Technology is an integral part of life and society today. It is astonishing how far the world has advanced with the vast inventions and things we can do with technology. With the prevalence of technology, there has been an advancement in the use of technology and ways we can find information. Technology has allowed us to have all information at the tips of our fingertips, enabling us to explore and research any topic we may find interesting. YouTube is a platform and application that has contributed to our constant access to information and videos for almost two decades.
When you hear YouTube, what do you think? Your favorite youtube stars, music videos, or daily vlogs. Whatever you may think about YouTube, there is no denying YouTube has been the leading platform for streaming videos for years. YouTube was started to allow people to share their home videos on one platform. YouTube was created by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, all former employees of the e-commerce company PayPal. The company started its headquarters in San Mateo, California, in February 2005. In May 2005, YouTube released its limited beta basis, which attracted 30,000 visitors per day. When YouTube officially launched on December 15, 2005, it served more than 2 million video views each day, and in January 2006, the number of videos watched increased by more than 25 million. By the end of summer in 2006, YouTube served more than 100 million videos per day, and the new sites showed no sign of slowing down.
Growth & Problems
While YouTube continued and exhibited copious growth, the platform faced many legal issues regarding copyrighted material. The high increase in traffic limited the number of videos the creators could keep up with, contributing to the high volume of copyright on the platform. This forced the company to allocate more financial resources for potential litigation as many media companies discovered the high violations of copyright on its site. After facing this problem, YouTube began looking for a buyer.
Google Inc. launched a video service in 2005 named Google Video; however, it failed to generate traffic, and Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion in stock in November 2006. Instead of merging the sites, Google decided to carry out YouTube's operation the same as before. The acquisition of YouTube by Google allowed Google to negotiate deals with entertainment companies that would allow approved copyrighted material to appear on YouTube and in users' videos. One of the most prominent deals by Google was with Metro Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. in November 2008. This allowed YouTube to show some of the studio's full-length movies and television shows. The acquisition of YouTube by Google was important because Google was more capable of handling the legal issues associated with copyright problems on YouTube.
YouTube Today
YouTube has more than 2.6 billion active users today. YouTube users view about 1 billion hours worth of videos each day. This demonstrates the power and an immense number of videos available and endless topics and subjects users can watch videos about. YouTube is a learning platform that enables people to pick up skills on any topic they may find interesting while also being a source of entertainment. YouTube has allowed many people to make careers on the platform in endless niches, whether health and fitness, school and education, sports, and many more. People can find what they are good at, record themselves, and capitalize on their abilities. People who dedicate themselves and decide a career on YouTube is good for them are creative and have talents that other people want to see. However, with the constant exposure to the public, some cons come with the video platform. One complication is how easy defamation and hate speech are on the website. The company tries to filter comments, but every comment is only sometimes seen because of its high volume. In addition, suggestive and mature content is periodically posted. However, YouTube tries to take down or reject content that goes against their guidelines, but there is no guarantee every video will be caught again due to the high volume of daily content. These issues can make parents worry about what their children watch on YouTube. Still, YouTube has placed preventive measures to keep inappropriate content away from kids by implementing YouTube Kids.
Moving Foreward
YouTube has proved to be an all-encompassing platform allowing people to share their talents with videos contributing to the interests of all people. While the platform has difficulties filtering all content, it is implementing new ways to make the site user-friendly and constantly finding ways to improve. YouTube has proved it is a platform that is here to stay as it is currently the largest video-sharing platform and the second largest social media today.
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