According to Alexa, which is a website that rates other websites popularity based on page views, YouTube is the 2nd most popular and most visited website in the world. The only website visited more is Google. YouTube is a video sharing website that enables you to film your own home-made videos and post them for the world to see. People all over the world use YouTube for many purposes. Some of these purposes include education, entertainment, and even for music.
Above shows the founders of YouTube. Jawed Karim and Steven Chen. They came up with the idea at a dinner party in 2004. They launched the site in 2005, and the first video ever was posted on April 23rd, 2005. Here is the video ever posted on YouTube made over 11 years ago:
As you can see, YouTube has evolved a lot. Even the home page has taken a huge leap from where it started.
The first ever viral video posted on YouTube was a Nike ad that got more than 1,000,000 views. Finally towards the end of 2005, they officially opened YouTube out to the public. In October of 2006, YouTube was bought by Google for 1.65 billion dollars! At that time, YouTube had only 65 employees. In 2007, YouTube posted their partner program which allowed people to get paid for making viral videos. This encouraged people to try and make a living off of YouTube which was a huge step towards YouTube becoming the next big website. In May 2007, a video was posted on YouTube. In it, a boy named Charlie bit his bigger brothers finger. Whether you believe it or not, this video is one of the most viewed YouTube videos ever! As of December 5th, 2016, that video has 844,774,409 views. The family who filmed and posted it made roughly $150,000 off of it! YouTube began posting their ads in 2007. In 2009, Usher posted a video that introduced us to one of the biggest names in music today....Justin Beiber. This video changed his career and it led to the insane popularity of the singer.
in April 2009, YouTube invested in a music program called Vevo. It is now the main music provider on YouTube today. Then, in January of 2010, YouTube enabled the ability to rent movies. This made it so people could get movies without needing to go out and get one. That feature also made YouTube effective. Then, in April of 2011, YouTube allowed people to post live videos. The videos could be watched by people across the world while the event unfolded. Using this ability, people all across the world could watch their countries compete for the number 1 spot without the pleasure of a TV. They could just tune onto YouTube and watch the events live. Then, people where able to watch the presidential election live. The live feature on YouTube was very popular and effective in these ways.
In 2012, the most viewed video ever was posted. It was the song Gangnam Style, that is currently at approximately 2,700,000,000 views! YouTube continues to get more watchers, more posters, and continues to thricve each and every day.
Work Cited:
Jawed Karim. Digital image. Wikipedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 7 Dec. 2016. <https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwibh_vR0OLQAhVS-GMKHVe_BTMQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FJawed_Karim&psig=AFQjCNHg15kwr3miSXJr8UJ9M409cUtTLQ&ust=1481218923648577>. https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwibh_vR0OLQAhVS-GMKHVe_BTMQjRwIBw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FJawed_Karim&psig=AFQjCNHg15kwr3miSXJr8UJ9M409cUtTLQ&ust=1481218923648577
Dickey, Megan Rose. "The 22 Key Turning Points In The History Of YouTube." Business Insider. Business Insider, 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 07 Dec. 2016. <http://www.businessinsider.com/key-turning-points-history-ofhttp://www.businessinsider.com/key-turning-points-history-of-youtube-2013-2#-youtube-2013-2#>.