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"VANDHEMATHARAM"
Adv
HAPPY
INDEPENDANCE DAY
Salute d nation...
search gaint's GOOGLE +.
 | |||||
| URL | plus.google.com | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Slogan | Real-life sharing rethought for the web. | ||||
| Commercial? | Yes | ||||
| Type of site | Social network | ||||
| Registration | Public | ||||
| Available language(s) | Over 40 | ||||
| Owner | |||||
| Launched | June 28, 2011 | ||||
| Current status | Online | ||||
Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written Google Plus, sometimes abbreviated as G+) is a social networking service operated by Google Inc. The service launched on June 28, 2011 in an invite-only "field testing" phase. The following day, existing users were allowed to invite friends, who are above 18 years of age, to the service to create their own accounts. This was suspended the next day due to an "insane demand" for accounts.
Google+ integrates social services such as Google Profiles and Google Buzz, and introduces new services Circles, Hangouts, Sparks, and Huddles. Google+ will also be available as a desktop application and as a mobile application, but only on the Android and iOS operating systems (iPhone only at the moment). Sources such as The New York Times have declared it Google's biggest attempt to rival the social network Facebook, which had over 750 million users in 2011.
Growth
On July 14, 2011, Google announced that Google+ had reached 10 million users just two weeks after it was launched in a "limited" trial phase.After 3 weeks in operation, it had reached 20 million users.After less than a day of being live, the Google+ iPhone app had the number one free spot in the Apple app store
Features
- "Circles" enables users to organize contacts into groups for sharing, across various Google products and services. Although other users can view a list of people in a user's collection of circles, they cannot view the names of those circles. The privacy settings also allow users to hide the users in their circles as well as who have them in their circle. Organization is done through a drag-and-drop interface. This system replaces the typical friends list function used by sites such as Facebook.
- "Hangouts" are places used to facilitate group video chat (with a maximum of 10 people participating in a single Hangout at any point in time). However, anyone on the web could potentially join the "Hangout" if they happen to possess the unique URL of the Hangout.
- "Huddle" is a feature available to Android, iPhone, and SMS devices for communicating through instant messaging within circles.
- "Instant Upload" is specific to Android mobile devices; it stores photos or video in a private album for sharing later.
- "Sparks" is a front-end to Google Search, enabling users to identify topics they might be interested in sharing with others; "featured interests" sparks are also available, based on topics others globally are finding interesting.Sparks helps to keep users posted on the latest updates on the topics of their interest.
- In the "Stream," users see updates from those in their circles. The input box allows users to enter a status update or use icons to upload and share photo and videos. The Stream can be filtered to show only posts from specific Circles.
- Google+ has a "+1" button to allow people to recommend items.
- Unlike Twitter and Facebook, there is not yet an application programming interface that enables software developers to interact with Google+ programmatically.
- Additionally, Google+ presents the different icons in a graphical or pictorial manner instead of the more commonplace text written icon names.
- Similar to other Google applications, Google+ provides integration with other Google applications like Gmail, Calendar, Documents, etc.
- A "Data Liberation" option provides the ability to download one's content from Google+
Reception
Design impact
The introduction of Google+ has had an impact on the design of Google's web search service, due to the graphical redesign (mistakenly attributed to Andy Hertzfeld). CNN noted the "combo-plate approach" of Google+, likening the new social effort to a "Taco-Bell-meets-KFC." There have been refinements alongside speculation of a much wider impact once Google+ is fully rolled-out,including some redesign of Google Maps, Google Mail, and Google Calendar. In particular, there are changes to Picasa Web Albums:- After tagging someone, they receive a notification and can see the photo and the related album.
- For new albums, anyone an album is shared with can see who else it is shared with.
- Albums someone shared can be tagged and re-shared by others.
- Photos up to 2048×2048 pixels and videos up to 15 minutes won't count towards the 1 GB storage quota for Google+ users (it's 800×800 pixels for non-Google+ users), creating "virtually unlimited" storage for mobile users.
Importing contacts from other social networks
Google+ includes a feature to invite contacts from Yahoo! and Hotmail. At this time, however, there is no official way to import Facebook contacts into Google+; but there are some workarounds to achieve it.Facebook allows users to download their data, but not in a simple format easy to import; network effects make it difficult for a new social network such as Google+ to be successful, and an easy tool to migrate to a rival service would reduce the effect.Censorship by some governments
Within a day of the website's launch, various news agencies reported that Google+ was blocked by the People's Republic of China.This is part of a wider policy of censorship in Mainland China.The Iranian government has also blocked access to Google+ from 11 July 2011, as part of Internet censorship in IranControversies about required information
Joining the service requires mandatory real name and gender disclosure, which at launch was shared as public information.The gender selector has options for "Male," "Female," and "Other." This requirement was criticized by the weblog SlashGear for causing lack of privacy and, together with Facebook and other social networks, for forcing the user to choose among limited categories that describe preconceived gender descriptors.The mandatory public gender exposure led to criticism for making older Google profiles public. In response, Google made changes to the service that allow users to control the privacy settings of their gender information. Google's justification for requiring gender information is that it uses that information to inform its usage of the terms "he," "she," and "they" in their delivery of information to users of the service. If a user decides to make the gender portion of the profile private, the language used to convey information becomes gender neutral, using the singular they in place of gender specific pronouns.Google has suspended accounts because users were not using their real name. In some cases this has resulted people being locked out of all of Google services that they have accounts with.
மாலை மங்கும் நேரம்
மாலை மங்கும் நேரம் ,
ஒரு மோகம் கண்ணின் ஓரம்
உன்னை பார்த்து கொண்டே நின்றாலும் போதும் என்று தோன்றும்...
காலை வந்தால் என்ன
வெயில் எட்டி பார்த்தால் என்ன
கடிகாரம் காட்டும் நேரம் அதை நம்ப மாட்டேன் நானும்
பூங்காற்றும் போர்வை கேட்கும் நேரம் , நேரம் தீயாய் மாறும் தேகம் தேகம்
உன் கைகள் என்னை தொட்டு போடும் கோலம் வாழ்வின் எல்லை தேடும் தேடும்
மாலை மங்கும் நேரம் ,
ஒரு மோகம் கண்ணின் ஓரம்
உன்னை பார்த்து கொண்டே நின்றாலும் போதும் என்று தோன்றும்...
