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A collection of videos about YouTube
YouTube explained
5:47Launched in early 2005 in the pre-iPhone era of the internet, YouTube began as a quirky site where users uploaded funny, random videos—a do-it-yourself television service. Today, it’s a global media powerhouse and home to everything from movie trailers to video podcasts, livestreams, and much more. Want to learn more about the streaming giant? Check out our 5-minute explainer here.
Relevant articles, podcasts, videos, and more from around the internet — curated and summarized by our team
According to the latest estimates, some 500 hours of content are posted to YouTube every minute. Rewinding the clock, the video that stands at the beginning of that massive and constantly growing stream of content is this one—“Me at the Zoo.” It was uploaded in April of 2005 by YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim and shows him at the San Diego Zoo talking about elephants.
Search Engine Journal
From music superstars like Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift to streamers like PewDiePie and MrBeast, the ranks of YouTube’s most-subscribed-to accounts includes a mix of everything from celebrities whose YouTube presence complements the rest of their persona to stars who made a name for themselves solely from the platform. This ranking from Search Engine Journal breaks down the 30 biggest YouTube accounts as of June 2004.
How did YouTube grow from a startup in 2005 to a media powerhouse with more than 2.5 billion monthly logged-in users who watch more than 1 billion hours of video every day? That’s what this podcast interview with Bloomberg tech reporter Mark Bergen on NPR’s Fresh Air tries to get to the bottom of. Bergen is also the author of “Like, Comment, Subscribe,” a book about the rise of YouTube.
Less than two years into its existence, YouTube was acquired by Google—who sensed it could be the home of the next wave of user-generated content—for $1.65B in 2006. But was it a good deal? Here the hosts of the popular Acquired podcast explore whether the deal measures up to the mythology, starting with a memo from early investor Sequoia Capital.
Investopedia
YouTube has become one of the world's leading entertainment platforms almost entirely on the back of users who upload their own content. An estimated 3.7 million new videos get uploaded to YouTube each day, but why do creators do it? Some do it for sharing, some do it to build an audience, but a small, very popular fraction are able to make money off their content.
Bloomberg
Even though YouTube now garners so many viewing hours each day that it’s a credible rival to Netflix, the video giant has zeroed in on an opportunity to capture even more user attention than it already commands: the living room TV. In this conversation with Bloomberg, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan maps out how the company is taking what it’s learned thus far and embedding itself into the “lean-back” TV viewing experience.
Search and uncover even more interesting information in our vast database of curated YouTube resources