Wow! There are tons of videos uploaded already. That’s great! It’s even more impressive considering the hurdles that the users are facing as they try to get their entries uploaded at YouTube. I’ll go into that more in a bit.

First I wanted to show off some vids! I picked these from the recently uploaded videos. They are pretty cool… check em out.

By ProjectAngel

By Electo55 & Cookino

By fireball11121 & bean018

By RoboShadow

You should go check out all the videos! Here is a link to the entries. The entry rules can be found in my first post. Let’s go over some of the things that have come up since the contest started. People are still talking about it on the forums!

Hurdle 1:  Getting on a Team

Teams are allowed – up to 4 users. All usernames must be listed at the top of the description. The team members can include the actors, director, place builder, camera-person, editor, or more. It’s just limited to 4 names. The person who uploads the video gets to decide who is on the team.

Again: The usernames have to be in the description AT THE TOP. Don’t pad the text with a lot of other words. Get the video uploader to fix the text if the usernames aren’t on there.

Hurdle 2: Uploading Your Soundtrack

YouTube is in an epic battle with some music companies and can’t allow certain songs on their site. Bummer! You can swap your song for an officially allowed YouTube copy after you upload it. You may need to swap if you used an iTunes song. Here is the official Swap Help.

If your song is not in the swap you may need to pick a new song. Sorry. Another way to get around this problem is to make your own music. Seriously!!!

Hurdle 3: YouTube Views Counts are Stuck

Oh Noes!  We have been getting reports that the views counts are stuck or delayed on YouTube. The views are only stuck on the search page, but if you go to the actual video page it is accurate. Not to worry! We were already planning to use the YouTube Data APIs to gather all the information about the videos. Using some simple but powerful search tools we can get the exact Views count for each video. The contest winners list will be as accurate as we can make it.

The last day to upload videos is by noon Monday March 9, 2009. Winners will be announced and prizes awarded by Friday March 13, 2009.

I also wanted to share that Builderman himself loves the videos. He says he can’t stop watching them. You guys really rock!

-ReeseMcBlox