YouTube is the largest online video portal worldwide. The company was founded in 2005 and belongs to Google since 2006. This means, every registered Google user with Gmail account, for example, also has a YouTube account.
The page allows users to upload videos and share them with other users, to watch videos published by other users, to subscribe to channels, to comment and to apply ratings. Every minute, about 100 hours of video material is uploaded on the platform worldwide.
YouTube has more than 1 billion users worldwide, i.e. about one third of all Internet users regularly (and passively) watch videos on YouTube. In Germany, YouTube has about 6 million active users, i.e. users who upload videos. For more than half of all YouTube requests mobile end devices are used.
Videos that are up to 15 minutes long can be uploaded. Selected users with verified accounts can also upload videos up to 12 hours Long.
YouTube also allows you to advertise. You may choose from pre-roll ads, i.e. commercials shown before a video starts, ads next to videos, ads in the search results or ads as overlay.
A blog or weblog is a diary-style text published on the Internet that everyone can see. A person or a group of authors, i.e. the blogger(s), publish texts in their blog. This might be personal experiences, new products or just thoughts about a certain topic, for example. Frequently, blog articles are written in the first person singular. Blogs are also frequently used as an instrument of corporate communication. There are no general rules for the frequency of publication of a blog. In many blogs, the articles are published sporadically. Normally, every reader can comment articles so that written texts can be discussed publicly. Nowadays, blogs have great importance in the tourism industry as well. On the one hand, travellers write about their experiences, on the other hand, blogs are more and more used as sources of inspiration and information about possible destinations. Destinations and service providers can use blogs to contact customers on a personal level and present their services.
WordPress or Blogger.com are known (technical) service providers for blogs.
Google+ is a social network founded in 2011 by Google. Google+ adds the users' friends to "Circles". This allows you to control what group of friends or circle you share posts with. Relationships on Google+ may also be unilateral, i.e. users can add another user to one of their circles and subscribe to updates. The other user does not have to accept a "friend request" or similar. Users who are added to a circle do not need their own Google+ account. They are informed by e-mail about all news shared with the circle. Contents may be shared publically or just with one or several selected circles. Furthermore, Google+ allows you to create business pages similar to the fan pages on Facebook. The "Hangouts" function can be used by companies for video conferences with other users. Verification of Google+ pages is similar as for Facebook. Combined with Google My Business, Google+ is relevant for (local) visibility of a company in search engines.