12 Years Of YouTube

YouTube, part of Alphabet Inc GOOG GOOGL, is celebrating its twelfth anniversary on Tuesday. Three former Paypal Holdings Inc PYPL employees — Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim — founded YouTube twelve years ago on this day.

YouTube was started as a venture capital-funded technology startup, with a $11.5 million investment by Sequoia Capital.

Since then, YouTube became a leading video-sharing site and later bought by Google for $1.65 billion in November 2006.

Related Link: Less Than 2 Years Since It Debuted The Feature, Facebook Is Now No. 1 In Live Streaming

YouTube earns advertising revenue from Google AdSense. Though, majority of its videos are free to view, there are subscription-based premium channels and YouTube Red, a subscription service offering ad-free access to the website and exclusive content.

12 Years In The Making

On its anniversary, let’s take a look at notable developments in the platform’s history:

• The first YouTube video was titled "Me at the Zoo" and shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005.
• The first video to reach one million views was a Nike Inc NKE advertisement featuring Ronaldinho in November 2005.
• In July 2006, the company announced that more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded every day, and that the site was receiving 100 million video views per day.
• In June 2007, YouTube launched its Mobile version.
• In July 2009, YouTube allowed uploading of 3D videos.
• In July 2010, the mobile version of the site was optimized for touch screen interface.
• In October 2010, Hurley stepped down as chief executive, handing over the reins to Salar Kamangar.
• In December 2011, YouTube revamped site interface, with the video channels displayed in a central column on the home page. At the same time, a new version of the YouTube logo was released with a darker shade of red.
• In 2014, YouTube said that 300 hours of new videos were uploaded to the site every minute.
• In January 2015, YouTube began supporting 360° videos.
• In February 2015, YouTube released a secondary mobile app known as YouTube Kids.
• In January 2016, YouTube expanded its headquarters in San Bruno at a cost of more than $200 million.
• In December 2016, Alexa ranked YouTube as the second most popular site.