第四篇：
One event that shook the business world in 2006 was the takeover by Internet superpower Google of an
extremely popular video-sharing website called YouTube. The $1.65 billion purpose resulted in astonished
reaction in the world’s financial markets. After all, it was a remarkable price to pay for a company that didn’t
exist two years earlier.
It all began in January 2005 at a dinner party in San Francisco. Three former employees of PayPal, a
company that operates an online payment system, were chatting about the difficulty of sharing home videos with
friends online. Videos were difficult to download, and they were often too big to be sent through e-mail. Working
in a garage, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, and Taiwan-born Steve Chen developed a website through which short
homemade videos would be easy to download and to watch online. They named it YouTube, which basically
means “your television.” In other words, you can broadcast your own stuff. People began uploading interesting
and funny videos to share with others, at no cost. Word about the fun new site began to spread. The site’s
popularity took off like a rocket. In less than two years, more than 100 million videos were being viewed each
day on YouTube. Clips ranged from music and comedy stunts to shameless self-promotional messages. Some,
such as “Hong Kong Bus Uncle,” which features a loud argument filmed on a cell phone by a bus passenger, have
achieved worldwide fame.
As well as personal videos, many clips from movies, TV shows, and advertisements have found their way
onto YouTube. Sneaker giant Nike, for example, has provided video clips to the site. Music recording companies
such as Warner and EMI have also used the site to promote their music videos, and small companies that can’t
afford to advertize on TV have also used YouTube for publicity. With so many users, YouTube’s advertising
potential is obvious. If Google can figure out how to sell ads to even a fraction of the site’s huge number of
visitors, it will have been a very good acquisition indeed. 【題組】19. How did YouTube’s popularity spread in the beginning?
(A) It was advertised on Google. (B) People told one another about it.
(C) There was a news story about it. (D) It offered free music downloads.
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