What hasn't already been said about YouTube? At two billion
views a day (and counting) the internet's third most popular
website boasts double the number of all three major US TV networks
combined. More video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than those
networks created in 60 years (that's 24 hours of video uploaded
every minute).
It's viewed in more than 200 countries, localised in 23
countries, available in 24 different languages and 70% of its
traffic comes from outside the US. What's more, partner ad revenue
tripled in 2009 and it now monetises a billion videos a week.
A genuine phenomenon, even those aware of the company's dramatic
rise will have been taken aback to hear that Sunday marked only its
FIFTH birthday.
What hasn't already been said about YouTube? At two billion views a
day (and counting) the internet's third most popular website boasts
double the number of all three major US TV networks combined. More
video is uploaded to YouTube in 60 days than those networks created
in 60 years (that's 24 hours of video uploaded every minute).
It's viewed in more than 200 countries, localised in 23 countries,
available in 24 different languages and 70% of its traffic comes
from outside the US. What's more, partner ad revenue tripled in
2009 and it now monetises a billion videos a week.
A genuine phenomenon, even those aware of the company's dramatic
rise will have been taken aback to hear that Sunday marked only its
FIFTH birthday.
Started by former PayPal colleagues, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, Jawed
Karim in February 2005, the site took just three months to develop
and get live and by the time it came out of beta that December it
already had 8 million videos.
Just 10 months later, on October 6 2006 the founders, having
surpassed 100m views, made the live announcement: "Hi YouTube we
just wanted to say thank you. Today we have some exciting news for
you. We've been acquired by Google."
There aren't really words to describe that rate of growth.
Roll back five years, though and Chad Hurley admits the founders
were solely focused on just getting their idea out there.
"When we first started, it was just trying to share these clips
with one another," he says in a video released to mark the site
turning five. "We saw an opportunity to empower everyone with
ability to use video online."
At that point, right at the beginning, when YouTube was just
another idea and was no doubt dismissed by numerous people who
thought they knew better, how different was Chad and his
co-founders situation from yours?
An interesting thought, right? Will Smarta be writing about you in
five years?
Started by former PayPal colleagues, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and
Jawed Karim in February 2005, the site took just three months to
develop and get live and by the time it came out of beta that
December it already had 8 million videos.
Just 10 months later, on October 6 2006 the founders announced
in a homemade video on their own site (how else?): "Hi YouTube we
just wanted to say thank you. Today we have some exciting news for
you. We've been acquired by Google."
There aren't really words to describe that rate of growth.
Roll back five years though, and Chad Hurley admits the founders
were solely focused on just getting their idea out there.
"When we first started, it was just trying to share these clips
with one another," he says in a video released to mark the site
turning five. "We saw an opportunity to empower everyone with
ability to use video online."
At that point, right at the beginning, when YouTube was just
another idea and was no doubt dismissed by numerous people who
thought they knew better, how different was Chad and his
co-founders situation from yours?
An interesting thought, right? Will Smarta be writing about you
in five years?