Jump to content

Xtube

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Immortal Synn (talk | contribs) at 00:42, 16 September 2010 (Company responds). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

XTube
Type of businessPornographic
Type of site
Pornographic video sharing
Available inEnglish
FoundedMarch 12, 2006[1]
HeadquartersToronto, Canada
ParentVirageMedia Inc.
URLhttp://www.xtube.com
RegistrationOptional
Current status1/13/10 Active

XTube is a Canadian pornographic video hosting service which allows unregistered and registered users to share adult video content with others. Among other things, the terms of use of xtube.com state that users must be 18 years of age or older.[3]

XTube claims that it has over 8.3 million registered users and an Alexa Internet traffic rank of global average of 491, and a United States ranking of 273.[2][4] The site receives 4.5 million unique visits per day.[5] XTube's main competitors are PornoTube and YouPorn.[6][7] Amateur content producers can sell their videos and webcam shows, with the website taking a commission.[5] One man is known to make $1,300 a week from his XTube videos, with the site earning the same amount.[5] XTube distinguishes itself from its competitors by hosting a wiki engine on its site called XTube Sex Wiki.[8] XTube was reportedly the first site to allow uploading of home-made adult content to a web site.[9] Previously such content had to be shared either via Usenet newsgroups or via peer to peer file sharing networks.

In 2007/2008, XTube released a page called XTube WebCam Models to allow viewers to watch live sex and masturbation on the website for a fee. XTube is also famous for showing both heterosexual and homosexual clips as well as some bisexual clips.

Since January 2009, XTube has a new site template allowing faster navigation for its viewers.

Accusations of video throttling

Starting in late August of 2010, numerous complaints arose of Xtube users being unable to view more than a few seconds worth of any of that site's clips. The problem appeared regardless of computer type, operating system, browser, etc being employed. It also affected users who claimed that they were able to view the content of other similar sites (e.g., YouTube) without problem. Inquiries to Xtube's technical support elicited typical troubleshooting responses of clearing cookies, downloading latest Flash and Java, etc. Users would then find their support trouble-tickets closed soon after, with no resolution to the recurring problem.

As the high number of complaints began to manifest on other websites and forums, some claimed to notice a consensus that Xtube's problem only appeared to affect customers with free accounts, on movies that they were viewing freely. This gave rise to accusations of the company "throttling" (i.e., intentionally slowing/limiting available bandwidth and download speeds) customers who utilize free accounts.

Company responds

As of mid-September 2010, the Xtube has released no official response to the growing number of accusations concerning some free users' inability to fully view its videos.

However, on September 12, 2010, the company posted the following highlighted note on their support request forum:

"Read This before Creating Tickets: There IS a problem viewing videos for some users where the videos are not playing - please hold tight and do not create anymore tickets - we are working very hard on resolving this issue."

On September 15, 2010, the following was added to the above page note:

"UPDATE We are very close to having this problem solved and should be done within the next day or so."

The issue appears to continue for a large number of viewers at this time as well.

See also

References

  1. ^ "XTube" on the XTube Sex Wiki
  2. ^ a b Alexa Stats for XTube
  3. ^ "XTube terms of use - age info".
  4. ^ "XTube Stats on XTube Homepage
  5. ^ a b c Jett Lynn (2008-04-12). "The Deal with User-Generated Content". XBIZ. Retrieved 2009-06-06.
  6. ^ "Pornotube Alexa stats".
  7. ^ SnapShot of youporn.com (rank #656), pornotube.com (#1,833), xtube.com (#1,329) - Compete
  8. ^ XTube Sex Wiki Home Page
  9. ^ "http://www.adwordsadsensetools.com". {{cite web}}: External link in |title= (help)