YouTube is a popular video sharing website where users can upload, view, and share video clips. YouTube was created in mid February 2005 by three former employees of PayPal. The San Bruno-based service uses 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 and short original videos. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google's stock. The deal closed on 13 November 2006.[1]

Unregistered users can watch most videos on the site; registered users have the ability to upload an unlimited number of videos. Related videos, determined by the title and tags, appear to the right of the video. In the site's second year, functions were added which provide the ability to post video 'responses' and subscribe to content feeds for a particular user or users.