History of YouTube
YouTube is an American online video-sharing platform headquartered in San Bruno, California, founded by three former PayPal employees—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim– in February 2005[1]. Google bought the site in November 2006 for US$1.65 billion, since which it operates as one of Google's subsidiaries.
Design history of the video player used by YouTube. Note that each layout generation might have gone through minor undocumented iterations, and that appearance may vary with embedding parameters.
YouTube logo
YouTube allows users to upload videos, view them, rate them with likes and dislikes, share them, add videos to playlists, report, make comments on videos, and subscribe to other users. The slogan "Broadcast Yourself" used for several years and the reference to user profiles as "Channels" signifies the premise upon which the platform is based, of allowing anyone to operate a personal broadcasting station in resemblance to television with the extension of video on demand.
As such, the platform offers a wide variety of user-generated and corporate media videos. Available content includes video clips, TV show clips, music videos, short and documentary films, audio recordings, movie trailers, live streams, and other content such as video blogging, short original videos, and educational videos.
As of February 2017, there were more than 400 hours of content uploaded to YouTube each minute, and one billion hours of content being watched on YouTube every day. As of October 2020, YouTube is the second-most popular website in the world, behind Google, according to Alexa Internet.[2] As of May 2019, more than 500 hours of video content are uploaded to YouTube every minute.[3] Based on reported quarterly advertising revenue, YouTube is estimated to have US$15 billion in annual revenues.
YouTube has faced criticism over aspects of its operations, including its handling of copyrighted content contained within uploaded videos,[4] its recommendation algorithms perpetuating videos that promote conspiracy theories and falsehoods,[5] hosting videos ostensibly targeting children but containing violent or sexually suggestive content involving popular characters,[6] videos of minors attracting pedophilic activities in their comment sections,[7] and fluctuating policies on the types of content that is eligible to be monetized with advertising.[4]After opening on a beta service in May 2005 YouTube.com was trafficking around 30,000 viewers a day in just months of time. After launching six months later they would be hosting well over two million viewers a day on the website. By March 2006 the site had more than 25 million videos uploaded and was generating around 20,000 uploads a day.[21] During the summer of 2006, YouTube was one of the fastest growing sites on the World Wide Web,[22] hosting more than 65,000 new video uploads. The site delivered an average of 100 million video views per day in July.[23] However, this did not come without any problems, the rapid growth in users meant YouTube had to keep up with it technologically speaking. They needed new equipment and wider broadband internet connection to serve an ever growing audience. The increasing copyright infringement problems and lack in commercializing YouTube eventually led to outsourcing to Google who later failed in their own video platform "Google Video".[21] It was ranked the fifth-most-popular website on Alexa, far out-pacing even MySpace's rate of growth.[24] The website averaged nearly 20 million visitors per month according to Nielsen/NetRatings,[23] with around 44% female and 56% male visitors. The 12- to 17-year-old age group was dominant.[25] YouTube's pre-eminence in the online market was substantial. According to the website Hitwise.com, YouTube commanded up to 64% of the UK online video market.[26]
YouTube entered into a marketing and advertising partnership with NBC in June 2006.[2early 2013, YouTube introduced a new layout for channels known as "One Channel", which added the ability to put playlists into shelves on the channel front page, but removed custom backgrounds. Formerly unified channel pages were separated into multiple sub pages such as "Videos", "Playlists", "Discussion" (channel comments), "Channels" (featured by user), and "About" (channel description, total video view count, join date, outlinks). This layout was initially optional, with a transitional period taking place between March 8th and June 5th after which it has been made permanent for all users. Coarsely, this layout is still in operation as of 2022.[132]
In March 2013, the number of unique users visiting YouTube every month reached 1 billion.[133] In the same year, YouTube continued to reach out to mainstream media, launching YouTube Comedy Week and the YouTube Music Awards.[134][135] Both events were met with negative to mixed reception.[136][137][138][139]
Since early July 2013, the first page of videos' comment section is no longer included in the watch page's initial HTML source code, but instead loaded subsequently through AJAX.[140]
A picture-in-picture mode for browsing within the app while watching was introduced to the mobile app in August 2013.[141] At a similar time, channel hover cards were first implemented to the desktop site, which are tooltips previewing channel details that appear when pointing at channel names with the mouse cursor. These details include the header image, subscriber count, subscribe button, and a snippet of the channel description text.[142] Additionally, a play symbol ("▶") to indicate a playing video in the page title was added to the desktop site. But it has been rendered obsolete the following years as desktop web browsers were equipped with an indicator for audio-playing tabs.[143][144][145]
On September 12, 2013, the "video responses" feature introduced back in May 2006 was discontinued, citing a low click-through rate. It allowed users to respond to videos through a new or existing video which appeared above the comment section.[146]
In the same month, YouTube's comment system on channel pages, and two months later on videos, was integrated to Google's social network site "Google+", since which a Google Brand Account is required to be able to comment. This change also included the ability to edit existing comments and include URLs in comments, with the removal of the 500 characters limit and negative user ratings from comments. Channels created prior as standalone YouTube accounts using its legacy registration form have been grandfathered to a /user/ URL.[147][148]
In November 2013, YouTube's own YouTube channel surpassed Felix Kjellberg's PewDiePie channel to become the most subscribed channel on the website. This was due to auto-suggesting new users to subscribe to the channel upon registration.[149]
In June 2014, YouTube replaced the classic Inbox feature with a new private messaging system, which – like comments – required users to have their YouTube accounts linked with a Google+ profile, which was subsequently moved over to Google Brand Accounts. Legacy Inbox messages could be viewed and downloaded up until December 1st. [150][151]
In October 2014, videos' frame rate limit was increased from 30 to 60, allowing for a smoother and more realistic appearance. It was initially only available with Google Chrome and later expanded to other browsers. 60fps are only available at 720p resolution and above.[152]
In November 2014, YouTube launched a paid subscription service initially named "Music Key", featuring background playback, the integrated ability to download music for offline use, and no advertisement breaks.[153] Almost a year later, in October 2015, it was rebranded to "YouTube Red" and its scope expanded beyond music.[154][155] It was rebranded again in May 2018 to "YouTube Premium", and its availability expanded across countries.[156] Google's other music streaming service Play Music was merged with YouTube Music in May 2020, as the latter is a more recognized brand.[157]
Support for the dedicated YouTube application on the Sony PlayStation Vita game console was deprecated in January 2015, for the Nintendo Wii and Wii Mini in June 2017, and for the Nintendo 3DS in August 2019.[158][159][160]
In March 2015, YouTube introduced the ability to automatically publish videos at a scheduled time,[161] as well as "info cards" and "end cards", which allow referring to videos and channels through a notification at the top right of the video at any playback time, and thumbnails shown in the last 20 seconds. In contrary to annotations, these work in the mobile app too, though are far less customizable.[162][163]
360-degree video was launched in March 2015. A year later, in April 2016, the ability to live stream 360-degree video was launched. Additionally, live streaming resolution was elevated to 1440p and 60 frames per second, and support for the EIA-608 and CEA-708 formats were added for embedded captioning.[164]
In August 2015, "YouTube Gaming" was launched. It was a separate web and mobile front end showing only gaming-related content, featuring a similar layout but somewhat modified appearance compared to the main site, and a light-on-dark color scheme well before the feature was introduced to the main site.[165] It was discontinued in March 2019 and merged with the main site.[166]7]