YouTube

toc =Introduction=


 * [|YouTube.com]** is one of the fastest growing websites on the Internet today. This popular video-sharing website allows users to upload, share, and view videos freely across the World Wide Web. It was founded in February 15, 2005 by [|Chad Hurley], [|Steve Chen], and [|Jawed Karim], where they were all ex-PayPal employees.

What is YouTube?
YouTube is one of the newest and most popular web communities on the Internet today, ranked 9th place on [|Alexa.com] with approximately 64,300 hits per week. (1) Although people are able to view and share video clips freely across the Web without registration, there are however benefits for registering. In YouTube, people are able to signup an account free of charge. Upon receiving an account within the website, users are able to upload their own videos onto the website. By registering, users or YouTubers could also comment on clips that they came across as well. Furthermore, if you are registered and are above the age of 18, you can view flagged videos of questionable content.

What can you do on YouTube?
Individuals can upload their video files (in common video formats such as .avi or .mpeg) up in YouTube, just like how people can upload pictures on blogs or online photo albums. YouTube would automatically convert them into flash videos (.flv), making them available on their website. If a user wanted to share their video clips that they uploaded or find interesting outside of YouTube.com, an HTML script is available to them for embedding the video onto their own blogs, websites, or social network (ie. Friendster). There is currently no official method of downloading the video files from YouTube onto individual’s computers offline. However, there are some websites that exist on the Web that are known to provide this function (ie. [|VideoDownloader]). (3) Aside from sharing, viewing, or uploading videos, you could join channels that display the same genre of video or even joins communities within the website that are grouped together by same interests.

Trends on YouTube
With the popularity of YouTube spread by word of mouth, the numbers of users are increasing daily. With the craze of YouTube on the run, new trends are being created every minute. One good example is the trend of videoblogging. YouTubers are enjoying on filming themselves, with a topic of interest to say, and posting it up on YouTube community. This given the birth to a dozen of Internet celebrities, most notable YouTuber would be lonelygirl15 who was later found out to be a New Zealand actress (Jessica Ross). Others include Renetto, LisaNova, NoHoGirls and smosh. YouTube is also known to have promoted many indies bands with their music. (ie. Sick Puppies)

media type="youtube" key="YQBRDY6w95k" //Example of Band Promoting - Sick Puppies - My World//

Recently on YouTube
In October 2006, YouTube was sold to Google for USD$1.65 billion. (2) There is a lot of speculation ongoing on the futures of both YouTube and Google Video. Google has not divulged any plans as of yet: at the recent Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was asked just why they bought YouTube. His response - "because we liked them."Now that google has purchase U tube it will be used to represent the images that corporations want it to represent rather than what the normal person wants. It will no longer be about you and me instead it will become commercialized.

Copyright Issues
While YouTube allows users to share videos online, copyright infringement becomes a serious issue for YouTube. Many of those copyrighted videos on YouTube are forced to be removed due to copyright infringement issues. The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) found YouTube hosts approximately 30,000 video clips that aren’t authorized by the creator to be posted on the YouTube website. These video clips are mainly music videos, movies and television programs. The JASRAC reported the complaint to YouTube and forced them to remove 30,000 copyrighted video clips. (5) Another copyright issue against YouTube would be the Los Angeles News Service filing lawsuit against YouTube for hosting their news video clips without gaining authorization from them. (6) The primary method that YouTube uses to identify copyrighted materials on their webpage would be self policing. Self policing requires people within the organization to search for copyrighted materials that are posted without the creator’s permission. YouTube also gets reports from their users who identified illegal posting of copyrighted materials on their website. YouTube is about to introduce a new technology that automatically deletes a video clip when it is identified as a poor quality of a copyrighted work to help them catch illegal posting of copyrighted materials. (4)

Other Video-Sharing Websites
> > > > > > >
 * [|GoogleVideo]
 * [|OurMedia]
 * [|Metacafe]
 * [|Castpost]
 * [|Vimeo]
 * [|Revver]
 * [|VSocial]
 * Clipstack
 * [|GoFish]

The act of uploading various types of vidoes for the public to watch proved to be a huge success, especially after a high profile takeover by Google took place earlier this year. Current innovators such as [|Motionbox] and [|Jumpbox] have created a new service where users can upload their videos to their servers and then edit them using a variaty of tools available at their disposal, to create a true personal movie experience if desired.

Since more and more people are joining the revolution of online videos, Yahoo decided to take the leading step by taking control of Jumpbox. As mentioned by Jumpbox, its service "enabled real-time video editing through the web browser". This is done using an advanced flash-based application that mimics the actions of real-time desktop editing and publishing. In addition, the editing process allows its users to preview the changes they made on their personal videos while they are being edited. Various possibilities have been reported by Jumpbox, they include:
 * Adding special flash aspects
 * Speeding up/Slowing down
 * Uploading effects for other users
 * Using effects supplied by sponsors and creaters
 * Make shapes and images flicker across the screen
 * remix videos and music

Since this is a new innovation, [|Yahoo] is creating brand awareness through various techniques such as competitions for the best remixed video and the creation of adverts that would be eventually played for the mainstream public. When a user creates a video, he/she will have various options to choose from regarding the publishing and use of their work. Just like the social networks, videos can be labelled as 'private' so that they can be only viewed by friends.Videos can also be labelled as 'remixable' so that other users on the site can use certain parts of the video to create their own. The last option, and the one which is the most interesting is the 'open' function. This allows anyone using the service to change your video in anyway they wish. Interestingly, this gives the whole process of video production the attributes of a wiki.

The use of wikivideos carries various advantages to the general public. It can be used as a collaboration tool by individuals who are involved in a school/university project for example. In addition, just like blogs, movie production will increasingly turn into an activity that can be done by professionals and ametuers alike. However since this new technology is at the beginning of its life, advanced editing can't be performed using the templates and online program supplied by the website. These edits will have to be done using a traditional desktop editing program (for now).