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YouTube is a popular video streaming website that displays uploaded video files created by its users; their motto is "Broadcast yourself." YouTube is the world's most popular online video site, with users watching 4 billion hours worth of video each month, and uploading 72 hours worth of video every minute (Dickey, 1). The types of videos uploaded to YouTube include user-created content, such as homemade videos and video blogs, and short video clips from films, television and copyrighted and non-copyrighted materials. YouTube's interface is easy to use, but is designed to allow a complex array of activity. Users do not need to download software to use YouTube, but access to a high-speed Internet connection does optimize the video streaming capabilities of the website. Users may respond to videos by posting a comment about the video (in writing or by video response), giving a video a rating, or by voting a video a "favorite." Users may also share videos by emailing them or linking them to another webpage, such as a personal weblogs (blogs) or social networking and book-marking websites. Users may flag a video as inappropriate if the content is copyrighted or if the content is sexually or verbally explicit. Users can see the number of hits or visits a video has garnered, view the username of any individual who posted a video and be notified whenever that person posts a new video. Users can also join user communities with similar interests or subscribe to channels with specific content (Craig, 1).
Since its launch on February 14th 2005, YouTube has become a touchstone in cultural debates about the Internet and the World Wide Web. Before that day, very few people had ever even heard the name "YouTube." It was founded by former PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. On April 23, 2005, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted the very first video to YouTube, entitled "Me at the Zoo." The video is exactly how it sounds: Karim at the San Diego zoo standing in front of the elephants and talking about their trunks (Dickey, 1). On October 21, 2005, Nike becomes the first major company to embrace YouTube's promotional potential (Belanger, 1). A video of Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho dancing the samba with a ball is an early viral hit (Lidsky, 1). By July 2006, YouTube was receiving 20 million visitors per month. Of the nine billion video clips watched in the United States that same month, more than a quarter of them (2.5 billion videos at an average length of 2.7 minutes each) were watched on YouTube (Belanger,1). On October 9th, 2006, Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion (Lidsky, 1). By August of 2008, the site boasted 74 million visitors per month (Belanger,1). YouTube was immediately successful: the ease of use and open policy of the website, which allowed almost all forms of content, combined with the fact that it was a free service, attracted millions of users (Belanger,1).
YouTube definitely has positively shaped the 21st century. YouTube has given people the opportunity to upload their videos and share them with the world. Whether they are comedic videos, political videos, or just random clips from their favorite TV shows, YouTube has given the user full power. YouTube has made a huge impact on a variety of different aspects ranging from the presidential election, politics, promotion of talents, commercials, and has also spurred several lawsuits(Burkard,1). In the past, if people wanted to listen to music, they would have to watch MTV and hope that their favorite songs would play. Now, YouTube has completely changed the music industry. It makes it super easy and fast to listen to any song. YouTube now makes it a lot easier to learn how to do something. From hair and makeup tutorials to learning how to play an instrument, YouTube can help someone learn how to do almost anything easily. People can learn how to do these things in the comfort of their own homes. There is no longer a need to go and pay for classes on how to do things such as cooking or dancing. The projected life-span of this artifact is very long considering that it's the second largest search engine next to Google. It has been around for eight years and it is getting more popular each year. YouTube will probably keep improving and adding things as the years so by but it will always be a popular and original website. It is the third most visited website and it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.
Since its launch on February 14th 2005, YouTube has become a touchstone in cultural debates about the Internet and the World Wide Web. Before that day, very few people had ever even heard the name "YouTube." It was founded by former PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. On April 23, 2005, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim posted the very first video to YouTube, entitled "Me at the Zoo." The video is exactly how it sounds: Karim at the San Diego zoo standing in front of the elephants and talking about their trunks (Dickey, 1). On October 21, 2005, Nike becomes the first major company to embrace YouTube's promotional potential (Belanger, 1). A video of Brazilian soccer star Ronaldinho dancing the samba with a ball is an early viral hit (Lidsky, 1). By July 2006, YouTube was receiving 20 million visitors per month. Of the nine billion video clips watched in the United States that same month, more than a quarter of them (2.5 billion videos at an average length of 2.7 minutes each) were watched on YouTube (Belanger,1). On October 9th, 2006, Google buys YouTube for $1.65 billion (Lidsky, 1). By August of 2008, the site boasted 74 million visitors per month (Belanger,1). YouTube was immediately successful: the ease of use and open policy of the website, which allowed almost all forms of content, combined with the fact that it was a free service, attracted millions of users (Belanger,1).
YouTube definitely has positively shaped the 21st century. YouTube has given people the opportunity to upload their videos and share them with the world. Whether they are comedic videos, political videos, or just random clips from their favorite TV shows, YouTube has given the user full power. YouTube has made a huge impact on a variety of different aspects ranging from the presidential election, politics, promotion of talents, commercials, and has also spurred several lawsuits(Burkard,1). In the past, if people wanted to listen to music, they would have to watch MTV and hope that their favorite songs would play. Now, YouTube has completely changed the music industry. It makes it super easy and fast to listen to any song. YouTube now makes it a lot easier to learn how to do something. From hair and makeup tutorials to learning how to play an instrument, YouTube can help someone learn how to do almost anything easily. People can learn how to do these things in the comfort of their own homes. There is no longer a need to go and pay for classes on how to do things such as cooking or dancing. The projected life-span of this artifact is very long considering that it's the second largest search engine next to Google. It has been around for eight years and it is getting more popular each year. YouTube will probably keep improving and adding things as the years so by but it will always be a popular and original website. It is the third most visited website and it shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.