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Google is about to expand its movie-on-demand offering throughYouTube, according toThe Wrap. The expansion of the library to include titles from major studios will purportedly begin in the next week or two. Rumored licensors includeSony Pictures Entertainment,Warner Brothersand Universal, including smaller studios such asLionsgate. YouTube has rented movies out for the last year throughYouTube Movies, but on a much smaller scale with lesser-known offerings. If The Wrap’s reports are true, the revamped service would contend withApple’siTunes Store in the streaming movie rentals space....

On the heels of the wedding of William and Kate, the Beatification ceremony of Pope John Paul II will be streamed live on YouTube this coming Sunday. YouTube announced on itsofficial blogthat on Sunday, May 1st, at 1:00am ET / 9:00am CET, people across the globe will be able to witness the event onYouTube’s Live browse page. The Vatican created itsown channelto celebrate the late pontiff, which consists of videos that document his pontificate....

TheNew York Timesis reporting that YouTube is testing a new ad delivery system it calls First Watch. With this system in place and ad would be run ‘pre-roll’, that’s before the video plays, on a user’s first visit to the site on any given day. If a user had been to YouTube before that day, they would see whatever ad is normally scheduled to be show on that video. This means that YouTube gets a guaranteed ad view from every visitor to its site on any day....

Reports have been coming through on Twitter today that Internet filtering in Iranwas lifted. Iranian residents were reportedly able to access sites that are usually inaccessible in Iran, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. While these sites were accessible, it was alsoreported on Twitterthat HTTPS was not available for many sites. Speculations behind the reason for the lift began with the fact that Iran is implementing a new filtering system and they were simplycaught mid-upgrade, to an attempt totrap anti-government activists, tosabotage....

Saudi Arabia is the first country in the Middle East which has snagged itself a deal with Google to offer users a chance to keep up with the latestYouTubevideos without having to log on to their computers or smart phones at all. Saudi Telecom Company (STC) has partnered with Google Saudi Arabia to bring Interactive Television, or Invision, to its customers, where users can get their daily YouTube fix using nothing more than their televisions....