ஒரு வீட்டில் நாம் இருந்து ,
ஓர் இலையில் நம் விருந்து ,
இரு தூக்கம் ஒரு கனவில்
மூழ்கி வாழ்கை தொடங்கும் ...
நான் சமையல் செய்திடுவேன்
நீ வந்து அனைத்திடுவாய் ..
என் பசியும் உன் பசியும் ,
சேர்ந்து ஒன்றாய் அடங்கும்..
நான் கேட்டு ஆசை பட்ட பாடல் நூறு நீயும் நானும் சேர்ந்தே கேட்போம்
தாலாட்டை கண்ணில் சொன்ன ஆணும் நீதான் காலம் விடும் தாண்டி வாழ்வோம்
மாலை மங்கும் நேரம் ,
ஒரு மோகம் கண்ணின் ஓரம்
உன்னை பார்த்து கொண்டே நின்றாலும் போதும் என்று தோன்றும்...
காலை வந்தால் என்ன
வெயில் எட்டி பார்த்தால் என்ன
கடிகாரம் காட்டும் நேரம் அதை நம்ப மாட்டேன் நானும்
பால் சிந்தும் பௌர்ணமியில்
நாம் நனைவோம் பனி இரவில் நம் மூச்சின் காய்ச்சலில் மீண்டு பணியும் நடுங்கும்
வீடெங்கும் உன் பொருட்கள்
அசைந்தாடும் உன் உடைகள்
தனியாக நானில்லை என்றே சொல்லி சிணங்கும்
தீண்டாமல் தீண்டி போகும் வாடை காற்றே...
தூக்கம் தீர்ந்து நாட்கள் ஆச்சே நாட்கள் ஆச்சே
உன் வாசம் என்னில் கொட்டும் ஆடி போனேன் வாசல் தூந்தான் நானும் ஆனேன்
மாலை மங்கும் நேரம் ,
ஒரு மோகம் கண்ணின் ஓரம்
உன்னை பார்த்து கொண்டே நின்றாலும் போதும் என்று தோன்றும்...
காலை வந்தால் என்ன
வெயில் எட்டி பார்த்தால் என்ன
கடிகாரம் காட்டும் நேரம் அதை நம்ப மாட்டேன் நானும்
To read in english click here -====>>
JEFF
Maalai mangum neram lyrics - ROWTHIRAM tamil movie 2011
Maalai Mangum Naeram,
Oru Mogam Kannin Oram
Unai Paarthu Kondae Nindralum,
Pothum Endru Thaondrum..
Kaalai Vanthaal Enna,
Veyil Etti Paarthaal Enna
Kadikaaram Kaatum Naeram,
Athai Nambamaataen Naanum..
Poongaatrum Poarvai Kaetkum Neram Neram
Theeyaai Maarum Thaegam Thaegam
Un Kaigal Ennai Thottu Podum Kolam .
Vaazhvin Ellai Thaedum Thaedum
Maalai Mangum Naeram,
Oru Mogam Kannin Oram
Unai Paarthu Kondae Nindralum,
Pothum Endru Thaondrum..
(humming)
Oru Veetil Naam Irunthu,
Oar Elaiyil Nam Virunthu
Iru Thookam Oru Kanavil,
Moozhgi Vaazhkai Thodangum..
Naan Samaiyal Seithiduvaen..
Nee Vanthu Anaithiduvaai..
En Pasiyum Un Pasiyum,
Saernthu Ondrai Adangum..
Naan Kaettu Aasai Patta Paadal Nooru
Neeyum Naanum Sernthey Kaetpoam....
Thaalattai Kannil Sonna Aanum Neethan Kaalam Vaedum Thaandi Vaazhvoam....
Maalai Mangum Naeram,
Oru Mogam Kannin Oram
Unai Paarthu Kondae Nindralum,
Pothum Endru Thaondrum..
Kaalai Vanthaal Enna,
Veyil Etti Paarthaal Enna
Kadikaaram Kaatum Naeram,
Athai Nambamaataen Naanum..
Paal Sinthum Pournamiyil,
Naam Nanaivoam Pani Iravil,
Nam Moochin Kaichalil,
Meendu Paniyum Nadangum..
Veedengum Un Porutkal,
Aasainthaadum Un Udaigal,
Thaniyaga Naanillai ,Endrae Solli Sinangum..
Theendaamal Theendi Pogum Vaadai Kaatrae..
Thookam Theernthu Naatkal Aachae Naatkal Aachae..
Un Vaasam Ennil Kottum Aadi Ponaen Vaasal Thoonthaan Naanum Aanen..
Maalai Mangum Naeram,
Oru Mogam Kannin Oram
Unai Paarthu Kondae Nindralum,
Pothum Endru Thaondrum..
Kaalai Vanthaal Enna,
Veyil Etti Paarthaal Enna
Kadikaaram Kaatum Naeram,
Athai Nambamaataen Naanum..
to read in Tamil click here ====>>
Oru Mogam Kannin Oram
Unai Paarthu Kondae Nindralum,
Pothum Endru Thaondrum..
Kaalai Vanthaal Enna,
Veyil Etti Paarthaal Enna
Kadikaaram Kaatum Naeram,
Athai Nambamaataen Naanum..
Poongaatrum Poarvai Kaetkum Neram Neram
Theeyaai Maarum Thaegam Thaegam
Un Kaigal Ennai Thottu Podum Kolam .
Vaazhvin Ellai Thaedum Thaedum
Maalai Mangum Naeram,
Oru Mogam Kannin Oram
Unai Paarthu Kondae Nindralum,
Pothum Endru Thaondrum..
(humming)
Oru Veetil Naam Irunthu,
Oar Elaiyil Nam Virunthu
Iru Thookam Oru Kanavil,
Moozhgi Vaazhkai Thodangum..
Naan Samaiyal Seithiduvaen..
Nee Vanthu Anaithiduvaai..
En Pasiyum Un Pasiyum,
Saernthu Ondrai Adangum..
Naan Kaettu Aasai Patta Paadal Nooru
Neeyum Naanum Sernthey Kaetpoam....
Thaalattai Kannil Sonna Aanum Neethan Kaalam Vaedum Thaandi Vaazhvoam....
