The History of Youtube

The History of Youtube

YouTube Banner Size & YouTube Channel Art Size Guide | October 2020

A Brief Background

With over 2 billion monthly users, YouTube has gained increasing popularity over its 15 year lifespan. In 2005, Chad Hurley, Jawed Karim and Steve Chen gave birth to the idea of creating a place where ordinary people could post home videos. The name “YouTube” represents user-generated content as the “You” and the “Tube” represents television, making the name symbolize a video viewing place for individual users rather than the site itself producing the content. Within 1 year there were over 25 million videos posted on the site. With so many videos arose an issue of copyrighted material. Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006 to mitigate the issue involving copyrighted material. YouTube became a place to enjoy others' content and create one's own.


The Pro’s

-easy to maneuver/use

-money-making opportunities

-ability to reach a large audience quickly 


The Con’s

-inappropriate content

-anyone can post anything

-children users could stumble upon non-age-appropriate videos


YouTube as a Career

Many people have found great success in turning their YouTube channel into an everyday job. After gaining a large following, YouTubers can profit enough money to make a living, some even a luxurious living off of their content. Some of the top users earn up to $26 million!


Did you know?

The very first video posted on YouTube was titled “Me at the Zoo” featuring Jawed Karim (one of YouTube’s founders) at the San Diego Zoo. It has over 1 billion views. Here is the link to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw


After beta testing “Me at the Zoo,” a Nike commercial was posted and became the first Youtube video to gain 1 million views. Here is the link to it: https://youtu.be/i_JS1YG8H2c

Link to photo used: https://havecamerawilltravel.com/photographer/youtube-image-size/

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