10 years of YouTube

YouTube turned 10 in February. But the journey really began 10 years ago—on 23 April 2005, when one of the co-founders—Jawed Karim, uploaded the first ever video on the video-sharing website. A simple (some would say “poorly-made”) 19-minute clip started a revolution of sorts in the way users viewed and shared videos online. The video, titled “Me at the zoo” shows Karim at the San Diego zoo, in front of an elephant enclosure, describing the elephants’ “really, really, really long trunks”. The video has 19,538,433 views as this piece is written.

YouTube heralded a new era in terms of exposure too. It helped many artists kick-start their careers-- singer Justin Beiber, South Korean rapper Psy are among them.

There is also no denying YouTube’s instrumental role in the Arab Spring, after Twitter and Facebook, by allowing users to upload clips and spread ideas.

And it’s not just spreading ideas. YouTube has also, in its brief history, become an important source of earnings for many. People like Michael Buckley (of the famous WHAT THE BUCK show) have earned in six figures through YouTube’s partnership programme.

What else? YouTube also started what we know today asRickrolling. When a person is directed to a different page when he/she clicks on something else, he is said to have been rickrolled. YouTube started it in 2008 in its April Fools prank, when users were directed to Rick Roley’s song Never Gonna Give You Up when they clicked on a video.

Today, YouTube has more than 1 billion users, with 300 hours of video being uploaded every minute. It is localized in 75 countries and available in 61 languages, and 60% of a video’s views come from outside the creator’s home country.

As the uploading, sharing and viewing on the third-most visited website on the Intenet complete a decade, a look back at YouTube’s journey-