YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing website created in February 2005 by three former [PayPal](/organization/paypal) employees: [Chad Hurley](/person/chad-hurley), [Steve Chen](/person/steve-chen) and [Jawed Karim](/person/jawed-karim). YouTube enables users to upload, view and share videos. It uses Adobe Flash video and HTML5 technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including video clips, TV clips, music videos, and amateur content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos. YouTube offers a variety of features, including playback, uploading, quality and codecs, and 3D video viewing. It also offers users the ability to view its videos on web pages outside their website. The videos on the site are playable on both iOS and Android platforms. Unregistered users can watch videos, while registered users can upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old. Most of the content on YouTube has not been uploaded by individuals, but by media corporations including [CBS](/organization/cbs), [BBC](/organization/bbc), [Vevo](/organization/vevo), [Hulu](/organization/hulu), Haber and other organizations that offer some of their material as part of the YouTube partnership program. Partners from major movie studios, record labels, web original creators, viral stars, and millions more all have channels on YouTube. YouTube is predominantly an ad-supported platform, but also offers rental options for a growing number of movie titles. YouTube is currently based in San Bruno, California, and is available in 76 languages. In November 2006, YouTube was acquired by [Google](/organization/google) and now operates as a Google subsidiary.