Evolution of YouTube

OVERVIEW

• Third most popular website in the world after Google at 1st and Facebook at 2nd.

• According to a US economist- “If a video is not on YouTube it probably doesn’t exist.”

• Funny videos, tutorials, repair your PC and Vehicles, you want to see anything just YouTube it.

Facts

• 300 Hours of videos are uploaded every single minute i.e. more than 30,000 Hours in two hours.

• It would take you more than 3.5 years to watch videos uploaded during this 2 hours only.

HISTORY

• Founded by three popular PayPal employees; Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim.

• PayPal is an international money transferring platform. You can transfer money from your home to any part of the world.

HOW IDEA OF YOUTUBE CAME?

• According to one story, two founders of YouTube Hurley and Chen were at a dinner party and they shot a video. They found difficulty sharing that video with others as in those days you can’t attach big files in email. That’s the reason how YouTube’s idea was planted.

• One more story is that Jawed Karim was looking for 2004 Tsunami video and a musical video of a pop star on internet but he couldn’t find any. This led them to think about creating a video sharing platform.

INITIAL PHASE• Just like setting up a new firm, initial days of YT were very difficult.• They launched a website but it got negligible or zero traffic. So they

transformed it into dating website. • They started advertising it on various platforms. They even paid

women $20 to upload their video on their website. But this thing was an utter failure. It didn’t work out.

• So they went back to their drawing board and redesigned their plan. Now, anyone can share video with just one single click.

• Fact:- First video ever uploaded on YT was titled “Me at the Zoo”. Check that out.

• Many People knows that it’s the first YT video but very few know that the person featured in that video is actually one of the founders of YT.

INITIAL PHASE

• Thus a new modified YT started on 14th February 2005.

• People started to broadcast themselves to the world. This was when Viral Videos emerged. Soon after, internet got flooded with numerous numbers of viral videos.

• Suddenly, YT was getting lots and lots of web traffic. More and more number of people started using it. The number soon went to millions.

HOW YOUTUBE WORKS??

• Paid Subscriptions and Videos:-– You will have to pay to watch a video or open a

channel. An example is that if you want to watch a film, you will be asked to pay Rs.75 over debit or credit card.

Youtube’s Partners Program

• You make a video, upload it. YouTube will start putting ads of different companies on your videos. An example is that when we open a video we get that skip ad pop up.

• The company pays YouTube to put their advertisement and YouTube pays 55% of the money to the creator or owner of the video. That is how whole YT system works.

• Suppose, your video gets viral and you are getting thousands of views. You may bag hundreds of $$ from that.

Evolution of New Features

• Earlier YT was just for watching videos. There were no features like comments.

• Then, they put a feature by which you can rate a video from 0-5. This feature was then removed and the feature of thumbs up or thumbs down was then added.

• Also, feature to comment on videos was added. People started expressing their opinions with comments.

Recent Features

• Offline videos:- You don’t need a continuous internet connection to watch video. Your video will be downloaded and you can see it offline.

• Virtual Reality Video:- It gives you 360 view of the video. You can basically watch every corner of the scene. You just need to rotate or tilt your phone.

• Released its new player look. New black player design.

Future of YouTube

• People are expecting that it will totally replace cable TV.

• It has also sign contracts for feature films which would only be released on its own platform.

• New TV’s comes with a feature to directly pair with YouTube over wifi. Though those are costly right now.

• According to some market researchers, 10 years from now it wouldn’t be a surprise if people instead of changing channels videos from TV over YouTube.

FAILURES/DECLINE STAGE• When YT became popular and more and more people started using it,

the first problem they faced was lack of servers.• People kept uploading their videos but there was no more space to

store them. All the servers were stacked. • The founder almost thought that there is no way out and YT will be

dead now. At one point, only 4 hours were left and they assumed that YT would stop working and blow out after that with so many videos being uploaded. They didn’t have any third party investment and had no idea what to do?

• That’s when Internet Giant Google bought YT for $1.65 Billion. It is considered as one of the best deal in the world.

