How do I get a random YouTube video with the YouTube API?

There appears to be no way to do this, however there are ways to approximate what you’re looking for. See here for ideas.

The basic ideas from those pages are to use the most recent uploads feed (if you don’t care about when something was uploaded) or simply get a dump of ALL youtube videos and randomly select a URL from those.

To quote the youtube API guy in first link:

As others have mentioned, we make any data dumps or the like available. All your interaction with YouTube needs to be done via the standard API.

I can’t say that I have enough of a background in statistics to suggest how you could retrieve a truly random sample of videos. I do think that going about it by attempting to generate 11 character YouTube video ids is probably the wrong approach, though—there are just too many non-existent video ids that you’ll bump up against, and I don’t think the best use of the API is to make requests that will return HTTP 404 responses X% of the time.

You might have better luck just using the API to search for words or phrases that are picked at “random” and taking a sampling of the results. If you do that, you should think about what value to use for the orderby= URL parameter. The default ordering is “relevance”, which will lead to the top results being the ones that our algorithms think are the most relevant to your search terms. This might skew your results if you always grab the first entry or the like. You could also order by “published” which will give you a reverse-chronological feed of videos.

Cheers, -Jeff Posnick, YouTube API Team as With regards to randomyoutubevideo.net, this is what the “About” page of that site has to say:

So how can we provide truly random links to YouTube videos? It turns out that the YouTube programming interface (API) provides additional functions that allow the discovery of videos that are much more random. Using a number of tricks, combined with a little manipulation of the space-time frabric, we have managed to create a process that yiields truly random links to YouTube videos.

The random YouTube function on this page currently uses a subset of the database. Over time we will expand this database and, depending on demand, may make it available free of charge via an API.

I understand this to mean that they have been pulling large lists of videos from the API and making a DB of them from which they randomly select.

Related Posts:

  1. .Net 4.8 Support for Windows 10 ends in 26 days?
  2. What is a NullReferenceException, and how do I fix it?
  3. An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
  4. How can I convert String to Int?
  5. What is a NullReferenceException, and how do I fix it?
  6. I am getting Failed to load resource: net::ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT with Google chrome
  7. Could not load file or assembly or one of its dependencies
  8. Error : Could not load file or assembly or one of it’s dependencies
  9. Could not load file or assembly or one of its dependencies
  10. Priority queue in .Net
  11. What is the difference between int, Int16, Int32 and Int64?
  12. What is the purpose of nameof?
  13. How to open .dll files to see what is written inside?
  14. Windows .NET API / Windows 7 / Bluetooth communication with Intel Curie Arduino / Genuino 101
  15. Error 1053 the service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion
  16. Get current folder path
  17. foreach vs someList.ForEach(){}
  18. System.web.mvc missing
  19. Nullable object must have a value?
  20. What does mscorlib stand for?
  21. Extension methods must be defined in a non-generic static class
  22. Metadata file ‘.dll’ could not be found
  23. WebForms UnobtrusiveValidationMode requires a ScriptResourceMapping for jquery
  24. “Error while trying to run project: Unable to start program”. Can run program only once. Then VS needs restart
  25. Add new item in existing array in c#.net
  26. How to resolve this System.IO.FileNotFoundException
  27. What is clr.dll on .Net framework and what does it do?
  28. what is this oleaut32.dll?
  29. Associating enums with strings in C#
  30. How do I declare a DefaultValue attribute whose value is an array of strings?
  31. How to resolve this System.IO.FileNotFoundException
  32. HttpWebRequest-The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request
  33. Extension methods must be defined in a non-generic static class
  34. How to use the “Using” statement in ASP.net razor webpages?
  35. How can I get the application’s path in a .NET console application?
  36. Reading settings from app.config or web.config in .NET
  37. How do I create a Shared Code project (.shproj)
  38. There is no argument given that corresponds to the required formal parameter – .NET Error
  39. How do I remedy “The breakpoint will not currently be hit. No symbols have been loaded for this document.” warning?
  40. Multiple file-extensions searchPattern for System.IO.Directory.GetFiles
  41. Could not establish trust relationship for SSL/TLS secure channel — SOAP
  42. Unable to read data from the transport connection : An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host
  43. How to make an HTTP POST web request
  44. How to add comments into a Xaml file in WPF?
  45. Why did I get the compile error “Use of unassigned local variable”?
  46. Reading CSV file and storing values into an array
  47. The remote server returned an error: (407) Proxy Authentication Required
  48. Merge two (or more) lists into one, in C# .NET
  49. How to open a new form from another form
  50. How do you sort a dictionary by value?
  51. EntityType has no key defined error
  52. HTML.ActionLink method
  53. Deep cloning objects
  54. Regular expression “^[a-zA-Z]” or “[^a-zA-Z]”
  55. How do I restart my C# WinForm Application?
  56. .NET graph library around?
  57. Best way to reverse a string
  58. An object reference is required to access a non-static member
  59. Task vs Thread differences
  60. Merging two arrays in .NET
  61. String was not recognized as a valid DateTime ” format dd/MM/yyyy”
  62. XmlSerializer – There was an error reflecting type
  63. Substring index and length must refer to a location within the string
  64. Run Command Prompt Commands
  65. windows could not start service on local computer error 5 access is denied
  66. Visual Studio keeps crashing
  67. How can I implement static methods on an interface?
  68. Catch multiple exceptions at once?
  69. How to delete a file after checking whether it exists
  70. c# Show Windows Form
  71. How do I exit a WPF application programmatically?
  72. .NET String.Format() to add commas in thousands place for a number
  73. The remote server returned an error: (405) Method Not Allowed. WCF REST Service
  74. How to play a sound in C#, .NET
  75. How can I delete a file that is in use by another process?
  76. What is a quick way to force CRLF in C# / .NET?
  77. How to resolve file being used by another process?
  78. How to enable assembly bind failure logging (Fusion) in .NET
  79. How to make inline functions in C#
  80. How to properly make a http web GET request
  81. Strip double quotes from a string in .NET
  82. Convert double to float by cast or Convert.ToSingle()?
  83. c# .net change label text
  84. How to create a new object instance from a Type
  85. How to avoid a System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException?
  86. Using FolderBrowserDialog in WPF application
  87. Is there an equivalent to the C# “var” keyword in C++/CLI?
  88. When should I use a List vs a LinkedList
  89. How can I generate random alphanumeric strings?
  90. Sequence contains more than one element
  91. How do you do a deep copy of an object in .NET? 
  92. Playing a MP3 file in a WinForm application
  93. .NET Core vs Mono
  94. Iif equivalent in C#
  95. LINQ query on a DataTable
  96. Best way to randomize an array with .NET
  97. Encrypt and decrypt a string in C#?
  98. Unrecognized escape sequence for path string containing backslashes
  99. How to enumerate an enum
  100. How to set session timeout in web.config

Leave a Comment