Jump to content

YouTube: Difference between revisions

Edit links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Mets501 (talk | contribs)
24,644 edits
rmv spam link
Brazucs (talk | contribs)
1,346 edits
→‎Ombudsmanship: Deleted false statement, see talk page.
Line 138: Line 138:
==Criticisms and controversies==
==Criticisms and controversies==
===Ombudsmanship===
===Ombudsmanship===
Since the site does not charge its users, YouTube provides very little to no support for individuals contributing to their online video community. Many users have expressed frustration with the lack of communication from any administrative or technical level within the company. As such, YouTube maintains the practice of deleting individual videos and entire user accounts without warning or reason, despite content or guideline violation.
Since the site does not charge its users, YouTube provides very little to no support for individuals contributing to their online video community. Many users have expressed frustration with the lack of communication from any administrative or technical level within the company.


===Copyright infringement===
===Copyright infringement===

Revision as of 20:46, 30 August 2006

YouTube
Company typePrivate
IndustryInternet services
FoundedFebruary 2005
FounderChad Hurley
Jawed Karim
Steve Chen Edit this on Wikidata
HeadquartersSan Mateo, California, USA
Key people
Chad Hurley, Founder & CEO
Steve Chen, Founder & CTO
Jawed Karim, Founder & Advisor
Number of employees
50 (2006)
Websitewww.youtube.com

YouTube is a social Web site that allows users to upload, view, and share video clips. It was founded in February 2005 by three early employees of PayPal. YouTube now has fifty employees and is located in San Mateo, California, USA. YouTube uses Adobe Flash to serve its content, which includes clips from films and television programs, music videos, and homemade videos. Video feeds of YouTube videos can also be easily embedded on blogs and other websites. YouTube prohibits the posting of copyrighted video by anyone not permitted to do so;[1] however, restriction of copyrighted material has proven difficult.

History

YouTube was founded in February, 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal.[2] 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.[3] The domain name "YouTube.com" was activated on February 15, 2005, [4] with the website launching shortly thereafter. In November, 2005, venture capital firm, Sequoia, invested $3.5 million in YouTube. [5] Sequoia Capital partner Roelof Botha, former CFO of PayPal, joined the board of directors at YouTube. In April, 2006, Sequoia Capital invested a further $8 million in YouTube. [6]

The site's popularity surged in December 2005 when it hosted the popular Lazy Sunday clip from a Saturday Night Live broadcast.[7]

In February, 2006, NBC Universal asked YouTube to remove several copyrighted NBC video clips, including Lazy Sunday and 2006 Olympics clips, from their site.[5][8]

On March 14 2006, YouTube set a 10-minute limit on videos, except for those uploaded through its Director Program.

By June 2006, NBC had reconsidered its approach and announced a strategic partnership with YouTube. Under the terms of the partnership, NBC will among other things create an official NBC Channel on YouTube to showcase its preview clips for The Office. YouTube will also promote NBC's videos throughout its site.[9]

CBS, which had previously also asked YouTube to remove several of its clips, similarly reassessed its relationship with YouTube in July 2006. In a statement indicative of how the traditional media industry's perception of YouTube 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.’ [10]

Also in July, 2006, Robert Tur, a television journalist, filed a lawsuit against YouTube, alleging copyright infringement. The case has yet to be resolved. [11] [12]

In August, 2006, YouTube announced that within 18 months it intends to offer every music video ever created to its viewers free of charge. Warner Music Group and EMI are two companies who confirmed that they are in discussions about the plan. [13]

Growth

YouTube is currently one of the fastest-growing websites on the World Wide Web [14], and is ranked as the 15th most popular website on Alexa, far outpacing even MySpace's growth. [15] On July 16 2006, YouTube announced that 100 million clips are watched on YouTube every day. An additional 65,000 new videos are uploaded every day. The site has almost 20 million visitors each month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. [16]

Valuation

Although YouTube's potential market value in an acquisition is pure speculation, an article in the New York Post suggested on July 23 2006 that YouTube may be worth anywhere from $600 million to $1 billion. [17] On August 22 2006 the Web 2.0 blog Techcrunch suggested that Grouper's acquisition price of $65 million implies a YouTube valuation of approximately $2 billion. [2] On August 24 2006 an article on CNET's News.com exclaimed "YouTube could be a steal at $1 billion" [18]

Video format and accessibility

The file format used by YouTube is known as Flash Video, with extension *.flv. Videos can be downloaded off YouTube's website and viewed offline with various video player applications, however this may be a violation of copyright.