• Now estimated value of YT is $75 Billion. Now, they had resources, servers and that’s how this site was saved by Google.

FAILURE/DECLINE STAGE

• The 2nd big challenge to YT came when people started uploading copyright content. People were just copying famous songs and clips of movies and some even earned money from it.

• Third thing is that, people started misguiding viewers by thumbnails. Like OBAMA’s thumbnails would be placed in a video but when you open it, the video is about something totally else. This was done solely for earning views and eventually get money.

• There was one more thing. People started to upload explicit content. And also, religiously offensive content. This started creating debate online b/w some supporters.

Limitations• YT doesn’t provide support to every single creator. If you are having some

complicated problem there is no way you can contact their support staff unless people have watched 15,000 hours of your videos in last 90 days.

• That’s means people who don’t upload videos and just watch have no hope if ever they experience some big problem or bug.

• Another concern is that teenagers and small children are becoming addicted to it. YT is still not very popular in our country. The only thing people here know about it is that you can get videos of anything. Most of people don’t even have internet at their home. But in foreign countries specially USA where almost every home is equipped with high speed internet, even 9-10 year olds are making their own channels and uploading videos everyday. The also want to become famous. Their minds have become fame driven. And some other people see it as a money making platform. You upload videos of anything and you earn money.

• Due to this, children are not concentrating on their studies and they are losing faith in conventional careers when they see successful YouTubers. It is really a big concern in our society.

Changes made to overcome Failure

• After all this things started happening, YT made big changes in to its system.

• Now, you can’t upload any offensive content or your account will be deleted.

• If you upload copyright content, their system has become so advanced that within seconds from upload it will pop up a message that your video is copyrighted. YT has terminated lots of accounts for this.

How it is helping its creators• YouTube provides free music of all kinds and Genre and also sound effects

for video creators. • It has opened its own studios in big cities where popular creators can make

their own videos in studio quality for free. All the cameras, lighting is provided by YT.

• It gives free online courses for creators to increase their productivity and to make them learn new video making techniques. You will also be rewarded a certificate for that.

• It provides great analytics data for its creators. Like how many views you got in last day, last week, last month or even last year. From which country you get it. How many % minutes of your videos watched. Whether the person watched your video is male or female. In which age group he falls.

• Even after all this, they never reveal users identity. That’s a great security feature.

Success Stories• A video called “Charlie Bit my finger” was uploaded in initial days of YT. A small boy

named Charlie is biting finger of his small brother. This is most popular home video till date. Their father uploaded it to share with one of his friend. But within just 11 months, it crossed 11.5 million views. This 56 second video has bagged millions of dollars to the uploader i.e. father with 825 million views. You should definitely check that video. Its funny. Title is “Charlie But my Finger”

• One person started uploading gaming videos in 2010. He just records himself playing games and gives commentary. He became so popular that in 2014, he made $7.3 million.

• A small boy started uploading videos reviewing toys. That channel became so popular that toys companies made contracts to show their ads and now that 9 year old boy who was 6-7 at that time is making $7 million per year.

• A girl started uploading how to do make up videos in 2007. All female viewers liked her videos so much that today that girl is actually a celebrity. Her name is Michelle Phan. Her net value is $80 million. If we compare, even Virat Kohli is having $30 of net value.

• Another small home video makers became so popular that they are releasing their feature film which contains their own YT success story in it. This is the power of YT/

Competitions

• Recently, even facebook has released its online video sharing feature just like YT. Considering the popularity of FB, it might give tough competition to YT in coming years.

• There’s a site called VIMEO. It is highly popluar sites and the biggest competitor of YT. The difference is that only professional content is uploaded on Vimeo often while YT is filled with random videos of all kinds.

• Then sites like NETFLIX and DAILYMOTION can be a concern.

CONCLUSION

• It would take me hours to show how big YT industry is. It is just like film industry. In the coming years it might even become on par with Film Industries. It is getting bigger and bigger everyday. Day by day new faces around the world is making big careers with YT. All I could say it that, the coming Generation would be totally ruled by YT and YouTube is clearly a sensation. That’s all for this discussion. Thank You.