Chris Botello

Creating a YouTube account is free, quick, and painless. To create a YouTube account, just submit a few bits of basic information and create a username and password. That's it — you don’t need to add your street address or phone number, and YouTube doesn’t ask you for a credit card number.Go to YouTube.com and click the Sign Up link.

When registering on YouTube, you create a username the same way as with any other website registration. But when you choose a YouTube username, remember that YouTube is a video-sharing site. It's a wholly different thing from a retail or auction site because a YouTube account is much more personal. Viewing other people’s videos is a very personal thing.

YouTube is a great place to promote your product or message. To promote on YouTube, grab your camcorder, take a video of the product or tape your message, and upload the video to YouTube. When you do create video to promote a product or service, make sure that you add ending credits with the URL to your Web site or to the site where YouTubers can actually purchase your product or service.

Viewing videos on YouTube is easy. To watch a YouTube video, just click an image icon — the page changes, and the video begins playing in a little window. Viewing a video is just that simple.Each video comes complete with a controller that lets you Pause the video. Click the button that has two vertical lines.

Multiple sources say there are now more than 800 million videos on YouTube and about 37 million channels. That's a lot of videos to sort through!If you're interested in looking at which videos are most viewed by YouTube visitors, you'll need to search by a category or channel. Here's how to do it. Search by category Go to YouTube and notice the Search field at the top of the page.

If you forget your YouTube username or password, don't panic. YouTube has your e-mail address, and you can retrieve your forgotten username or password from them. (When you first register with YouTube, jot down your username and password, especially if they’re different from those that you use regularly on other websites.