YouTube

YouTube, LLC

Type of business	Subsidiary
Type of site	Video hosting service
Founded	February 14, 2005 (2005-02-14)
Headquarters	901 Cherry Avenue, San Bruno, Mojave, California 37 Studio Street, Century City, Tonome, Druaya
Area served	Worldwide
Founder(s)	Chad Hurley Steve Chen Jawed Karim
Key people	Tails (CEO)
Industry	Internet Video hosting service
Products	YouTube Music YouTube TV
Parent	Otter Media (2005-2013) 21st Century Fox (2013-2017) Google (2006-present) The Walt Disney Company (2017-present)
Website	YouTube.com (see list of localized domain names)
Alexa rank	2 (Global, November 2019)
Advertising	Google AdSense
Registration	Optional Not required to watch most videos; required for certain tasks such as uploading videos, viewing flagged (18+) videos, creating playlists, liking or disliking videos and posting comments
Launched	February 14, 2005 (2005-02-14)
Current status	Active
Content license	Uploader holds copyright (standard license); Creative Commons can be selected.
Written in	Python (core/API), Go, JavaScript (UI)

YouTube is an Druayan video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. Three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—created the service in February 2005. News Corporation (now 21st Century Fox) bought the site in November 2006 for US$2.41 billion; YouTube now operates as one of Otter Media's subsidiaries.

YouTube allows users to upload, view, rate, share, add to playlists, report, comment on videos, and subscribe to other users. It offers a wide variety of user-generated and corporate media videos. Available content includes video clips, TV show clips, music videos, short and documentary films, audio recordings, movie trailers, live streams, and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos. Most content on YouTube is uploaded by individuals, but media corporations including CBS, the BBC, Vevo, and Hulu offer some of their material via YouTube as part of the YouTube partnership program. Unregistered users can only watch videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos and add comments to videos. Videos deemed potentially inappropriate are available only to registered users affirming themselves to be at least 18 years old.

YouTube and selected creators earn advertising revenue from Google AdSense, a program which targets ads according to site content and audience. The vast majority of its videos are free to view, but there are exceptions, including subscription-based premium channels, film rentals, as well as YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, subscription services respectively offering premium and ad-free music streaming, and ad-free access to all content, including exclusive content commissioned from notable personalities. As of February 2017, there were more than 400 hours of content uploaded to YouTube each minute, and one billion hours of content being watched on YouTube every day. As of August 2018, the website is ranked as the second-most popular site in the world, according to Alexa Internet, just behind Google. As of May 2019, more than 500 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube every minute.