Did you know? YouTube.com
November 16, 2009
YouTube is the brainchild of three former PayPal employees who, back in the early part of 2005, decided the internet needed a simpler way for users to share video with one another. The site is now the fourth most visited in the world, and consumes over $1 million of bandwidth cost per day. The company is based in San Bruno, California and launched the first user uploaded video in April 2005. The official launch was November 2005. Sequoia Capital invested $11.5 million in venture capital from November to April 2006. By July 2006 YouTube was already showing huge signs of success, with users uploading 65,000 new videos everyday, with over 100 million video views daily. American office workers never saw a better way to fritter away time at work!
Of course, the business world took note of the meteoric rise of YouTube, and investors came a calling. In October 2006, Google signed a deal to acquire YouTube (now barely 20 months old) for $1.65 BILLION. A true American success story, but YouTube is now localized for over 20 other countries, and continues to grow daily. However not everyone loves YouTube, which has been banned from Morocco, Thailand, Pakistan, Iran and China.
YouTube is one of the cultural hubs of our time, along with other internet icons such as Facebook or MySpace. It is a place for people to share information and to build the internet community. Don’t even think of launching a new band without a music video on YouTube, because that is where people go to see you first.
Our favorite YouTube clip, a flash mob dance in Antwerp, Belgium.