Online video-sharing pioneer YouTube has been named Time magazine's "Invention of the Year" for 2006.

The free website allows users to upload, view and share video clips, which range from online confessionals and popular comedy skits to violent clips of backyard wrestling and attacks on U.S. soldiers and insurgents in Iraq.

YouTube beat out such achievements as a vaccine that prevents a cancer-causing sexually transmitted disease and a shirt that simulates a hug.

Time said YouTube's scale and sudden popularity have changed the rules about how information — along with fame and embarrassment — gets distributed over the internet.

It said the video-sharing website came along at just the right time, just as social-networking websites became hot, camcorders got cheaper and do-it-yourself media has expanded beyond text-based blogs.

YouTube inherits the award from last year's winner Snuppy, a cloned puppy.

Site spawned celebrities, copyright firestorms

The website has soared since it was launched in February 2005, now showing more than 100 million video clips per day.

With its rapid ascent into everyday culture, YouTube also spawned a new class of online celebrities. Such unlikely stars include a 79-year-old pensioner from England and a female video diarist known as lonelygirl15, who later was revealed — much to the consternation of the website's faithful — as the fictional work a New Zealand actress and producers developing a film project.

The site has also featured prominently in the online political fray in the buildup to the U.S. midterm elections by showing various attack ads of both parties and pundits' videoblogs, which have garnered a massive viewership.

YouTube has also been at the centre of firestorms over content ownership and recently deleted nearly 30,000 files after a Japanese entertainment group complained of copyright infringement.

The website reached an agreement in October with CBS Corp. and three major recording companies — Warner Music Group Corp., Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment — to allow the website to post copyrighted music videos and other content in exchange for sharing ad revenue.

Internet search leader Google recently acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion US.

With files from the Associated Press