“The rise of broadband and better mobile networks and devices has meant that video has become an increasingly popular part of users’ online experiences,” said Kathleen Moore of the Pew Internet Project, author of the report. “People use these sites for every imaginable reason – to laugh and learn, to watch the best and worst of popular culture and to check out news. And video-sharing sites are very social spaces as people vote on, comment on, and share these videos with others.”

Indeed, the explosion of content on sites like YouTube has been an audience draw. The company reports that 48 hours of video are posted on YouTube every minute. And since 2005 the number of visits to the site has grown from 8 million views a day to over 3 billion per day. Other statistics on YouTube can be found on the company’s press page.

The survey found that rural internet users are now just as likely as users in urban and suburban areas to have used these sites. Some 68% of rural internet users have gone to such sites, compared with 71 percent of online suburbanites and 72 percent of online urban residents. Those are statistically insignificant differences and show that since 2009 online rural residents have caught up to others in using these sites.

In addition, online African-Americans and Hispanics are more likely than internet-using whites to visit video-sharing sites. “Many other online activities have not shown much growth in recent years in the number of people who pursue them. But the growth of video-sharing sites stands out against that trend,” said Moore. “More and more people see these sites as places to get a little dose of amusement or diversion and every once in a while to find something very moving.”

Video-sharing on sites like YouTube and Vimeo is on the rise, and 71 percent of online Americans use it frequently. Photo: www.imagine-your-world.com

"I'm confident that this year, LG will emerge as a leader in the next generation of Smartphone and tablet devices," said Dr. Jong-seok Park, president and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. "What you see here today is just the beginning - we will continue to innovate with products that address consumer needs and deliver benefits that live up to our 'Life's Good' commitment."

The Optimus 3D features a dual-lens camera that enables users to capture pictures and video in true 3D which can then be viewed immediately on the 4.3-inch display. Multiple connectivity options including HDMI and DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) make it easy to transfer their recorded content to other devices.

Users will be able to upload their 3D content to YouTube. The company announced a new partnership with LG to provide a unique 3D mobile experience. "3D technology has traditionally been reserved for the major Hollywood movie studios," said Francsico Varela, Head of YouTube Platform Partnerships. "With the new LG Optimus 3D anyone anywhere in the world can shoot 3D videos, upload them to YouTube and share them with their friends. We’re excited to see the creative videos our community captures and shares with this new technology."

The Android-powered Optimus 3D will be available globally in the second quarter of 2011. Photo: LG

Twitter also changed the way embedded media is accessed. Users that click on a TwitPic will now see the photo on the right half of the page without leaving Twitter.com, whereas the old interface would link to an external site. This is certainly a welcome feature that will help to increase security. Other tweets that have linked to the image will be displayed. Instead of redirecting users to YouTube, tweets containing videos will now play within the Twitter side.

In a short video, Twitter demonstrates the new features.

During its first ever press conference at its San Francisco headquarter, Twitter said that the company closed deals with 15 media providers including YouTube, Flickr, and TwitPic to enable the changes. Twitter founder Evan Williams hopes that the new embedded features will help the site to attract more advertisers to take advantage of promoted tweets, a feature announced recently. Williams also announced that 370,000 new users sign up every day.

To sum it up, the new interface presents data in a clean and organized way that should help 160 million Twitter users from around the world to navigate the site more easily. It has the potential to engage users and keep them on the site. However, the new features could spell trouble for countless start-ups and application developers in the Twitter-sphere: Users may feel that they don’t need to navigate off-site to get what they want.

While only a small percentage of Pakistan's population of 170 million has Internet access, social networking sites have grown in popularity. It is estimated that 25 million Pakistani, most of them young, use the Internet regularly. Blocking access to YouTube and Facebook will result in a 25 percent decrease of Internet traffic, the Hindustan Times reports.

The current crackdown on the free flow of information is not the first. Two years ago, PTA blocked YouTube and demanded the removal of content it deemed offensive. Facebook and YouTube will remain blocked until the end of May, but many news reports speculate that the newly instated censorship will continue indefinitely.

Created by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim in February 2005, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. in November 2006 for $1.65 billion. The San Bruno based company uses technology based on Adobe's Flash to display user generated video content. Some news corporations including BBC and CBS use the service as well.

YouTube started with $11.5 million in venture capital as a site for tech-savvy video bloggers above a pizzeria in San Mateo. The first content was uploaded on April 23, 2005 and shows founder Jawed Karim at San Diego Zoo. After a public beta in May 2005, YouTube officially launched its service in November 2005. By July 2006, the company announced that users uploaded more than 65,000 new videos every day. At the time, the site registered 100 million video views per day.

YouTube is now the dominant video content provider in the U.S. It is estimated that 24 hours of new videos are uploaded to the site every minute, and that around three quarters of the material comes from outside the United States. The site is also used by broadcasters and Hollywood studios to reach a huge international audience.

"Whether you were an aspiring filmmaker, a politician, a proud parent, or someone who just wanted to connect with something bigger, YouTube became the place where you could broadcast yourself," says YouTube in a retrospective posted here. "We bring feature films from Hollywood studios and independent filmmakers to far-flung audiences. Activists document social unrest seeking to transform societies, and leading civic and political figures stream interviews to the world."

In a YouTube Five Year channel, people from around the world tell the audience how the service impacted their life. YouTube did also ask scientists and journalists like Vint Cerf and Katie Couric to develop a showcase with their favorite videos.