YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. YouTube was created in mid February 2005 by three former PayPal employees. The San Bruno-based service uses Adobe Flash technology to display a wide variety of video content, including movie clips, TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as videoblogging and short original videos. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google stock. The deal closed on November 13, 2006.
Unregistered users can watch most videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Some videos are available only to users of age 18 or older (e.g. videos containing potentially offensive content, although pornography is disallowed to be uploaded). Related videos, determined by title and tags, appear onscreen to the right of a given video. In YouTube's second year, functions were added to enhance user ability to post video 'responses' and subscribe to content feeds.
History
YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal. Prior to PayPal, Hurley studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The domain name "YouTube.com" was activated on February 15, 2005, and the website was developed over the subsequent months. The creators offered the public a preview of the site in May 2005, six months before YouTube made its official debut.
Like many technology startups, YouTube was started as an angel-funded enterprise from a makeshift office in a garage. In November 2005, venture firm Sequoia Capital invested an initial $3.5 million; additionally, Roelof Botha, partner of the firm and former CFO of PayPal, joined the YouTube board of directors. In April 2006, Sequoia put an additional $8 million into the company, which had experienced huge popular growth within its first few months.
During the summer of 2006, YouTube was one of the fastest growing websites on the Web, and was ranked the 5th most popular website on Alexa, far outpacing even MySpace's rate of growth. According to a July 16, 2006 survey, 100 million video clips are viewed daily on YouTube, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded every 24 hours. The website averages nearly 20 million visitors per month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings,[10] where around 44% are female, 56% male, and the 12- to 17-year-old age group is dominant. YouTube's pre-eminence in the online video market is substantial. According to the website Hitwise.com, YouTube commands up to 64% of the UK online video market.
Within a relatively short time, YouTube has experienced much well-publicized growth, fueled primarily by online word-of-mouth. The website received an early surge of publicity when it hosted the popular Saturday Night Live short Lazy Sunday. However, YouTube's official policy prohibits submission of copyrighted material, and NBC Universal, owners of SNL, soon decided to take action.
In February 2006, NBC asked for the removal of some of its copyrighted content from YouTube, including Lazy Sunday and 2006 Olympics clips. The following month, in an attempt to strengthen its policy against copyright infringement, YouTube set a 10-minute maximum limit on video runtime. Although earlier users were grandfathered in, new members cannot upload videos over 10 minutes long. Established content creators can apply to have this restriction lifted. (It should be noted, however, that the actual cutoff time is 10:58).[citation needed] The restriction can easily be circumvented by uploaders, who simply split the original video into smaller segments, each under the '10-minute' maximum.
Though YouTube complied with NBC's demands, the incident made the news, garnering the website even more publicity. As YouTube continued growing in popularity, NBC began to realize the website's possibilities, and announced, in June 2006, a strategic partnership with YouTube. Under the deal, an official NBC channel was set up on YouTube, showcasing promotional clips for the series The Office. YouTube will also promote NBC videos on its site.
CBS, which had also asked YouTube to remove several of its clips, followed NBC's example in July 2006. In a statement indicative of how traditional media's perception of YouTube (and similar sites) has changed, Sean McManus, president of CBS News and Sports noted:
| “ | Our inclination now is, the more exposure we get from clips like that, the better it is for CBS News and the CBS television network, so in retrospect we probably should have embraced the exposure, and embraced the attention it was bringing CBS, instead of being parochial and saying ‘let’s pull it down.’ | ” |
In August 2006, YouTube announced its goal, within 18 months, to offer every music video ever made, while remaining free of charge. Warner Music Group and EMI have confirmed that they are among the companies in talks to implement the plan. In September 2006, Warner Music and YouTube signed a deal, in which the website will be allowed to host every Warner music video while sharing a portion of the advertisement income. Moreover, user-created videos on YouTube will be allowed to use Warner songs in their soundtracks.
On October 9, 2006, CBS, Universal Music Group, and Sony BMG Music Entertainment announced an agreement to provide content to YouTube.
On January 29, 2007, YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley announced that the online video service will pay its active user-contributors (who should actually be the true copyright owners) a portion of the website's advertising revenue. However, at the World Economic Forum, Hurley did not mention an exact amount of money that YouTube will pay the contributors.
Press Coverage
Time featured a YouTube screen with a foil mirror as its annual 'Person of the Year', citing user-created media such as YouTube's, and featuring the site's originators along with several content creators. The Wall Street Journal and New York Times have also reviewed posted content on YouTube, and its effects upon corporate communications and recruitment in 2006. PC World Magazine named YouTube the 9th of the Top 10 Best Products of 2006. In 2007, both Sports Illustrated and Dime Magazine featured stellar reviews of a basketball highlight video entitled, The Ultimate Pistol Pete Maravich MIX. Because of its acquisition by Google, it is sometimes referred to as "GooTube."
Revenue Model
Before being purchased by Google, YouTube declared that its business model was advertisement-based, making 15 million dollars per month. Some industry commentators have speculated that YouTube's running costs — specifically the bandwidth required — may be as high as 5 to 6 million USD per month, thereby fueling criticisms that the company, like many Internet startups, did not have a viably implemented business model. Advertisements were launched on the site beginning in March 2006. In April, YouTube started using Google AdSense. YouTube subsequently stopped using AdSense but has resumed in local regions.
Internationalization
On June 19, 2007, Eric E. Schmidt was in Paris to launch the new localization system. The entire interface of the website is now available with localized versions in numerous countries:
Google aims to compete with local videosharing websites like DailyMotion in France. It also made an agreement with local television stations like M6 and France Télévisions to legally broadcast video content.
Google also plans to localize in Germany and Turkey in the future. On October 17, 2007 it was announced that a Hong Kong version had been launched. YouTube's Steve Chen said its next target will be Taiwan.
Youtube is blocked from Mainland China from the 18th October due to the censorship of the Taiwanese flag. URLs to Youtube will be redirected to China's own search engine, Baidu. The unblock date of the site is still unknown.
Information provided by: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube
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