Participation

Today participation has become a major factor in the field in which we wor. People are starting to use a variety of mediums for work and social reasons to help develope community.

YOUTUBE



YouTube is a popular free video sharing Web site which lets users upload, view, and share video clips. Founded in February 2005 by three employees of PayPal, the San Bruno-based service utilizes 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. 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 $1.65 billion USD in Google's stock.

YouTube.com 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.

At present, YouTube is one of the fastest-growing websites on the World Wide Web,[9] and is ranked as the 10th most popular website on Alexa, far outpacing even MySpace's growth.[10] 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 pre-eminence in the online video market is staggering. According to the website Hitswise.com, Youtube commands up to 64% of the UK online video market.