Ever wondered where you can upload your videos so that you could share them with your friends and family? The answer for your search is a video-sharing platform, or website meant for this purpose. One of the most widely known and used websites for such purposes is YouTube. Now, “what is YouTube,” exactly? Well, YouTube is a platform, or website, where users can view, upload, and share videos online.
YouTube was officially launched in November, 2005, beginning as a venture-funded technology startup. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, former employees of PayPal, founded YouTube.
Currently, YouTube operates as a subsidiary of Google, after being bought out in 2006. YouTube is headquartered in San Bruno, California.
Unregistered users of YouTube are only allowed to watch YouTube videos, but registered users are allowed to upload any number of videos.
YouTube is a source of thousands of music videos that include the latest best sellers and popular numbers and titles. Those surfing the web like to watch their favorite music videos on YouTube. YouTube music is a “huge collection of rare music videos”.
After its launch, YouTube saw a rapid growth in its popularity: Within eight months of its launch, it announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day on the website, with a viewership of 100 million per day! YouTube has been ranked as the most visited website after Google and Facebook.
YouTube has also been mired in controversies galore, such as copyright violation issues, privacy concerns, censorship problems, and so on.
Access to YouTube has been blocked, time and again, by several countries like the People's Republic of China, Morocco, Thailand, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, and Libya, to name some of them.
YouTube videos can be viewed on personal computers using the Adobe Flash Player plug-in installed in the browser. Now, 3D videos can also be uploaded on YouTube.
A similar website, Vimeo, which is a “video-centric social networking site,” was launched in 2004. This site allows video sharing, storage, and user comments on video pages. Owned by InterActiveCorp, Vimeo is also very popular with the "netizens."
An event in 2008, YouTube Live, was streamed on the internet from San Francisco and Tokyo. YouTube Live was hosted by several celebrities. It was meant to be an annual event; however, only one such event has taken place so far.
YouTube does not offer a download link for its videos and prefers that they are viewed on its web pages.
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