Blog Post #4: EOTO Youtube

2004- 

The year was 2004, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, former PayPal employees, were at a dinner party in San Francisco when the original idea of Youtube came to be. This group was tired of how hard it was to find and share clips online. "People were collecting video clips on their phones... but there was no easy way to share them" said Hurley. This is when they knew something had to be done.

2005-

This was a huge year for these three men. This social media platform was registered on Valentines day of 2005. The first video was posted titled "Me at the zoo" on April 23. Shortly after, in May, Youtube was attracting 30,000 visitors a day. By the time that the website went public in November of 2005 they were rapidly gaining popularity. In that same month they received $11.5 million to boost their project and in December they were getting more than 2 million views per day. 

2006- 

In January of 2006 video views were up to 25 million views per day. This continued to go up, once the summer came it was up to 100 million views. In February of 2006 Youtube had their first advertisement on the platform. This was an ad about Prison Break a Fox show and it was a great new way to bring in revenue for the platform. On October 9th Google offered to buy Youtube. This started from Google having a failed attempt at a video sharing platform in 2005. They agreed to sell to Google for $1.65 billion in November. Google negotiated deals with companies to reduce the risk of copywrite, which was one of the problems that this platform ran into. Such including, the company constantly had to buy more computer equipment and broadband connections to the internet due to the high traffic levels on the website. As well as, looking for more financial resources because of the copyright that was continued to happen. This is what caused them to start looking for a buyer and Google was the perfect fit.

    Youtube continues to grow and gain users everyday. It is now the year 2023 and we are reaching roughly 5 billion views everyday. This innovation has changed the world. Being the first video sharing platform that gained popularity and succeeded, it is no surprise that this was a necessary invention.  According to israrkhan, "It has facilitated global connections and provided creative opportunities to content creators, while also transforming the way people consume media and entertainment." It has provided so much information and careers for many people around the world. 

    While there are many positives since the start of Youtube it also brings some negatives too. This can include misinformation, inappropriate content for kids, and even cyber bullying. Creators often post content that is like to boost their view and like counts even if it means it can be inappropriate for young viewer. Parents began to notice that these content creators were bad role models which lead to the start of Youtube Kids. Yotube Kids, created in 2015, was added as a place for safe content for young kids to browse. It quickly gained popularity and it gains about 11 millions views weekly. 

    In conclusion, Youtube continues to grow and gain popularity and viewers. It is amazing how far this company has come in the few years it has been around. I look forward to seeing where else this platform will take us and what new things are to come.