In 2005, when YouTube was created, its owners did not even expect that in the end they would become the owners of the largest network video service in the world. It all started as an innocent venture of three friends. None of them thought that they would change the entire world wide web.
Site appearance
Today, a separate term “video sharing” has already been formed, which means the rapid distribution of video on the Internet among users from anywhere in the world. "YouTube" is also called hosting, since it is on its servers that millions of user files are stored that are accessible through the site.
It all started in 2005. On the eve of three friends (Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Javid Karim) who worked at PayPal, decided to develop their own service. Around the appearance of "YouTube" there are several journalistic legends and fabrications. One of them says that the idea of creating a service for distributing video came to Steve Chen after two friends were at a PayPal party. The third comrade at the corporate party did not have time. Friends then tormented for a long time to transmit videos from the holiday. When YouTube was created, and it became a notable phenomenon in the Internet environment, the media replicated this story as an example of the “insight” typical of unique and profitable start-ups. The creators of the service themselves denied the myth of a party at PayPal, but in the mass consciousness it entrenched itself reliably.
Initial format
It is interesting that when YouTube was created, in its functionality it was somewhat different from the current format, which brought him fame. Then (in 2005), Chad Hurley focused on pre-existing sites that were designed to upload media files. First of all, the new project adopted the features of the successful HotOrNot service. On this site, users after registration could share with their own photos. The main tool on the site was the assessment technology. Users could vote for their favorite pictures, thus making them more popular in the overall ranking.
How did YouTube differ from HotOrNot? Video hosting in its concept was guided by video. Three friends, the creators of the service took the appearance of HotOrNot as the basis for the interface of their creation. Later, with the advent of popularity, they were accused of partial plagiarism. However, "YouTube" in its functionality was noticeably different from the prototype sites. In addition, on the Internet, any start-up could be a rethinking of existing resources. For example, in the same months, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg also created his social network as a photo hosting service and only then noticeably changed its format.
Ambitious start-up
Chad Hurley, who owned the concept of the new service, was a designer by profession. By the way, it was he who created the famous logo of the PayPal payment system. Hurley owned the idea, but he could not realize it technically. He turned for help to two of his friends who worked as development engineers. Chen and Karim appreciated the idea and set about preparing a new site.
By February 14, 2005, when the service was finally launched, three friends had already quit PayPal and were only engaged in their own start-up. In such a case there is always a share of risk. The idea might not work, and then the developers would lose their own money and time. But the trinity from PayPal did not fail.
Beta testing
At first, the project was conceived as a dating site with a unique section with video content. Therefore, the developers registered his domain on February 14 - Valentine's Day. The next month it took to finish the "polishing" of the site code.
The first video was posted on April 23, 2005. The creator of YouTube, Jevid Carim, recorded a video in which he stood on the background of cages with elephants from the San Diego Zoo. The video lasted 18 seconds and was no different. However, it was it that laid the foundation for public beta testing of the site. The developers wanted to test all the functions of their offspring. Since the project was a pilot, no one knew what interest would be in it and whether the site would cope with the influx of new visitors.
Change of concept
Later, the creator of "YouTube" Javid Karim admitted that he began to advertise his own site through mailing to friends. The founders of the project did not have a large budget. Information about their video hosting was spread via word of mouth and rumors. But very soon the site began to receive more and more new visitors.
Users, however, did not pay attention to the original concept of the site. When YouTube was created, the founders planned to make it a platform for dating on the Internet. But the new registered users uploaded completely heterogeneous content. These were not only personal videos with which you could get to know a person better, but also various videos or even music videos. It soon became clear that YouTube could become a platform for storing content of any kind. Then the founders of the service began to rewrite the source code of the site. Already in May 2005, video hosting experienced the first major update in its functionality and interface. Trinity finally abandoned the idea of a dating site.
Fighting competitors
What was the success of the new video service, which allowed it to become one of the fastest growing sites on the American Internet segment in the first months of its existence? The story of “YouTube” began with the idea of creating a project with which you could quickly share content with friends. All sites that existed in this niche in 2005 did not have such convenient functionality and interactivity.
For example, these were Google Video and VIMEO. To watch the video on these services, users had to go through the registration procedure. This alone made these projects more uncomfortable and slower than the new idea of three friends from PayPal. In addition, competitors had noticeable restrictions on the duration and amount of downloaded content. The story of YouTube showed that the owners of Google and VIMEO went the wrong way, while Hurley, Chen and Karim guessed the aspirations of most of the Internet audience.
Hosting Benefits
YouTube competitors made it possible to watch the video only after the user downloaded it to the hard drive. In addition, a special player was needed to play the file, as some programs did not read the proposed format or did not have the necessary codecs. So it turned out that the procedure for watching a video turned into a long puzzle, especially for those people who were on the World Wide Web for the first time.
"YouTube" (video hosting) offered its visitors quick solutions and a convenient interface. All that had to be done was to follow the link and press the "start" button, after which the video was already playing on the computer screen. From the very beginning, developers were concerned about the problem of service performance. Only the best and high-quality servers were selected for it, which provided instant loading of content. Of course, the site could slow down, but in this case, the cause of the problems was hidden in the poor Internet connection of a particular user.
Audience growth
The one who invented the YouTube wasted his time in vain. The founders of the project provided their brainchild with many new features. For example, the site offered a high-quality systematization of content. There were headings by which the video was shared. This helped tags - marks that users put their own videos.
Around YouTube, a community has begun to take shape. Very soon, they began to go to the service not only to look at friends' channels, but also to find a specific video on the Internet. For example, it could be a clip of a popular musical group or artist. In addition, the site system offered users links to related videos. So the guest of the service could be stuck on it for several hours.
Investments
The owners of the site have developed a system of advertising and marketing on the Internet, which every day brought them thousands of new visitors. Widgets with links to YouTube appeared on social networks and on thematic sites. So, users who never even heard of the service got there. In the first months of the project’s existence, the site’s interaction with MySpace turned out to be especially productive.
Wealthy investors soon drew attention to YouTube. The company received money from venture capital funds interested in the development of the project and their own profit thanks to the ambitious service. In the summer of 2006, video hosting was already the tenth most visited site in the United States. The owners of the site have signed contracts for the exclusive uploading of content with key labels and studios in the American media market.
International success
In November 2006, YouTube was bought by Google, best known for its universal Internet search engine. The deal amounted to $ 1.6 billion, which was unheard of for the start-ups of that time. One way or another, but Google did not lose.
In 2007, when YouTube appeared in Russia, it was already one of the most famous sites on the Internet, regardless of the country. Domestic localization was also successful. Soon the site was flooded with Russian-speaking users who created one of the largest communities within video hosting.
Today, music videos, comedy shows, news and trailers are the most popular on the site. A new genre has appeared on YouTube - the so-called video blogs. Users create their own channels and upload thematic videos designed for a wide audience. The most successful video blogs are monetized and profitable to their owners. YouTube has often been censored. Recently, hosting has been banned in China and several other countries. Despite this, today the site is the third largest in the world in terms of its audience and the number of clicks.