YouTube
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Overview
YouTube is video sharing website where anyone anywhere can upload and share videos. YouTube was founded in February of 2005 by three former PayPal employees named Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawas Karim. A little over a year later, Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in November of 2006. How the idea of YouTube came to life has been somewhat of a mystery, but in an article by Time, "Chad and Steve got the idea in the winter of 2005, after they had trouble sharing videos online that had been shot at a dinner party at Steve's San Francisco apartment. Karim says the dinner party never happened and that the seed idea of video sharing was his—although he is quick to say its realization in YouTube required 'the equal efforts of all three of us'." [1]
Channels
Accounts of registered users are called "Channels". All personal information is centralized into the users Channel and Profile page. Channels act as a means for users to see all the information that pertains to you. This information can range from videos you have uploaded, comments, subscribers, recent activity, etc... Aside from the following, users can also see how long you have been a member of YouTube, how old you are, and how many videos you have watched. Channels act as a way for people to interact with one another, allowing for posts, recommendations, suggestions, or friend requests. [2]
Technology
YouTube's web-based video player is based on the Adobe Flash Player. [3] However, for users to be able to view videos they must have the Flash plugin installed. [4] The Flash plugin is available for free and supported on popular browsers such as Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Safari. Videos that are uploaded require an user to have an account which is free to setup. Once a user is an account holder they are free to upload videos limited to 10 minutes in length and 2GB in size. [5] However, occasionally with permission YouTube grants partner accounts permission to upload content without restriction. [6] YouTube also accepts a large range of formats such as .WMV, .AVI, .MP4, .FLV, and .3GP which is a cellphone format allowing users from other mobile platforms to upload videos to YouTube.
YouTube uses three different types of viewing options. Standard quality content results in videos being shown at 320x240. High quality content results in videos being shown at 480x360, which was not introduced until March of 2008. High Definition content is streamed at 1280x700 (720p) and was introduced in November of 2008.
Advertising
In 2007 alone it was estimated that YouTube used as much bandwidth as there was available for the entire internet during 2000. [7] The reason YouTube is available for free is because of its partnership with Google. By partnering with Google, YouTube is able to take advantage of Google's ad serving program called AdSense. Every time a person clicks on the ads, YouTube is payed by the advertiser who bought the placement from Google's AdSense. The habits of users are tracked by storing their data, which also allows AdSense to display advertisements that the user may be more likely to click on.
Content Accessibility
YouTube is a perfect example of Web 2.0 innovation for many reasons. One reason YouTube embraces Web 2.0 technology is that it is available on a wide range of platforms including cellphones, iPods/iTouch, computers, and any other web-enabled device. Another reason YouTube embraces Web 2.0 technology is that it collects data from registered users to "help" recommend to them videos that are similar to the personal preferences of the user. Along with this comes user participation; users can comment, rate (both video and comments), and flag material that either breaks copyright or is deemed inappropriate for users under the age of 18. However, to participate the user must register with YouTube as an account holder before they can fully participate with the YouTube community. [8]
References
1. Cloud, John. "The Gurus of YouTube". Time Magazine. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1570721,00.html. Retrieved 11/4/2009
2. Google Support. http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57960 Retrieved 11/4/2009
3. "Adobe Flash Player Version Penetration". Adobe Systems. http://www.adobe.com/products/player_census/flashplayer/version_penetration.html. Retrieved 11/4/2009
4. Baker, Loren (2006-03-31). "YouTube 10 Minute Limit Deters Copyrighted Video Uploads". Search Engine Journal. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/youtube-10-minute-limit-deters-copyrighted-video-uploads/3200/. Retrieved 11/4/2009
5. "How do I upload a video longer than ten minutes?". YouTube. http://help.youtube.com/group/youtube-howto/browse_thread/thread/acb7ce49f5109570/98e13404b0554e5d?lnk=gst&q=. Retrieved 11/4/2009
6. "Web could collapse as video demand soars". Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/07/nweb107.xml. Retrieved 11/4/2009
7. YouTube. Wikipedia Entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YouTube
8. YouTube. The Official Website. http://www.youtube.com