Criticisms and controversies

Ombudsmanship

Since the site does not charge its users, YouTube provides very little to no support for individuals contributing to their online video community. Many users have expressed frustration with the lack of communication from any administrative or technical level within the company.

YouTube policy does not allow content to be uploaded by anyone not permitted by copyright law to do so, and the company frequently removes uploaded videos that infringe on copyrights, but a large amount of copyright-infringing material is uploaded nonetheless. Generally, YouTube only discovers these videos when they are reported by the YouTube community, or when the copyright holder reports them. The primary way in which YouTube identifies the content of a video is through the search terms that uploaders associate with clips. There is also the increasing problem of users flagging other users' original content as copyright-infringing purely out of spite. Youtube fixed this by not allowing users to do so anymore. Some users have taken to creating alternative words as search terms to be entered when uploading specific type of files.

Community censorship model

YouTube does not have a centralized model for monitoring the content of videos uploaded to the site, instead relying on a "YouTube user community" to handle the task. Votes counted against a video cause it to be blocked or marked "inappropriate." While seemingly sensible, videos that contain nothing other than an unpopular point of view or similarly nonsensical transgressions are flagged regularly and are more difficult to view for most visitors as a result.

Revenue model

Some industry commentators have speculated that YouTube's running costs — specifically the bandwidth required — may be as high as US$1 million per-month, [19] thereby fuelling criticisms that the company does not have a viable business model. Advertisements were launched on the site beginning in March 2006.

In April 2006, YouTube started using Google AdSense.

Violence

On their 6:30 PM bulletin on June 1, 2006, ITV News in the UK reported that YouTube and sites like it were encouraging violence and bullying amongst teenagers, who were filming fights on their mobile phones (see happy slapping), and then uploading them to YouTube. While YouTube provides a facility for reporting excessively violent videos, the news report stated that communication with the website was difficult. [20]

Spin-off sites

The popularity of YouTube has inspired other websites into creating similar services. Examples of such spin-off sites would include XTube, TinyPic, and MySpace Videos. [21] The embeddable nature of YouTube has bred several "best of" sites as well. These sites range from small, non-commercial, independently programmed endeavours, to larger, ambitious, hierarchically displayed, viewer-rated sites.

See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ "YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. Help Center – Copyright and Inappropriate Content". Retrieved 2006-08-23.
  2. ^ Graham, Jefferson (2005-11-21). "Video websites pop up, invite postings". USATODAY.com. Retrieved 2006-07-28.
  3. ^ University of Illinois Department of Computer Science (2006). "YouTube: Sharing Digital Camera Videos"
  4. ^ "Info for YouTube.com". Alexa.com. 2006-07-26. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
  5. ^ a b Woolley, Scott (2006-03-13). "Raw and Random". Forbes.com. Retrieved 2006-07-28.
  6. ^ Sequoia invests 11.5 million total in YouTube, accessed July 7, 2006
  7. ^ http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060329-6481.html YouTube hosts Lazy Sunday, accessed July 7, 2006
  8. ^ NBC Pressures Websites on Video Clips by Andrew Wallenstein, 22 February 2006, Backstage.com
  9. ^ [1]
  10. ^ Montopoli, Brian (2006-07-17). "CBS To YouTube: Who Loves You, Baby?". CBSNews.com. Retrieved 2006-07-28.
  11. ^ Jones, K.C. (2006-07-18). "Journalist Sues YouTube For Copyright Infringement". InformationWeek.com. Retrieved 2006-07-28.
  12. ^ Montgomery, James (2006-07-19). "YouTube Slapped With First Copyright Lawsuit For Video Posted Without Permission". MTV.com. Retrieved 2006-07-28.
  13. ^ "YouTube aims to show music videos". BBC NEWS. 2006-08-16.
  14. ^ "YouTube Fastest Growing Website" Advertising Age
  15. ^ "Info for YouTube.com". Alexa.com. 2006-07-26. Retrieved 2006-07-26.
  16. ^ "YouTube serves up 100 million videos a day online". USATODAY.com. 2006-07-16. Retrieved 2006-07-28.
  17. ^ "SUN VALLEY BUZZ BOOSTS YOUTUBE TOWARD $1B" New York Post
  18. ^ "YouTube could be a steal at $1 billion" CNet
  19. ^ Frommer, Dan. "Your Tube, Whose Dime?". Forbes'. April 27, 2006.
  20. ^ ITV News, 6:30 PM bulletin on ITV1, 1 June 2006
  21. ^ Carlos (2006-01-10). "So That's Why MySpace Blocked YouTube". Techdirt.com. Retrieved 2006-07-28.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=YouTube&oldid=72890340"