Maalai Mangum Naeram,
Oru Mogam Kannin Oram
Unai Paarthu Kondae Nindralum,
Pothum Endru Thaondrum..
Kaalai Vanthaal Enna,
Veyil Etti Paarthaal Enna
Kadikaaram Kaatum Naeram,
Athai Nambamaataen Naanum..
Paal Sinthum Pournamiyil,
Naam Nanaivoam Pani Iravil,
Nam Moochin Kaichalil,
Meendu Paniyum Nadangum..
Veedengum Un Porutkal,
Aasainthaadum Un Udaigal,
Thaniyaga Naanillai ,Endrae Solli Sinangum..
Theendaamal Theendi Pogum Vaadai Kaatrae..
Thookam Theernthu Naatkal Aachae Naatkal Aachae..
Un Vaasam Ennil Kottum Aadi Ponaen Vaasal Thoonthaan Naanum Aanen..
Maalai Mangum Naeram,
Oru Mogam Kannin Oram
Unai Paarthu Kondae Nindralum,
Pothum Endru Thaondrum..
Kaalai Vanthaal Enna,
Veyil Etti Paarthaal Enna
Kadikaaram Kaatum Naeram,
Athai Nambamaataen Naanum..
to read in Tamil click here ====>>
JEFF
YouTube - History
YouTube.com
YouTube is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share and view videos, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005.
The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, Vevo, Hulu and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.
Unregistered users may watch videos, and registered users may upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users 18 years old and older. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google.
Company history
From left to right: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim
YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal.Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
According to a story that has often been repeated in the media, Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen's apartment in San Francisco. Karim did not attend the party and denied that it had occurred, while Hurley commented that the idea that YouTube was founded after a dinner party "was probably very strengthened by marketing ideas around creating a story that was very digestible."
YouTube began as a venture-funded technology startup, primarily from a $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006.YouTube's early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The domain name www.youtube.com was activated on February 14, 2005, and the website was developed over the subsequent months.
The first YouTube video was entitled Me at the zoo, and shows founder Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and can still be viewed on the site.
YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005, six months before the official launch in November 2005. The site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. According to data published by market research company comScore, YouTube is the dominant provider of online video in the United States, with a market share of around 43 percent and more than 14 billion videos viewed in May 2010. YouTube says that over 48 hours of new videos are uploaded to the site every minute, and that around three quarters of the material comes from outside the US. It is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000.Alexa ranks YouTube as the third most visited website on the Internet, behind Google and Facebook.
The choice of the name www.youtube.com led to problems for a similarly named website, www.utube.com. The owner of the site, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being overloaded on a regular basis by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www.utubeonline.com.In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006. Google does not provide detailed figures for YouTube's running costs, and YouTube's revenues in 2007 were noted as "not material" in a regulatory filing. In June 2008, a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 revenue at $200 million, noting progress in advertising sales.
In November 2008, YouTube reached an agreement with MGM, Lions Gate Entertainment, and CBS, allowing the companies to post full-length films and television episodes on the site, accompanied by advertisements in a section for US viewers called "Shows". The move was intended to create competition with websites such as Hulu, which features material from NBC, Fox, and Disney.In November 2009, YouTube launched a version of "Shows" available to UK viewers, offering around 4,000 full-length shows from more than 60 partners. In January 2010, YouTube introduced an online film rentals service, which is currently available only to users in the US. The service offers over 6,000 films.
YouTube's current headquarters in San Bruno, California
In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, including 60 cricket matches of the Indian Premier League. According to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event.
On March 31, 2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface and increasing the time users spend on the site. Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented: "We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter."
In May 2010, it was reported that YouTube was serving more than two billion videos a day, which it described as "nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major US television networks combined." In May 2011, YouTube reported in its company blog that the site was receiving more than three billion views per day.
In October 2010, Hurley announced that he would be stepping down as chief executive officer of YouTube to take an advisory role, and that Salar Kamangar would take over as head of the company.
In April 2011, James Zern, a YouTube software engineer, revealed that 30 percent of videos accounted for 99 percent of views on the site.
Features
Video technology
Playback
Viewing YouTube videos on a personal computer requires the Adobe Flash Player plug-in to be installed on the browser. The Adobe Flash Player plug-in is one of the most common pieces of software installed on personal computers and accounts for almost 75% of online video material.
In January 2010, YouTube launched an experimental version of the site that uses the built-in multimedia capabilities of web browsers supporting the HTML5 standard. This allows videos to be viewed without requiring Adobe Flash Player or any other plug-in to be installed.The YouTube site has a page that allows supported browsers to opt in to the HTML5 trial. Only browsers that support HTML5 Video using the H.264 or WebM formats can play the videos, and not all videos on the site are available.
Uploading
Videos uploaded to YouTube by standard account holders are limited to 15 minutes in duration. When YouTube was launched in 2005, it was possible to upload longer videos, but a ten-minute limit was introduced in March 2006 after YouTube found that the majority of videos exceeding this length were unauthorized uploads of television shows and films. The 10-minute limit was increased to 15 minutes in July 2010. Partner accounts are permitted to upload longer videos, subject to acceptance by YouTube. File size is limited to 2 GB for uploads from YouTube web page, and to 20 GB if Java-based Advanced Uploader is used. In December 2010, YouTube announced that holders of standard accounts would be allowed to upload videos of unlimited length, provided that they have a good history of following the site's Community Guidelines and policy on copyright. YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most container formats, including .AVI, .MKV, .MOV, .MP4, DivX, .FLV, and .ogg and .ogv. These include video formats such as MPEG-4, MPEG, VOB, and .WMV. It also supports 3GP, allowing videos to be uploaded from mobile phones.Videos with progressive scanning or interlaced scanning can be uploaded, but for the best video quality, YouTube prefers interlaced videos to be deinterlaced prior to uploading. All the video formats on YouTube use progressive scanning.
