YouTube is a phenomenon that we all have come to love. For many, it’s not only a site to learn things, like how to change your world, but it is also the site where we consume most of our entertainment. The video content uploaded on YouTube in two months or sixty days is more than the content created by three major television networks of the U.S has created in 60 years. An average user spends about 25 to 30 minutes daily on the site. But even though we have made this website part of our everyday lives, very few of us know its origins or just how big it is today. Did you know that although YouTube was launched in the U.S, 80% of the traffic comes from outside of the U.S? Didn’t know that, did you? Interested in knowing more? Here are the top five facts about YouTube that you did not know.
1. Creation of YouTube
Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim Founded YouTube in 2005. The three of them knew each other from working at PayPal, an Internet startup. Chad Hurley even designed the logo of PayPal. The trio funded YouTube with the bonuses they got from PayPal. It could be said, PayPal is the reason for the existence of YouTube.
2. YouTube started as a dating site
Before it was about videos, YouTube began as a dating site. Before the cool creators could give the world a place to enjoy videos, they created YouTube as a dating site. The early 2005 version shows a very basic homepage asking if the user was a male or a female, who they were seeking, and what age range they were interested in.
3. YouTube v/s UTube
YouTube was launched in the year 2005 and had a clash with utube.com, an Ohio based company that makes universal tube and roll form equipment. Their site was overloaded with people trying to log into YouTube, and it kept crashing. They tried to sue the new video sharing platform, but they lost. So they had to change the domain to utubeonline.com and admit defeat.
4. The very first
The first video to be uploaded on YouTube is called “Me at Zoo” Short by Yakov Lapitsky, a friend of Jawed Karim. It shows Jawed at the San Diego zoo in front of an elephant enclosure talking about how long their trunks are. Since its upload on April 23rd, 2005, it has gained a vaping almost 19 million views. It’s the only video in Jawed’s channel, yet their channel has gained over 70,000 subscribers.
5. Google meets YouTube
In just one year after launching, YouTube became a very famous video sharing site. It got the attention of Google, who saw the potential that online video had, and in October of 2006, Google bought you 2 for 1.6 billion dollars in stock from the three founders only 18 months after the creation of the site. It all worked out pretty well due to the fact that the founders were just as interested in selling the website as Google was interested in purchasing it. At the time, YouTube had been in multiple legal battles with several media companies over Copyright infringement lawsuits.
Another reason that the founders were so eager to sell it was that in top of the lawsuits, despite its popularity, YouTube was losing money at a rate of $500,000 a month, of course, Google doesn’t enter any business arrangement with the intention of losing money, so they were the ones to introduce advertising on the platform. Since that purchase, YouTube has grown exponentially, year over year, making it the second biggest search engine just behind google.com. So, in other words, Google has a monopoly on an Internet search.
There is a huge volume of content that people can watch for free. But, then, there is content that’s only for premium users. You can always save yourself from buying the premium by continuing to read this. Not only that, one can upload for free. It isn’t an unbiased platform that is available for all, which is why YouTube is an incredible digital company. They have paved the way for many online platforms. They have created something brand new and cemented themselves in popular culture.