2005: Technology further erodes the notion of private life with the appearance of YouTube, which makes its debut on this day.

The video-sharing site, founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, has, in half-a-dozen years, become one of the most-visited websites worldwide, trailing only Facebook, Google (YouTube's parent company) and Google's Gmail.

With its slogan "Broadcast yourself" sounding a clarion call to exhibitionists the world over, YouTube was an instant hit, encouraging individuals to submit not only their personal videos but movie and TV clips, and music videos as well.

Its success also attracted the attention of Google, which shelled out $1.65 billion to acquire YouTube in 2006, less than two years after the company was founded.

YouTube's reach is enormous. Although the company doesn't make exact numbers available, YouTube (which is available in 30 languages) boasts hundreds of millions of registered users and a constantly expanding video archive that adds 24 hours of video every minute.

The site's popularity has not gone unnoticed by American political candidates, including those running for president. Democrats and Republicans alike had YouTube presence in 2008, and one candidate, Republican Ron Paul, began his quest for the White House with a campaign limited almost exclusively to the internet.

YouTube can backfire as a political tool, however. At least one candidate, U.S. Sen. George Allen (R-Virginia), was undone in his 2006 re-election bid after a clip showing him making allegedly racist remarks was repeatedly played on YouTube.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for the YouTube business model is potential copyright infringement. Registered users routinely submit clips from concerts and movies and TV shows, drawing the ire of (and lawsuits from) a variety of original-content providers.

YouTube has also come under fire for its willful censorship of material as well as its failure to more carefully screen for material that is, at best, disgusting and, at worst, incitement.

Source: Wikipedia, others

Photo: Chad Hurley (left) and Steve Chen are two of YouTube's co-founders. (AP)

An earlier version of this article appeared on Wired.com Feb. 15, 2008.

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