YouTube

Founded in February 2005, YouTube is the world's most popular online video community, allowing millions of people to watch and share user-generated videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small.

YouTube is an independent subsidiary of Google Inc., having been acquired in November of 2006.

Basically, YouTube allows people to easily upload and share video clips on YouTube.com and across the Internet through websites, mobile devices, blogs, and e-mail. Everyone can participate in the YouTube community by watching, sharing, and commenting on videos. People can see first-hand accounts of current events, relive their favorite TV moments, find videos about their hobbies and interests, discover new artists and filmmakers, and even uncover the quirky and unusual.

Some of the site's features include:

• Video embedding: Users can insert a YouTube video into Facebook and MySpace accounts, blogs, or other Web sites where anyone can watch them.
• Public or private videos: Users can elect to broadcast their videos publicly or share them privately with friends and family upon upload.
• Subscriptions: Users are able to keep track of their favorite users' new videos.
• Record from Webcam: Users with a webcam and Flash software are able to instantly record video responses or normal videos onto the site rather than having to prerecord and then upload the video.
• TestTube: This is an area where YouTube engineers and developers conduct alpha testing for new features in development. Users are encouraged to participate in the development process and are welcome to evaluate the feature.

It's free, you just have to register, then you are able to upload and share videos, save favorites, create playlists, comment on videos, and learn how to embed videos. It's fun, it's easy, it's self-expression, that's why it's popular.

Historical perspective: As of June, 2011, each month YouTube users all over the world collectively spend some 2.9 billion hours--that's 331 050 years, if you're wondering--on the site. More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than the three major U.S. networks created in 60 years.