YouTube at age five a growing player in online films

Image via CrunchBase

YouTube turned has five. In the scant time since the first video was uploaded to YouTube on April 23, 2005, the website has rocketed to global stardom and become a key player in a shift to Internet television.
"Hundreds of millions of people around the world now use the Web to connect and interact with content online," YouTube product manager Shenaz Zack said in a blog post on the eve of the website's birthday yesterday.
"A huge percentage of them go even further: they express themselves via parodies, celebrate their favorite videos with mashups, and use music in educational presentations."
Google is planning a series of celebratory events for closer to the fifth anniversary of the public launch of YouTube in October 2005.
Google bought YouTube in a 1.65-billion-dollar deal about 19 months after the online video-sharing service was founded in February of 2005.