In February of 2005, three PayPal employees – Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim, and Steve Chen – came up with the idea of creating a video sharing site. YouTube was born not long after, and it quickly grew into a website that would change the internet (and the world) forever.
There are two different stories that claim to reveal what inspired the three men to invent YouTube. According to Chad and Steve, the idea to create a video sharing site stemmed from them experiencing difficulty sharing videos taken at a dinner party hosted by Steve at his apartment in San Francisco.
Jawed, meanwhile, says that he was inspired by two major events from 2004: Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show, and the Indian Ocean tsunami. Jawed could not easily find videos of these events online, and this led to the idea of creating a video sharing site.
Regardless of where exactly its inspiration came from, YouTube began as a venture capital-funded startup. Sequoia Capital invested $11.5 million to fund its development. A beta test of the site was offered to the public in May of 2005, and the site was officially launched in December of that same year, bolstered by another round of investment from Sequoia Capital (this time worth $3.5 million). Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion just ten months after its launch. Sequoia Capital received around $495 million from the sale.
"Me at the zoo" was the first video to be uploaded on YouTube. The 18-second video shows co-founder Jawed Karim during a visit to the San Diego Zoo. As of July 2019, the video has been viewed more than 71 million times and has received over 2.2 million likes.
At the time of its launch in 2005, YouTube started receiving around eight million hits a day. By July 2006, the site was up to more than 100 million hits per day, with around 65,000 videos being uploaded daily.
In May of 2007, the rickrolling phenomenon began. The act of “rickrolling” someone involves getting them to click on a link or watch a video that leads to the music video of the song Never Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley. Although Rick Astley is considered a one-hit wonder, his music video has now been viewed more than 580 million times thanks to the rickroll phenomenon.
In July of 2012, the music video for Psy’s Gangnam Style was uploaded, quickly becoming one of the most-viewed YouTube videos of all time. It also started a dance craze that took the world by storm. As of July 2019, the video has been viewed more than 3.3 billion times.
In 2014, YouTube launched a paid streaming subscription service called YouTube Red that provides ad-free streaming of all the videos on the site. The service was renamed YouTube Premium in May of 2018.
It is undeniable how much the internet – and the world – has changed thanks to YouTube. People have become millionaires by starting their own YouTube channels. Pewdiepie is currently one of the most popular YouTubers, with over 98 million subscribers and a fortune in revenue each year. Most of his videos revolve around him playing and commenting on video games. Aside from Pewdiepie, there are many others who now make a living through their YouTube channels.
YouTube videos cater to a wide variety of interests. Whether you’re into travel, home improvement, music, fashion, or video games, you will surely find a video to keep you entertained.
If you’re up for it, you might even become a YouTube star one day.