Everyday YouTube gets around 2 billion views. Quite a feat considering the beta version was only launched 5 years ago. Happy birthday YouTube.
Two billion people now visit the website each day and Google, the site’s owners, are getting twice as many visitors than the top three prime TV broadcasters.
Five years ago, the first person to broadcast themselves was Jawed Karim, one of the co-founders , who uploaded his video “Me at the Zoo”. All those years later, who would've thought it.
In a BBC News interview, YouTube, co-founder Chad Hurley said, “I see this as a great growth opportunity in the online video market and we are positioning ourselves to be a leader.”
YouTube’s not just a platform to upload and distribute video content but also to find and share content. Low production values make the site easy and straight forward to use and have played a huge part in getting the site the high visitor numbers it enjoys today.
That’s not to mention the YouTube videos that have become iconic over the five years. Susan Boyle’s Britain’s Got Talent audition, Ronaldinho’s Nike advert and the weird and wonderful clips of post-dentist drug hazes and Beyonce Single Ladies parodies, have all attracted million of eyeballs.
Even with 2 billion views, time spent on the site is relatively low when compared with other mediums - averaging around 15 minutes; much less time than people spend on offline television. Catching clips on the go, on the train, on their phones - increasingly so. The site lends itself so well to that particular mode of video consumption.
Back in the early days the site was synonymous with hosting pirated video, illegal film and TV footage. Since then YouTube have worked hard to win over the content makers and cash in on the trend for internet television.
What started out as a bedroom blogging site has transformed into a global platform supporting HD and 3D, has broadcasted entire sports seasons, Hollywood films and monumetnal news events around the world. That's not even the best of it, at aged 5, YouTube are only just getting started.