If you want to sentry a video, chances are you lot go to YouTube. It hosts movies, trailers, live streams, vlogs, music videos, news, and much more. YouTube is synonymous with video watching and sharing and now pulls in billions of acquirement every year for owners Google.

Of form, none of its three creators could have quite predicted the success that YouTube has seen. And so, permit's explore YouTube's roots and check out the first YouTube video.

When Did YouTube Beginning?

YouTube was founded by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim on Feb 14, 2005. The trio met while working at PayPal, a company which found success after being bought by eBay.

Supposedly, the idea for YouTube as a video sharing service came from the Super Bowl controversy when Janet Jackson'southward breast was exposed, and Karim couldn't find the clip online.

According to Hurley and Chen, the original concept of YouTube was as an online dating service. They took to Craigslist to ask women to upload videos of themselves to YouTube in commutation for $100. They struggled to get enough videos, so pivoted YouTube to accept any videos.

In May 2005, the site launched in a public beta. By November, a Nike advertizement starring Ronaldinho became the first to claim one million views. In December 2005, the site officially launched, at which betoken information technology had viii meg daily views. Past July 2006, more than than 65,000 videos were uploaded every day.

YouTube wasn't the showtime video sharing website (Vimeo launched in November 2004), but it was certainly the first to popularize easy uploading and sharing. Its popularity was boosted through viral comedy videos, like that from homegrown talent Smosh and unauthorized uploads of Saturday Night Live's The Lone Island.

In Nov 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $i.65 billion in YouTube stock. From there, YouTube has changed rapidly: multiple new interfaces, support for higher resolution videos, changes in direction, pushing monetization, and more than.

That said, in some ways the YouTube of today is much like the one in 2005. The cadre structure remains unchanged. Anyone can upload videos to their channel, comment on other videos, and share them with friends.

What Was the First YouTube Video?

The first YouTube video is "Me at the zoo" and was uploaded on Apr 23, 2005 by co-founder Jared Karim when he was 25 years one-time. The video runs for less than 20 seconds and features Karim in forepart of some elephants at the San Diego Zoo, commenting on how cool their long trunks are.

The video has over 218 million views and remains the but video on Karim's YouTube channel.

"Me at the zoo" is nothing special—it's low resolution and states the obvious virtually elephants—but information technology prepare the tone for the bootleg and inconsequential uploads that defined the early years of YouTube. Information technology was a time when amateurs used the platform to express themselves, just fueled past a want to create and share, rather than brands or influencers seeking fiscal reward.

Karim has updated the video's clarification a couple of times over the years to call out Google. In November 2013, the description read "I can't comment here anymore, since i don't want a Google+ account," in response to YouTube's integration with Google+. Similarly, in Nov 2021, it explained why YouTube hiding the dislike count is bad.

What's Next for YouTube?

Now, billions of people use YouTube every day, with no sign of that slowing down. Considering no video sharing platform has ever come up close to touching YouTube's dominance, it's likely to stay that way for a long time.

However, other video sites keep to be (Vimeo included!), of which some people consider to be superior to YouTube thanks to their relaxed content restrictions or focus on community.

12 Video Sites That Are Better Than YouTube

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