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The Beginning...
After this incident these three friends who were at the time trying to launch an online dating platform felt that it was difficult to find any video footage of the incident.
They came up with the idea for YouTube and started this business above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California.
"YouTube.com" was officially activated on February 14/2005. -
The Beginning
Three friends Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim all worked for Paypal. They came up for the idea of YouTube following the Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake Half Time Show Incident. This was referred to as the “Nipplegate” incident and happened at the 2004 Super Bowl. Justin Timberlake tore off a piece of Janet Jackson’s costume showing her breast on live television! It was called a “wardrobe malfunction” -
Beta Service and More Viewers
YouTube.com was trafficking around 30,000 viewers a day within just a few months of launch. -
The First Video - Me at the Zoo!
This was the first ever video uploaded to YouTube.
It has Jawed Karim and he was recorded by one of his high school friends.
He is at the San Diego Zoo in California.
It was called a "milestone" in the history of YouTube
To date it has had more than 363 million views !! -
Sequoia Capital Invests 3.5 Million!
YouTube started out being "Angel Funded" but in November 2005 Sequoia capital invested an initial 3.5 million and would later invest another 8 million -
Rapid Growth and Need for Better Technology
YouTube became one of the fastest growing websites in the summer of 2006 with an average of 100 million video views per day with more than 65,000 new video uploads.
There started to be copyright issues and they started outsourcing to Google. -
YouTube Purchased by Google...
YouTube was purchased by Google for 1.65 billion US in stock. This help YouTube's rise to becoming a "global media dominator".
The plan was for the co-founders to continue operation with 68 employees. ] -
Getting Even More Popular and YouTube Choice Awards
It is estimated that in 2007, YouTube consumed as much bandwidth as the entire Internet in 2000! The YouTube Awards started in March 2007 and were an annual competition where users voted on the best videos of the year. -
Televised Presidential Debates
YouTube produced televised presidential debates where questions could be asked of the US Democratic and Republican Candidates -
YouTube Partner Program - Making money off Videos
This Program allowed channels who had at least 1000 subscribers and 4000 public watch hours in the last year to run ads on their videos and earn money for it!
This allowed channels to be monetized -
Over 2 billion views/day
YouTube was becoming more and more popular.
More than 2 billion views each day. -
YouTube Grows Even Bigger
3 Billion Views per day and users uploading 48 hours of video every minute! -
The Emergence of MrBeast (the richest YouTuber in history!)
This would be the highest earning YouTuber Ever!
He was just 13 years when he started.
His early videos were of him playing MineCraft and Call of Duty.
He went on to have an estimated networth of 1 billion and it all started on YouTube! -
YouTube Kids
There started to be concerns about the content kids could see. YouTube developed "YouTube Kids". This was a standalone app which would provide kid-friendly content. This app blocked a lot of good content that was on YouTube and was almost too childish especially for kids who were a little older -
YouTube RED Launched !
This was the opportunity for YouTube viewers to pay for a premium AD FREE version of YouTube. Ther service started out at $10 per month.
This service also let people download videos so they could watch them when they were offline -
2016-2018 Premium and YouTubeOriginals
YouTube Red changed to YouTube Premium - the services were essentially the same but with a different name. Including Ad-free, being able to play videos in the background while having different windows open, being able to watch offline on mobile devices.
There was also a music streaming service.
YouTube Originals - is excelusive content produced by YouTube this was also available on YouTube Premium. -
Period: to
2016-2018 The Rise Of Influencers and Monetization
There was a massive rise in influencers and full time content creators. Rules got stricter for creators and they only got paid if they followed the rules. These rules were made because there was public criticism over controversial content earning money.
Some big influencers at this time were PewDiePie, Jake Paul and Logan Paul. During this time vlogging and makeup tutorials became very popular. -
The Adpocalypse
Adverstisers starting pulling their ads when they found out their ads were appearing on inappropriate content. There was a period of demonetization and new policies. -
COVID 19 and YouTube "Shorts"
The goal here was to compete with TikTok and Instagram. Shorts are up to 60 seconds. This became very popular quickly as people liked it's quick format. -
The Removal of the "Dislike" Feature and More Money for Shorts
To decrease targeted harassment Youtube removed the "dislike" button , creators could still see information privately.
100 million dollars was added to a Shorts Fund to reward short-form creators. This showed a growing competition with TikTok. -
More Growth!
2.5 Billion Monthly Active Users, second only to Facebook -
Leadership Change and AI Integration
The CEO Susan Wojcicki steps down and Neal Mohan became the new CEO
AI-driven tools were added. -
2025 - Currently
The world's leading video sharing platform.
2.7 billion monthly active users
500 hours of content every minute uploaded!