YouTube is a popular video sharing website where users can upload, view, and share video clips. Videos can be rated, and the average rating and the number of times a video has been watched are both published. Youtube was created in mid February 2005 by three former employees of PayPal. The San Bruno-based service uses Adobe Flash technology to display video. The wide variety of site content includes movie and TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as videoblogging and short original videos. Currently staffed by 67 employees, the company was named TIME magazine's "Invention of the Year" for 2006. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google's stock. The deal closed on 13 November 2006.
Unregistered users can watch most videos on the site; registered users have the ability to upload an unlimited number of videos. Related videos, determined by the title and tags, appear to the right of the video. In the site's second year, functions were added which provide the ability to post video 'responses' and subscribe to content feeds for a particular user or users.
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 following months. The creators offered the public a preview of the site in May 2005, and six months later YouTube made its official debut.
Like many technology start-ups, YouTube was started as an angel-funded enterprise in a small and inexpensive office or garage. In November of 2005, venture capital 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 a boom of popularity and growth in just its first few months.
During the summer of 2006, YouTube was one of the fastest-growing websites on the World Wide Web, and was ranked as the 5th most popular website on Alexa, far outpacing even MySpace's growth. According to a July 16, 2006 survey, 100 million clips are viewed daily on YouTube, with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded per 24 hours. The site has almost 20 million visitors each month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, where around 44% are female, 56% male, and the 12- to 17-year-old age group is dominant. YouTube's preeminence in the online video market is staggering. According to the website Hitwise.com, YouTube commands up to 64% of the UK online video market.
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Google purchases YouTube for $1.65 billion
On October 9, 2006, it was announced that the company would be purchased by Google for US$1.65 billion in stock. The purchase agreement between Google and YouTube came after YouTube presented three agreements with media companies in an attempt to escape the threat of copyright-infringement lawsuits. YouTube will continue to operate independently, and the company's 67 employees and its co-founders will continue working within the company. The deal to acquire YouTube closed on November 13. It is Google's biggest purchase of that time.
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