How Youtube started, the first video and more: Timeline of the streaming video giant
The backstory of Youtube
Youtube, is a common word in nowadays world, but taking you back to the year when it was just an idea in the minds of co-workers Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim.
All of them were together working at the e-commerce company PayPal, where they had the idea of a video sharing platform.
Youtube was started as dating platform?
It feels surreal when we think of Youtube as a dating platform. But the truth is that the founders started it as a video dating platform, yes and they also had a slogan for it: 'Tune in, Hook up'.
Co-founder Steve Chen said that it was founded in 2005 with the idea of people uploading videos of themselves talking about their love life and the partner they want, but eventually, it failed.
“We always thought there was something with video there, but what would be the actual practical application?” said Chen, “We thought dating would be the obvious choice.”
Superbowl and Youtube connection!
One of the most infamous moments in the Superbowl history is Justin Timberlake and Jenet Jackson's 2005 performance, but did you know that it was a viral moment that gave founders the new idea of a video sharing platform.
After the unsuccessful dating idea, they realized there was no video sharing platform available after they faced trouble finding the video of Jenet. So, they got the idea of video sharing platform from Jenet and Justin's most controversial moment.
The first video - Me at the zoo
After the dating idea failed, they decided to stick with the simple idea of uploading and sharing the video. On April 23, 2005, 15 years back, the first video was uploaded titled 'Me at the zoo' by the co-founder Jawed Karim.
In the video, he's talking and showing the elephants at the San Diego Zoo.
First video to hit million views
In 2005, Youtube got its first video with 1 million views and that was of Brazilian soccer player Ronaldinho. In the video, he is wearing his Nike golden shoe and playing the soccer.
The smashing growth
Youtube become a sensation in a very short time span. First, the site was opened on the limited beta service and back then around 30, 000 visited per day. Till the launch day of December 15, 2005, the platform was raking in two million video views each day.
The same year, when the platform was already in everyone's talks, a big investment of $3.5 million by Sequoia Capital was made in the company.
Youtube X Bytes
After taking the world by storm in just a year of launch, Google buys YouTube for a whopping $1.65 billion. Back then, it was the most expensive purchase made by Google.
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