Quality and codecs
YouTube originally offered videos at only one quality level, displayed at a resolution of 320x240 pixels using the Sorenson Spark codec (a variant of H.263), with mono MP3 audio. In June 2007, YouTube added an option to watch videos in 3GP format on mobile phones.In March 2008, a high quality mode was added, which increased the resolution to 480x360 pixels In November 2008, 720p HD support was added. At the time of the 720p launch, the YouTube player was changed from a 4:3 aspect ratio to a widescreen 16:9. With this new feature, YouTube began a switchover to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC as its default video compression format. In November 2009, 1080p HD support was added. In July 2010, YouTube announced that it had launched a range of videos in 4K format, which allows a resolution of up to 4096x3072 pixels
YouTube videos are available in a range of quality levels. The former names of standard quality (SQ), high quality (HQ) and high definition (HD) have been replaced by numerical values representing the vertical resolution of the video. The default video stream is encoded in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format, with stereo AAC audio.
^ 1 fmt was an undocumented URL parameter that allowed selecting YouTube quality mode without using player user interface. Since December 2010 this parameter is no longer supported.
^ 2 Approximate values based on statistical data; actual bitrate can be higher or lower due to variable encoding rate.
3D videos
In a video posted on July 21, 2009, YouTube software engineer Peter Bradshaw announced that YouTube users can now upload 3D videos. The videos can be viewed in several different ways, including the common anaglyph (cyan/red lens) method which utilizes glasses worn by the viewer to achieve the 3D effect. The YouTube Flash player can display stereoscopic content interleaved in rows, columns or a checkerboard pattern, side-by-side or anaglyph using a red/cyan, green/magenta or blue/yellow combination. In May 2011, an HTML5 version of the YouTube player began supporting side-by-side 3D footage that is compatible with Nvidia 3D Vision.
Content accessibility
One of the key features of YouTube is the ability of users to view its videos on web pages outside the site. Each YouTube video is accompanied by a piece of HTML, which can be used to embed it on a page outside the YouTube website. This functionality is often used to embed YouTube videos in social networking pages and blogs.Embedding, as well as ranking and commenting, can be disabled by the video owner.
YouTube does not usually offer a download link for its videos, and intends for them to be viewed through its website interface. A small number of videos, such as the weekly addresses by President Barack Obama, can be downloaded as MP4 files.Numerous third-party web sites, applications and browser plug-ins allow users to download YouTube videos. In February 2009, YouTube announced a test service, allowing some partners to offer video downloads for free or for a fee paid through Google Checkout.
Platforms
Some smartphones are capable of accessing YouTube videos, dependent on the provider and the data plan. YouTube Mobile was launched in June 2007, and uses RTSP streaming for the video.Not all of YouTube's videos are available on the mobile version of the site.
Since June 2007, YouTube's videos have been available for viewing on a range of Apple products. This required YouTube's content to be transcoded into Apple's preferred video standard, H.264, a process that took several months. YouTube videos can be viewed on devices including Apple TV, iPod Touch and the iPhone. A TiVo service update in July 2008 allowed the system to search and play YouTube videos. In January 2009, YouTube launched "YouTube for TV", a version of the website tailored for set-top boxes and other TV-based media devices with web browsers, initially allowing its videos to be viewed on the PlayStation 3 and Wii video game consoles. In June 2009, YouTube XL was introduced, which has a simplified interface designed for viewing on a standard television screen.
Localization
On June 19, 2007, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was in Paris to launch the new localization system.
The interface of the website is available with localized versions in 31 countries and a worldwide version.
The YouTube interface suggests which local version should be chosen on the basis of the IP address of the user. In some cases, the message "This video is not available in your country" may appear because of copyright restrictions or inappropriate content.
The interface of the YouTube website is available in 30 different languages, including Catalan, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian and Slovene, which do not have local channel versions.
Plans for YouTube to create a local version in Turkey have run into problems, since the Turkish authorities asked YouTube to set up an office in Turkey, which would be subject to Turkish law. YouTube says that it has no intention of doing this, and that its videos are not subject to Turkish law. Turkish authorities have expressed concerns that YouTube has been used to post videos insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and some material offensive to Muslims.
In March 2009, a dispute between YouTube and the British royalty collection agency PRS for Music led to premium music videos being blocked for YouTube users in the United Kingdom. The removal of videos posted by the major record companies occurred after failure to reach agreement on a licensing deal. The dispute was resolved in September 2009. In April 2009, a similar dispute led to the removal of premium music videos for users in Germany.
April Fools
YouTube has featured an April Fools prank on the site on April 1 of every year since 2008:
2008: All the links to the videos on the main page were redirected to Rick Astley's music video "Never Gonna Give You Up", a prank known as "Rickrolling".
2009: When clicking on a video on the main page, the whole page turned upside down. YouTube claimed that this was a new layout.
2010: YouTube temporarily released a "TEXTp" mode, which translated the colors in the videos to random upper case letters. YouTube claimed in a message that this was done in order to reduce bandwidth costs by $1 per second.
2011: The site celebrated its "100th anniversary" with a "1911 button" and a range of sepia-toned silent, early 1900s-style films, including "Flugelhorn Feline", a parody of Keyboard Cat.
Censorship and filtering
Several countries have blocked access to YouTube, including:
As of December 2010, YouTube is blocked in the People's Republic of China.
Morocco shut down access to YouTube in 2008.
Thailand blocked YouTube between 2006 and 2007 due to offensive videos relating to King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Turkey blocked access to YouTube between 2008 and 2010 after controversy over videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.The block was lifted briefly but reimposed in November 2010.
On December 3, 2006, Iran temporarily blocked access to YouTube, along with several other sites, after declaring them as violating social and moral codes of conduct. The YouTube block came after a video was posted online that appeared to show an Iranian soap opera star having sex. The block was later lifted and then reinstated after Iran's 2009 presidential election.
On February 23, 2008, Pakistan blocked YouTube because of "offensive material" towards the Islamic faith, including display of the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. This led to a near global blackout of the YouTube site for around two hours, as the Pakistani block was inadvertently transferred to other countries. Pakistan lifted its block on February 26, 2008. Many Pakistanis circumvented the three-day block by using virtual private network software. In May 2010, following the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, Pakistan again blocked access to YouTube, citing "growing sacrilegious content".
On January 24, 2010, Libya blocked access to YouTube after it featured videos of demonstrations in the Libyan city of Benghazi by families of detainees who were killed in Abu Salim prison in 1996, and videos of family members of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at parties. The blocking was criticized by Human Rights Watch.
Some schools have blocked access to YouTube, citing the inability to determine what sort of video material might be accessed by students.
YouTube was awarded a 2008 Peabody Award and cited for being "a 'Speakers' Corner' that both embodies and promotes democracy."
Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list. It said: "Providing a safe home for piano-playing cats, celeb goof-ups, and overzealous lip-synchers since 2005."
Social impact
Charlie Bit My Finger is YouTube's most-viewed user generated video.
Before the launch of YouTube in 2005, there were few easy methods available for ordinary computer users who wanted to post videos online. With its simple interface, YouTube made it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to post a video that a worldwide audience could watch within a few minutes. The wide range of topics covered by YouTube has turned video sharing into one of the most important parts of Internet culture.
An early example of the social impact of YouTube was the success of The Bus Uncle video in 2006. It shows a heated conversation between a youth and an older man on a bus in Hong Kong, and was discussed widely in the mainstream media. Another YouTube video to receive extensive coverage is guitar,which features a performance of Pachelbel's Canon on an electric guitar. The name of the performer is not given in the video. After it received millions of views The New York Times revealed the identity of the guitarist as Lim Jeong-hyun, a 23-year-old from South Korea who had recorded the track in his bedroom.
Charlie Bit My Finger, which was uploaded on May 22, 2007, is a viral video that has received the most views of any user generated YouTube video, with over 300 million views. The clip features two English brothers, with one-year-old Charlie biting the finger of his brother Harry, aged three. In Time's list of YouTube's 50 greatest viral videos of all time, "Charlie Bit My Finger" was ranked at number one.
Criticism
Copyrighted material
YouTube has been criticized for failing to ensure that uploaded videos comply with copyright law. At the time of uploading a video, YouTube users are shown a screen with the message "Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts or advertisements without permission, unless they consist entirely of content that you created yourself". Despite this advice, there are still many unauthorized clips of copyrighted material on YouTube. YouTube does not view videos before they are posted online, and it is left to copyright holders to issue a takedown notice pursuant to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Organizations including Viacom, Mediaset, and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against YouTube, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material. Viacom, demanding $1 billion in damages, said that it had found more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its material on YouTube that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times". YouTube responded by stating that it "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works". Since Viacom filed its lawsuit, YouTube has introduced a system called Video ID, which checks uploaded videos against a database of copyrighted content with the aim of reducing violations. In June 2010, Viacom's lawsuit against Google was rejected in a summary judgment, with U.S. federal Judge Louis L. Stanton stating that Google was protected by provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Viacom announced its intention to appeal the ruling.
In August 2008, a US court ruled in Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. that copyright holders cannot order the removal of an online file without first determining whether the posting reflected fair use of the material. The case involved Stephanie Lenz from Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, who had made a home video of her 13-month-old son dancing to Prince's song "Let's Go Crazy", and posted the 29-second video on YouTube.
Privacy
In July 2008, Viacom won a court ruling requiring YouTube to hand over data detailing the viewing habits of every user who has watched videos on the site. The move led to concerns that the viewing habits of individual users could be identified through a combination of their IP addresses and log in names. The decision was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which called the court ruling "a setback to privacy rights".U.S. District Court Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed the privacy concerns as "speculative", and ordered YouTube to hand over documents totaling around 12 terabytes of data. Judge Stanton rejected Viacom's request that YouTube hand over the source code of its search engine, saying that it was a trade secret.
Controversial content
YouTube has also faced criticism over the offensive content in some of its videos. The uploading of videos containing defamation, pornography, and material encouraging criminal conduct is prohibited by YouTube's terms of service. Controversial areas have included Holocaust denial and the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 football fans from Liverpool were crushed to death in 1989.
YouTube relies on its users to flag the content of videos as inappropriate, and a YouTube employee will view a flagged video to determine whether it violates the site's terms of service. However, this procedure has been criticized by the United Kingdom government. In July 2008, the Culture and Media Committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom stated that it was "unimpressed" with YouTube's system for policing its videos, and argued that "Proactive review of content should be standard practice for sites hosting user-generated content." YouTube responded by stating:
We have strict rules on what's allowed, and a system that enables anyone who sees inappropriate content to report it to our 24/7 review team and have it dealt with promptly. We educate our community on the rules and include a direct link from every YouTube page to make this process as easy as possible for our users. Given the volume of content uploaded on our site, we think this is by far the most effective way to make sure that the tiny minority of videos that break the rules come down quickly.
In October 2010, U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner urged YouTube to take down from its website videos of imam Anwar al-Awlaki, tied to the accused Fort Hood shooter, Christmas Day bomber, and attempted Times Square bomber, and on the U.S. targeted killing list, saying that by hosting al-Awlaki's messages, "We are facilitating the recruitment of homegrown terror." British security minister Pauline Neville-Jones commented: "These Web sites would categorically not be allowed in the U.K. They incite cold-blooded murder, and as such are surely contrary to the public good." In November 2010, YouTube removed from its site some of the hundreds of videos featuring al-Awlaki's calls to jihad. It stated that it had removed videos that violated the site’s guidelines prohibiting "dangerous or illegal activities such as bomb-making, hate speech and incitement to commit violent acts," or came from accounts "registered by a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization." In December 2010, YouTube added "promotes terrorism" to the list of reasons that users can give when flagging a video as inappropriate.
User comments
Most videos enable users to leave comments, and these have attracted attention for the negative aspects of both their form and content. When Time in 2006 praised Web 2.0 for enabling "community and collaboration on a scale never seen before", it added that YouTube "harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred".The Guardian in 2009 described users' comments on YouTube as follows:
Juvenile, aggressive, misspelled, sexist, homophobic, swinging from raging at the contents of a video to providing a pointlessly detailed description followed by a LOL, YouTube comments are a hotbed of infantile debate and unashamed ignorance – with the occasional burst of wit shining through.
In September 2008, The Daily Telegraph commented that YouTube was "notorious" for "some of the most confrontational and ill-formed comment exchanges on the internet", and reported on YouTube Comment Snob, "a new piece of software that blocks rude and illiterate posts".
 | |
| Type | Subsidiary, limited liability company |
|---|---|
| Founded | February 2005 |
| Founder | Steve Chen Chad Hurley Jawed Karim |
| Headquarters | 901 Cherry Ave, San Bruno, California, United States |
| Area served | Worldwide |
| Key people | Salar Kamangar, CEO Chad Hurley, Advisor |
| Owner | Independent (2005–2006) Google Inc. (2006–present) |
| Slogan | Broadcast Yourself |
| Website | youtube.com (see list of localized domain names) |
| Alexa rank |  3 (February 2011) |
| Type of site | video hosting service |
| Advertising | Google AdSense |
| Registration | Optional (Only required for certain tasks such as viewing flagged videos, viewing flagged comments and uploading videos) |
| Available in | 34 languages available through user interface |
| Launched | February 14, 2005 |
| Current status | Active |
The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video and HTML5technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, Vevo, Hulu and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.
Unregistered users may watch videos, and registered users may upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users 18 years old and older. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google.
Company history
From left to right: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim
YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal.Hurley had studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
According to a story that has often been repeated in the media, Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen's apartment in San Francisco. Karim did not attend the party and denied that it had occurred, while Hurley commented that the idea that YouTube was founded after a dinner party "was probably very strengthened by marketing ideas around creating a story that was very digestible."
YouTube began as a venture-funded technology startup, primarily from a $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital between November 2005 and April 2006.YouTube's early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. The domain name www.youtube.com was activated on February 14, 2005, and the website was developed over the subsequent months.
The first YouTube video was entitled Me at the zoo, and shows founder Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and can still be viewed on the site.
YouTube offered the public a beta test of the site in May 2005, six months before the official launch in November 2005. The site grew rapidly, and in July 2006 the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day. According to data published by market research company comScore, YouTube is the dominant provider of online video in the United States, with a market share of around 43 percent and more than 14 billion videos viewed in May 2010. YouTube says that over 48 hours of new videos are uploaded to the site every minute, and that around three quarters of the material comes from outside the US. It is estimated that in 2007 YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000.Alexa ranks YouTube as the third most visited website on the Internet, behind Google and Facebook.
The choice of the name www.youtube.com led to problems for a similarly named website, www.utube.com. The owner of the site, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment, filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 after being overloaded on a regular basis by people looking for YouTube. Universal Tube has since changed the name of its website to www.utubeonline.com.In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in Google stock, and the deal was finalized on November 13, 2006. Google does not provide detailed figures for YouTube's running costs, and YouTube's revenues in 2007 were noted as "not material" in a regulatory filing. In June 2008, a Forbes magazine article projected the 2008 revenue at $200 million, noting progress in advertising sales.
In November 2008, YouTube reached an agreement with MGM, Lions Gate Entertainment, and CBS, allowing the companies to post full-length films and television episodes on the site, accompanied by advertisements in a section for US viewers called "Shows". The move was intended to create competition with websites such as Hulu, which features material from NBC, Fox, and Disney.In November 2009, YouTube launched a version of "Shows" available to UK viewers, offering around 4,000 full-length shows from more than 60 partners. In January 2010, YouTube introduced an online film rentals service, which is currently available only to users in the US. The service offers over 6,000 films.
YouTube's current headquarters in San Bruno, California
In March 2010, YouTube began free streaming of certain content, including 60 cricket matches of the Indian Premier League. According to YouTube, this was the first worldwide free online broadcast of a major sporting event.
On March 31, 2010, the YouTube website launched a new design, with the aim of simplifying the interface and increasing the time users spend on the site. Google product manager Shiva Rajaraman commented: "We really felt like we needed to step back and remove the clutter."
In May 2010, it was reported that YouTube was serving more than two billion videos a day, which it described as "nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major US television networks combined." In May 2011, YouTube reported in its company blog that the site was receiving more than three billion views per day.
In October 2010, Hurley announced that he would be stepping down as chief executive officer of YouTube to take an advisory role, and that Salar Kamangar would take over as head of the company.
In April 2011, James Zern, a YouTube software engineer, revealed that 30 percent of videos accounted for 99 percent of views on the site.
Features
Video technology
Playback
Viewing YouTube videos on a personal computer requires the Adobe Flash Player plug-in to be installed on the browser. The Adobe Flash Player plug-in is one of the most common pieces of software installed on personal computers and accounts for almost 75% of online video material.
In January 2010, YouTube launched an experimental version of the site that uses the built-in multimedia capabilities of web browsers supporting the HTML5 standard. This allows videos to be viewed without requiring Adobe Flash Player or any other plug-in to be installed.The YouTube site has a page that allows supported browsers to opt in to the HTML5 trial. Only browsers that support HTML5 Video using the H.264 or WebM formats can play the videos, and not all videos on the site are available.
Uploading
Videos uploaded to YouTube by standard account holders are limited to 15 minutes in duration. When YouTube was launched in 2005, it was possible to upload longer videos, but a ten-minute limit was introduced in March 2006 after YouTube found that the majority of videos exceeding this length were unauthorized uploads of television shows and films. The 10-minute limit was increased to 15 minutes in July 2010. Partner accounts are permitted to upload longer videos, subject to acceptance by YouTube. File size is limited to 2 GB for uploads from YouTube web page, and to 20 GB if Java-based Advanced Uploader is used. In December 2010, YouTube announced that holders of standard accounts would be allowed to upload videos of unlimited length, provided that they have a good history of following the site's Community Guidelines and policy on copyright. YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most container formats, including .AVI, .MKV, .MOV, .MP4, DivX, .FLV, and .ogg and .ogv. These include video formats such as MPEG-4, MPEG, VOB, and .WMV. It also supports 3GP, allowing videos to be uploaded from mobile phones.Videos with progressive scanning or interlaced scanning can be uploaded, but for the best video quality, YouTube prefers interlaced videos to be deinterlaced prior to uploading. All the video formats on YouTube use progressive scanning.
Quality and codecs
YouTube originally offered videos at only one quality level, displayed at a resolution of 320x240 pixels using the Sorenson Spark codec (a variant of H.263), with mono MP3 audio. In June 2007, YouTube added an option to watch videos in 3GP format on mobile phones.In March 2008, a high quality mode was added, which increased the resolution to 480x360 pixels In November 2008, 720p HD support was added. At the time of the 720p launch, the YouTube player was changed from a 4:3 aspect ratio to a widescreen 16:9. With this new feature, YouTube began a switchover to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC as its default video compression format. In November 2009, 1080p HD support was added. In July 2010, YouTube announced that it had launched a range of videos in 4K format, which allows a resolution of up to 4096x3072 pixels
YouTube videos are available in a range of quality levels. The former names of standard quality (SQ), high quality (HQ) and high definition (HD) have been replaced by numerical values representing the vertical resolution of the video. The default video stream is encoded in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format, with stereo AAC audio.
^ 1 fmt was an undocumented URL parameter that allowed selecting YouTube quality mode without using player user interface. Since December 2010 this parameter is no longer supported.
^ 2 Approximate values based on statistical data; actual bitrate can be higher or lower due to variable encoding rate.
3D videos
In a video posted on July 21, 2009, YouTube software engineer Peter Bradshaw announced that YouTube users can now upload 3D videos. The videos can be viewed in several different ways, including the common anaglyph (cyan/red lens) method which utilizes glasses worn by the viewer to achieve the 3D effect. The YouTube Flash player can display stereoscopic content interleaved in rows, columns or a checkerboard pattern, side-by-side or anaglyph using a red/cyan, green/magenta or blue/yellow combination. In May 2011, an HTML5 version of the YouTube player began supporting side-by-side 3D footage that is compatible with Nvidia 3D Vision.
Content accessibility
One of the key features of YouTube is the ability of users to view its videos on web pages outside the site. Each YouTube video is accompanied by a piece of HTML, which can be used to embed it on a page outside the YouTube website. This functionality is often used to embed YouTube videos in social networking pages and blogs.Embedding, as well as ranking and commenting, can be disabled by the video owner.
YouTube does not usually offer a download link for its videos, and intends for them to be viewed through its website interface. A small number of videos, such as the weekly addresses by President Barack Obama, can be downloaded as MP4 files.Numerous third-party web sites, applications and browser plug-ins allow users to download YouTube videos. In February 2009, YouTube announced a test service, allowing some partners to offer video downloads for free or for a fee paid through Google Checkout.
Platforms
Some smartphones are capable of accessing YouTube videos, dependent on the provider and the data plan. YouTube Mobile was launched in June 2007, and uses RTSP streaming for the video.Not all of YouTube's videos are available on the mobile version of the site.
Since June 2007, YouTube's videos have been available for viewing on a range of Apple products. This required YouTube's content to be transcoded into Apple's preferred video standard, H.264, a process that took several months. YouTube videos can be viewed on devices including Apple TV, iPod Touch and the iPhone. A TiVo service update in July 2008 allowed the system to search and play YouTube videos. In January 2009, YouTube launched "YouTube for TV", a version of the website tailored for set-top boxes and other TV-based media devices with web browsers, initially allowing its videos to be viewed on the PlayStation 3 and Wii video game consoles. In June 2009, YouTube XL was introduced, which has a simplified interface designed for viewing on a standard television screen.
Localization
On June 19, 2007, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was in Paris to launch the new localization system.
The interface of the website is available with localized versions in 31 countries and a worldwide version.
The YouTube interface suggests which local version should be chosen on the basis of the IP address of the user. In some cases, the message "This video is not available in your country" may appear because of copyright restrictions or inappropriate content.
The interface of the YouTube website is available in 30 different languages, including Catalan, Danish, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian and Slovene, which do not have local channel versions.
Plans for YouTube to create a local version in Turkey have run into problems, since the Turkish authorities asked YouTube to set up an office in Turkey, which would be subject to Turkish law. YouTube says that it has no intention of doing this, and that its videos are not subject to Turkish law. Turkish authorities have expressed concerns that YouTube has been used to post videos insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and some material offensive to Muslims.
In March 2009, a dispute between YouTube and the British royalty collection agency PRS for Music led to premium music videos being blocked for YouTube users in the United Kingdom. The removal of videos posted by the major record companies occurred after failure to reach agreement on a licensing deal. The dispute was resolved in September 2009. In April 2009, a similar dispute led to the removal of premium music videos for users in Germany.
April Fools
YouTube has featured an April Fools prank on the site on April 1 of every year since 2008:
2008: All the links to the videos on the main page were redirected to Rick Astley's music video "Never Gonna Give You Up", a prank known as "Rickrolling".
2009: When clicking on a video on the main page, the whole page turned upside down. YouTube claimed that this was a new layout.
2010: YouTube temporarily released a "TEXTp" mode, which translated the colors in the videos to random upper case letters. YouTube claimed in a message that this was done in order to reduce bandwidth costs by $1 per second.
2011: The site celebrated its "100th anniversary" with a "1911 button" and a range of sepia-toned silent, early 1900s-style films, including "Flugelhorn Feline", a parody of Keyboard Cat.
Censorship and filtering
Several countries have blocked access to YouTube, including:
As of December 2010, YouTube is blocked in the People's Republic of China.
Morocco shut down access to YouTube in 2008.
Thailand blocked YouTube between 2006 and 2007 due to offensive videos relating to King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
Turkey blocked access to YouTube between 2008 and 2010 after controversy over videos deemed insulting to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.The block was lifted briefly but reimposed in November 2010.
On December 3, 2006, Iran temporarily blocked access to YouTube, along with several other sites, after declaring them as violating social and moral codes of conduct. The YouTube block came after a video was posted online that appeared to show an Iranian soap opera star having sex. The block was later lifted and then reinstated after Iran's 2009 presidential election.
On February 23, 2008, Pakistan blocked YouTube because of "offensive material" towards the Islamic faith, including display of the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. This led to a near global blackout of the YouTube site for around two hours, as the Pakistani block was inadvertently transferred to other countries. Pakistan lifted its block on February 26, 2008. Many Pakistanis circumvented the three-day block by using virtual private network software. In May 2010, following the Everybody Draw Mohammed Day, Pakistan again blocked access to YouTube, citing "growing sacrilegious content".
On January 24, 2010, Libya blocked access to YouTube after it featured videos of demonstrations in the Libyan city of Benghazi by families of detainees who were killed in Abu Salim prison in 1996, and videos of family members of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at parties. The blocking was criticized by Human Rights Watch.
Some schools have blocked access to YouTube, citing the inability to determine what sort of video material might be accessed by students.
YouTube was awarded a 2008 Peabody Award and cited for being "a 'Speakers' Corner' that both embodies and promotes democracy."
Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list. It said: "Providing a safe home for piano-playing cats, celeb goof-ups, and overzealous lip-synchers since 2005."
Social impact
Charlie Bit My Finger is YouTube's most-viewed user generated video.
Before the launch of YouTube in 2005, there were few easy methods available for ordinary computer users who wanted to post videos online. With its simple interface, YouTube made it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to post a video that a worldwide audience could watch within a few minutes. The wide range of topics covered by YouTube has turned video sharing into one of the most important parts of Internet culture.
An early example of the social impact of YouTube was the success of The Bus Uncle video in 2006. It shows a heated conversation between a youth and an older man on a bus in Hong Kong, and was discussed widely in the mainstream media. Another YouTube video to receive extensive coverage is guitar,which features a performance of Pachelbel's Canon on an electric guitar. The name of the performer is not given in the video. After it received millions of views The New York Times revealed the identity of the guitarist as Lim Jeong-hyun, a 23-year-old from South Korea who had recorded the track in his bedroom.
Charlie Bit My Finger, which was uploaded on May 22, 2007, is a viral video that has received the most views of any user generated YouTube video, with over 300 million views. The clip features two English brothers, with one-year-old Charlie biting the finger of his brother Harry, aged three. In Time's list of YouTube's 50 greatest viral videos of all time, "Charlie Bit My Finger" was ranked at number one.
Criticism
Copyrighted material
YouTube has been criticized for failing to ensure that uploaded videos comply with copyright law. At the time of uploading a video, YouTube users are shown a screen with the message "Do not upload any TV shows, music videos, music concerts or advertisements without permission, unless they consist entirely of content that you created yourself". Despite this advice, there are still many unauthorized clips of copyrighted material on YouTube. YouTube does not view videos before they are posted online, and it is left to copyright holders to issue a takedown notice pursuant to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Organizations including Viacom, Mediaset, and the English Premier League have filed lawsuits against YouTube, claiming that it has done too little to prevent the uploading of copyrighted material. Viacom, demanding $1 billion in damages, said that it had found more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of its material on YouTube that had been viewed "an astounding 1.5 billion times". YouTube responded by stating that it "goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works". Since Viacom filed its lawsuit, YouTube has introduced a system called Video ID, which checks uploaded videos against a database of copyrighted content with the aim of reducing violations. In June 2010, Viacom's lawsuit against Google was rejected in a summary judgment, with U.S. federal Judge Louis L. Stanton stating that Google was protected by provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Viacom announced its intention to appeal the ruling.
In August 2008, a US court ruled in Lenz v. Universal Music Corp. that copyright holders cannot order the removal of an online file without first determining whether the posting reflected fair use of the material. The case involved Stephanie Lenz from Gallitzin, Pennsylvania, who had made a home video of her 13-month-old son dancing to Prince's song "Let's Go Crazy", and posted the 29-second video on YouTube.
Privacy
In July 2008, Viacom won a court ruling requiring YouTube to hand over data detailing the viewing habits of every user who has watched videos on the site. The move led to concerns that the viewing habits of individual users could be identified through a combination of their IP addresses and log in names. The decision was criticized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which called the court ruling "a setback to privacy rights".U.S. District Court Judge Louis L. Stanton dismissed the privacy concerns as "speculative", and ordered YouTube to hand over documents totaling around 12 terabytes of data. Judge Stanton rejected Viacom's request that YouTube hand over the source code of its search engine, saying that it was a trade secret.
Controversial content
YouTube has also faced criticism over the offensive content in some of its videos. The uploading of videos containing defamation, pornography, and material encouraging criminal conduct is prohibited by YouTube's terms of service. Controversial areas have included Holocaust denial and the Hillsborough disaster, in which 96 football fans from Liverpool were crushed to death in 1989.
YouTube relies on its users to flag the content of videos as inappropriate, and a YouTube employee will view a flagged video to determine whether it violates the site's terms of service. However, this procedure has been criticized by the United Kingdom government. In July 2008, the Culture and Media Committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom stated that it was "unimpressed" with YouTube's system for policing its videos, and argued that "Proactive review of content should be standard practice for sites hosting user-generated content." YouTube responded by stating:
We have strict rules on what's allowed, and a system that enables anyone who sees inappropriate content to report it to our 24/7 review team and have it dealt with promptly. We educate our community on the rules and include a direct link from every YouTube page to make this process as easy as possible for our users. Given the volume of content uploaded on our site, we think this is by far the most effective way to make sure that the tiny minority of videos that break the rules come down quickly.
In October 2010, U.S. Congressman Anthony Weiner urged YouTube to take down from its website videos of imam Anwar al-Awlaki, tied to the accused Fort Hood shooter, Christmas Day bomber, and attempted Times Square bomber, and on the U.S. targeted killing list, saying that by hosting al-Awlaki's messages, "We are facilitating the recruitment of homegrown terror." British security minister Pauline Neville-Jones commented: "These Web sites would categorically not be allowed in the U.K. They incite cold-blooded murder, and as such are surely contrary to the public good." In November 2010, YouTube removed from its site some of the hundreds of videos featuring al-Awlaki's calls to jihad. It stated that it had removed videos that violated the site’s guidelines prohibiting "dangerous or illegal activities such as bomb-making, hate speech and incitement to commit violent acts," or came from accounts "registered by a member of a designated foreign terrorist organization." In December 2010, YouTube added "promotes terrorism" to the list of reasons that users can give when flagging a video as inappropriate.
User comments
Most videos enable users to leave comments, and these have attracted attention for the negative aspects of both their form and content. When Time in 2006 praised Web 2.0 for enabling "community and collaboration on a scale never seen before", it added that YouTube "harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred".The Guardian in 2009 described users' comments on YouTube as follows:
Juvenile, aggressive, misspelled, sexist, homophobic, swinging from raging at the contents of a video to providing a pointlessly detailed description followed by a LOL, YouTube comments are a hotbed of infantile debate and unashamed ignorance – with the occasional burst of wit shining through.
In September 2008, The Daily Telegraph commented that YouTube was "notorious" for "some of the most confrontational and ill-formed comment exchanges on the internet", and reported on YouTube Comment Snob, "a new piece of software that blocks rude and illiterate posts".
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