YouTube (the name is a representation for television created by the users), was founded in May, 2005. It mainly plays video clips on the internet as well as music. Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim are the co-founders of this website. The motivation to create this video sharing platform stemmed from a gathering after a dinner party. In order to display video footage from the party, the trio tried to find a way to upload the clips to the internet so they could be shared with friends in Mr. Hurley’s garage.

In a very short period of time after the video sharing platform was established, YouTube had amassed a large number of users. Most users would make video clips about their surroundings through a digital camera, or a mobile phone, and then upload them to YouTube. Users around the world can upload, browse, search and recommend videos to YouTube, therefore, it is an effective way to broadcast messages. It has also had a powerful influence on the whole world. In recent years, the international media has cooperated with YouTube and some of the world's celebrities to make announcements through this website. Though YouTube is not the only website in the video network industry, it has had the highest rate of usage over other competitors. In November 2006, Google purchased it for $ 1.65 billion.

This work by Eric & Chun-Chih Hadley-Ives is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.