators have invented new genres of entertainment, and in some cases completely changed what being an “entertainer” means. But what often gets overlooked is how YouTube can make the old new again. Take, for example, one of the oldest forms of culture: classical music. Musicians have been able to hone their craft into new and exciting forms using some of the oldest styles and instruments out there. What does this “new classical” music sound like? Take a look.



Violinist Lindsey Stirling used her classical violin training to create something on the cutting edge with this music video, “Crystalize.” The video calls it “dubstep violin” and it’s not far off. It can’t be easy taking a nearly 500-year-old instrument and using it to create a new style. But Stirling makes it look easy; almost as easy as finding an audience hungry for something unique. “Crystalize” has been viewed nearly five million times in the few weeks it’s been online. Of course, the awesome sweeping visuals didn’t hurt.



The Piano Guys are another group making the old new again. These classically trained musicians use a piano, some cellos, and expert editing to transform their centuries-old instruments into modern hits. David Guetta is about as cutting-edge as music gets these days, but The Piano Guys show us that there’s really nothing new under the sun. Even Beethoven could’ve made these beats. You know, if he had the ear for it.



Speaking of cellos, let’s take a look at the aptly named 2CELLOS. Using, yes, two cellos, Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic have become something like superstars in their field. They’ve made several television appearences, go on tour, and have a booming YouTube channel. “Smooth Criminal” above has been viewed over 5.5 million times.



The real catalyst for this article – besides all the awesome music – was this video we posted on The Feed last week. As my pal Will Goodman wrote, “You know you’re doing something right when a band posts your video up on their Facebook page with the simple word ‘whoah’ to describe it.” Transforming the Foo Fighters’ classic “Everlong” into a sweeping piano piece is an inspired work of art that perfectly captures the everything-old-is-new-again aesthetic of budding classical musicians worldwide.

Today's Trend analysis provided by

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The Popular Trailers of 2012 So Far: Avengers, Hunger Games

Now that the Academy Awards has taken place, it's time to shift focus to what some might consider the other end of the spectrum: the 2012 slate of blockbuster movies. There are plenty of films to look forward to this year, but by trailer popularity there are two big-time adaptations fans are hotly anticipating...

In 2012, the two top searches associated with trailers on YouTube so far are for Hunger Games, out later this month, and Marvel's The Avengers.

Searches for The Avengers hit their largest spike back in October, when the first trailer was released. It's since been seen over 10 million times. There have been subsequent spikes when their Super Bowl trailer ran and this week when a new longer version was released. This new one has been seen over 4 million times in just two days.



The adaptation of the young-adult novel Hunger Games also saw its first spike in buzz this past fall, with initial trailer hitting the web in November. A new trailer was released in February that's racked up over 6 million views.



The fastest rising "trailer" search so far has been Chronicle, which was released last month and also had a very popular first trailer.

We're only two months in, so we'll have to check back closer to the summer to see how things have changed.

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