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=Youtube and it's influence on Multimedia=

=Youtube= toc

Founding
Youtube is a video-sharing website created by Chad Hurley in 2005. He worked for PayPal before the company was bought out by eBay, which left him with enough money to fund a new venture. Youtube was founded and rapidly grew--a video website had never before let the users upload and control content, rather than the website owner (1). This aspect of Youtube allowed it to grow rapidly; some of the most viewed videos on Youtube are user-uploaded (Charlie Bit My Finger, Hahaha, etc) (5) The pop sensation Justin Bieber was discovered from the videos of his singing put online by his mother. On the site, you can find endless videos of cats in boxes solely for audience enjoyment.

Youtube as a career
Youtube has now become an extremely community-oriented site. "Youtubers", or content-creators, make videos inside their genre and, if they fit their genre in an enjoyable way, develop audiences quickly. These "Subscribers" to content-creators help to make a career out of a hobby--a popular vlogger (video-blogger, or talking to a camera) can become partnered with Youtube and Google to be compensated for ads on their content. The videos themselves vary, but are all examples of multimedia (one extremely popular Youtuber, eleventh most subscribed of all time, Philip DeFranco refers to his job as "new media" (2).) because most videos require editing skills to make jump cuts, intros and outros, credit rolls, and to have information on the screen to facilitate what the vlogger is talking about. Videos would not be as highly viewed if they did not embrace this aspect of Multimedia.

=Contributions to Multimedia=

The style of Youtube videos is ever-changing and innovative. This aspect contributed to it's great success. There is a notable difference between types of highly viewed videos on Youtube, those that are 'viral' and those that are not but instead released in succession.

Viral videos
These videos are short clips that everyone seems to see. They are picked up by news stations, passed around my emails and by word of mouth. Often these videos gain cultural significance before falling out of the public eye. These videos gain millions upon millions of views in a very short amount of time.

Examples
David After Dentist The Bed Intruder (Antione Dodson) The Annoying Orange Chocolate Rain Charlie the Unicorn Susan Boyle and endless videos about cats

User-created content
Though usually viral videos are user-uploaded, they are not created with an audience in mind and are usually a one-hit-wonder, captured in a moment and lucky enough to grow popular. These types of videos are more innovative and stand the test of time because they appeal to the viewer on multiple levels with the heavy use of multimedia through the video.

=Notable "Youtubers" and their success=

Mitchell Davis
Mitchell Davis, Youtube channel //livelavalive//, is an artist who stopped attending college due to extreme anxiety issues and instead began to make vlogs in the summer of 2008. His channel, a comedy/vlog channel, is shared with his roommate/business partner Kyle Sibert, but the most popular videos (most; "Usher/MCMB") were made solely by Mitchell. His artistic side shows, music plays lightly in the background when appropriate, his trademark 'helvetica' font is sprinkled throughout videos, and the intros and outros all contribute to a general 'feel' of the videos that fans have come to know. The ending logo, one for which he is known, displays //LiveLavaLive// or some variation in helvetica, often with a message underneath. He has another channel, ///mm//, that solely houses his artistic videos that were not put on the main channel. These are mini vignettes that capture a certain feel with the help of music. He is not usually present in these videos. (3)

Shay Carl
Shay Carl is a Youtube vlogger who has become known for his family and his lengthy vlogs documenting them. He can be found at ///shaycarl// and ///SHAYTARDS//, the latter being the channel on which he posts vlogs daily. Multimedia is not usually seen in the footage parts of his vlogs, but the introductory sequence that he uses changes frequently, and all use multimedia to portray the message. The intro sequence uses a song and has a video montage that displays all of the names of his family as their pictures or videos roll, and often other words to describe their personalities.

=Influence= Youtube is rapidly growing community because it allows users to connect with each other easily, and it allows easy exposure or 'fame'. The influence on traditional media is clear, especially with popular shows like 'iCarly' running on television that use the idea of normal kids making a popular web show. (6) The internet generation seems to be killing the television, with 'shows' on Youtube showing up that are more relatable, independently run, uncensored, and easily accessible.

= = =References= note--Mr Mazura instructed me to only somehow reference the materials because I wasn't in class when proper citation was learned. 1 http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1570721,00.html

2 http://www.youtube.com/charts/users_most_subscribed?t=a

3 http://www.youtube.com/user/livelavalive

4 http://www.youtube.com/shaytards

5 http://www.youtube.com/charts/videos_views?t=a

6 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0972534/