YouTube, Web site for sharing videos
YouTube, Web site for sharing videos. It was registered on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, three former employees of the American e-commerce company PayPal. They had the idea that ordinary people would enjoy sharing their “home videos.” The company is headquartered in San Bruno, California.

The immense growth in traffic at YouTube created its own set of problems. The company continually had to purchase more computer equipment and more broadband connections to the Internet. In addition, YouTube was forced to allocate more financial resources for potential litigation, as many media companies discovered that some of the videos uploaded to YouTube contained copyrighted material. With limited success in commercializing its Web site or containing its growing costs, YouTube began looking for a buyer.