Technology

Happy Birthday YouTube!

By Senior Planet Monday, April 1, 2024 No Comments Share This:

Here’s an image that marks a milestone birthday this month – a 19-second video of a young guy saying nothing much about elephant trunks…that has almost 20 million views on YouTube.

(Video link for mobile)

Why? Because the young guy was YouTube’s co-founder Jawed Karim back in 2005, and the 18-second video he uploaded, “Me at the zoo,” was the first video ever uploaded to YouTube. The date: April 22, 2005, one month before the video-sharing platform officially launched.

YouTube Today – the Stats

YouTube has become one of the most trafficked sites on the Internet, with viewers seeking out music videos, how-tos, TV clips, news, movie trailers (an even whole movies), their friends’ family videos… it’s all there.

Some stats about Youtube as of 3/14/2023

There are 124 million active users every day
Some five billion videos are watched per day.
500 hours of video are uploaded every minute

Even home movies, some of which have become the most viral of all time.

YouTube Favorites

This hilarious video of a pair of twin babies “talking” in the kitchen has had 18 million views:

(Video link for mobile)

Another home video, “David after the dentist,” has had 128 million views, and a 17-second “surprised kitty” video has had 78 million.

YouTube is not all cat videos. It has become a powerful force for citizen journalism, such as this recording of the Ferguson Missouri riots.

And it all started with a young guy and his trip to the zoo.

Senior Planet’s YouTube Channel

Senior Planet’s own YouTube channel can be found here. It’s a terrific source of information about all things tech. (We recently reached a milestone of 10,000 subscribers — thanks for helping us get there!)