Founded by former paypal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim in 2005, YouTube has become a media powerhouse almost by accident. The grainy cell-phone footage that christened the site is simply known as 'Me at the zoo' and posted by Karim was the very first post, but there is a growing trend of videos being professionally produced taking the place of the crude, home videos we have come to know and love.
To think, a site that was conceptualized and founded in February of 2005 was sold to Google for $1.65 BILLION in October of the following year.
On the surface, YouTube is about the people. The simple concept of being able to upload, share, and view videos seems innocuous enough, but the power to create and share with an endless sea of viewers sparked an overflow of content that revolutionized the way we sought our entertainment. People, regular everyday folks, began turning cameras on themselves, sharing their passions in video blogs, sharing information in how-to videos, doing unboxings, or the working man's product reviews. They uploaded their favorite songs, their family videos, and all along new forms of communication are being pioneered. Viral videos are born.
The second reason viral video became important is because they introduced the prospect of high level advertising. Major companies with products to pitch could no longer ignore the internet video as a legitimate source of visual entertainment. In many ways, the rules of viral marketing mirror those of guerrilla marketing, which is gain word of mouth by creating social currency with the mention of your story. Ironically, the site was founded with the intentions of having no intrusive advertising. By 2008, YouTube released statistics reporting that 10 hours of new video content was uploaded every single minute, an astonishing figure at the time. Today, that figure has grown to a whopping 100 hours of brand new video and audio uploaded every minute of every day.
Positive aspects of YouTube abound. It serves as a virtual time capsule, video footage from the depths of history that typically would go unseen. YouTube has become a treasure trove of rare clips, from childhood favorites to live performances deemed too irrelevant for traditional TV broadcasting.
The platform itself has created more stars than American Idol, giving way to homegrown musicians, beauticians and any other niche market of under served entertainment that could classify one as a YouTuber. Just when you thought internet video had reached its final frontier, the smartphone and tablet revolution put mobile entertainment in the forefront of a new market. YouTube has managed to dominate the portable entertainment market, becoming more fluid and functional on mobile devices and consistently refining site features. Latest figures show that roughly 40% of all global YouTube views are on mobile devices.
Globally, YouTube has found its way into nearly every corner of the Earth. Our nation only accounts for 1/5th of the world's YouTube viewing audience, as 80% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the United States. This has bridged the gap of waiting for footage from traditional news outlets, the video was being uploaded by the message-bearers, the people on the front lines of international struggles. YouTube also evened the playing field in advertising, as ad agencies could not simply produce expensive content with the hopes that it would resonate with people. Major companies, most notably Doritos, took to young independent artists to craft their big time ads, giving them a quirky and memorable feel that viral video experts fawn over.
DORITOS AD MADE FOR $200 AIRS DURING SUPER BOWL
With great success comes great responsibility, though, and YouTube has been criticized for a slew of things, ranging from privacy to piracy. It is a hotbed for web hackers who share illegal software and music, and no matter the steps taken, YouTube has not found a viable answer for these problems. Also, it strikes me that YouTube removes certain filters, such as children being exposed to explicit music and materials. Often times in the past a parent could easily monitor these things since TV shows are regulated, but in an age where a child's cell phone can access this behemoth amount of material, it has become harder to keep an eye on. There is also the aspect of viral fame that comes from all the wrong reasons, leading to the existence of people who are only famous for somehow demeaning themselves in the public eye. To come across a video so downright awful that you have to watch it several times just to believe it has led to strange characters such as Tay Zonday, Ice JJ Fish, and Chief Keef becoming household names. Even the talentless can stand up and be counted.
The future of YouTube seems strangely secure. Being owned by a major company like Google certainly helps, but aside from that it doesn't seem that similar sites have held people's interest. YouTube has been resilient enough to take its criticisms and improve on them. Advertising has taken over, but more importantly is the corporate presence of the brands and major networks that have all carved out their small piece of the pie. There are joint ventures with film companies for online movie rental services, and the Content ID service which essentially polices the site to ensure protected materials are removed or tagged with advertisements to compensate the original owners.
This video scanning software examines 400 years of footage daily.
YOUTUBE LIVE STREAMING - CREATE YOUR OWN EVENT
YouTube has expanded into live streaming for both home users and for live events. They even hosted their own live awards show for the very first time in 2013. The addition of overlays that allow viewers to click through to an outside link has been developed, along with the inclusion of closed captioning. Some new features being explored include an upgraded, HTML 5 player and a music discovery service. At Youtube, views are viewed as currency since the value of any given video is unknown until it's posted for the world to see. It seems unlikely YouTube as an entity and force in our daily lives will do anything other than continue to improve and build on its already successful foundation.
As complex a beast as it has grown to be, a new video by a young kid who calls himself 'Sir Fedora' sums up the general feeling of connectedness that comes along with receiving that first like on your first YouTube post.
Perhaps technology works best when you're not aware of how powerful its grown.
References:
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Doritos Fan-Created Super Bowl Ad “Underdog”, Created for $200, Scores No.2 on USA TODAY Ad Meter and $600,000 Prize | Frito-Lay. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.fritolay.com/about-us/press-release-20100208.html
Me at the zoo [Video file]. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw
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Swing City
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