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When you are thinking of popular Internet video sharing websites, these days the first website that probably pops into your mind is YouTube.

YouTube.com is an amazingly popular video sharing website that has taken the world by storm. With its popularity growing by the day, YouTube.com will likely continue becoming more and more part of today’s culture.

In basic terms, YouTube is a community of people who share videos. Individuals from around the world upload videos onto YouTube.com for everyone to see. After viewing the video, individuals can leave a comment about the video, grade the video, share the video with their friends and much, much more.

YouTube makes it easy for individuals to upload their video clips. All you have to do is sign up for a YouTube.com account and the uploading process is a breeze. And of course, uploading videos is always free on YouTube.

Before video sharing websites, hosting videos online was much more difficult. If you had a video you wanted to share, you’d have to put it on your own server. You’d then be responsible for the bandwidth caused by others viewing the video. When all was said and done, it’d cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars just for other people to view a video of yours. Today with YouTube.com, that process is not only free, but your video is put into a community where others can find and watch your video.

Finding a video on YouTube is extremely easy. YouTube.com has a built in search engine that searches based on video titles and video keywords. You can search by relevancy, by date, by video owner, by rating and by video views to name a few ways. Basically, if you want to find a video, it’s quite easy to search through YouTube.com’s library of millions of videos. If you can use Google, you can use YouTube!

An amazing aspect of YouTube is it is a relatively new website. Created in February of 2005, YouTube.com was founded by three people who used to work at PayPal’s offices. As most people know, PayPal.com is the Internet’s largest payment and money transferring website.

The three founders, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, had the simply idea of letting users easily host videos on a website that was built on a foundation that valued community. While it took a while for the website to catch on, in a relatively short amount of time YouTube.com has become an unbelievable success.

YouTube.com’s current size is astounding. A recent report indicated that there are more than 75 million videos on YouTube and nearly three million user accounts. Each month, YouTube.com generates billions of page views.

Those who put their time and effort into making YouTube what it is today were paid off nicely in November of 2006. Google.com, the Internet’s leading search engine and arguably the most powerful company on the Internet, purchased YouTube.com for a deal which was valued at about $1.6 billion. Needless to say, the idea to let people share videos in a community was an idea that paid off greatly.

As YouTube grows, it’s trying to gain an even bigger market around the globe. It has branched off sections of the website to cater to different countries around the globe. Those countries include Australia, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. YouTube.com hopes to continue their unbelievable growth and become the go-to website for video in every country in the world. If it isn’t already, YouTube.com is well on its way to becoming the Internet’s largest community in addition to already being the Internet’s largest video sharing website.

While YouTube has a big advantage on any other video sharing website, there are a whole lot of video sharing websites on the Internet. Some of these websites have actually been around longer than YouTube. Each offers something just a little bit different and tries to cater to a different niche.

Google Video is another option as far as a video sharing website. It was originally Google’s answer to YouTube.com but after not making up any ground, Google decided to purchase YouTube instead of compete against them. However, even though Google has purchased YouTube.com, Google Video still exists as its own separate entity.

Users can upload videos on Google Video similar to the way they can on YouTube. However, Google Video is starting to transition into something similar to that of a search engine. When you search on Google Video, you get results from different video sharing websites.

MetaCafe.com bills itself as the largest independent video sharing website on the Internet. While it’s similar to YouTube.com in most regards, it does have its difference. Perhaps the most exciting aspect for video publishers is the ability to make money with MetaCafe.com. If you put a video on MetaCafe, as long as you meet certain requirements, you can earn $5 for every 1,000 page views your video accumulates.

Viddler.com is a video sharing website that also uses aspects of social networking to try to appeal to new users. Some have described Viddler.com as a hybrid between YouTube and MySpace. While it’s a relatively new website, it’s growing in popularity at a steady pace.

Ustream.tv takes video sharing to a whole new level. Launched in March of 2007, Ustream.tv allows users to broadcast streaming video over the Internet – live! Best of all, it’s free and easy to do. All you need to do is have the equipment (a web cam and a microphone is what most people use), sign up for a Ustream.tv account and you can begin your live video streaming in no time. You can then invite others to watch your live video. After your video is complete, it can be archived and viewed later.

Qik.com has unveiled another unique idea for the video sharing industry. At Qik.com, you can use your phone to broadcast live to the world. All you need to do is use their software on your phone and you can stream live video. It also allows your to use your cell phone like a camcorder, without having to store the video on your phone! It’s a quite amazing and forward-thinking concept.

Many other similar video sharing services exist such as Spike.com, Veoh.com, blip.tv and Outloud.tv. Over the next few years, expect even more services to be launched that look to cash in on this exploding market. Video sharing has become one of the most popular activities on the Internet. As more people learn how to produce their own videos, this market should grow by leaps and bounds.

The major roadblock in this industry since its inception has been copyright laws. These websites have to spend a lot of resources and man hours weeding out user inputted videos that violate copyright laws. For example, if someone uploads a video of something copyrighted such as a television episode, the video sharing website has to have a way of finding the video and deleting it off of their servers.

However, many traditional media outlets are now working with video sharing websites to help solve this problem. Revenue sharing in exchange for copyrighted videos is one way to overcome this inherent obstacle.

The future for Internet video sharing websites is bright. If you haven’t joined a video sharing community, you should check one out for yourself!

Watch the video: The co-founders of YouTube talk about being acquired by Google.