Last month YouTube celebrated it’s five year anniversary. Today the site that has been acquired by Google in 2006 for $1.65 billion announced it has exceeded two billion video views per day. To celebrate in style they launched the YouTube Five Year channel with its cool timeline showcasing the videos that have marked its history.
From the first ever video upload on the service by co-founder Jawed Karim « Me at the Zoo« , to today’s « YouTube turns five! » motion video, who hasn’t watched « The evolution of dance » or « Where the hell is Matt« ? Who hasn’t heard about « LonelyGirl15 » or laughed his brains out on « Numa numa » and « Keyboard Cat« ? Dreamed of reaching stardom like TayZonday with « Chocolate rain » or Britain’s got Talent Susan Boyle? Which creative agency wouldn’t kill to have come up with BooneOakley‘s interactive YouTube video website? Which brand wouldn’t have payed big $ to get as viral as Evian’s « Roller babies« ? Which distribution channel could broadcast the only existing film images from Anne Franck to so many people worldwide? I’ll let you ponder on that.
Now is also your chance to share your own “My YouTube Story” by submitting videos about the impact YouTube has had on your lives.
For netinfluence, YouTube is a very important channel to get some messages across. We like to film conferences, interview interesting people we meet and share videos we like. You can have a look at our channel if you like!
With the Google I/O just around the corner (May 19th and 20th) and the rumored announcement of Google TV (allowing users to run Web applications on televisions), YouTube has a bright future and might finally become profitable.
For all you marketers out there, here is a very interesting infographic detailing YouTube statistics over the past 5 years:
