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The Domain Name "YouTube" is Activated
On this day Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, coworkers at Paypal, founded YouTube and purchased the domain name.
The founders were looking for a specific video online and when they couldn't find it they realized there was a gap in the market for a site where all video content can be found. -
The First YouTube Video is Uploaded
The first video uploaded to YouTube was uploaded by founder Jawed Karim and entitled "Me at the Zoo". The video is an 18 second clip of Karim at the San Diego Zoo. It was filmed by Yakov Lapitsky. -
Sequoia Capital Invests 11.5 Million Dollars
Initially, Sequoia invested 3.5 million dollars, and less than a year later they invest an additional 8 million dollars. Sequoia Capital is a venture capital that focuses on startups in the fields of energy, finance, enterprise, healthcare, and the internet. -
YouTube Reaches 25 Million Uploads
Just over a year after its founding, YouTube reached 25 million uploads with 20,000 videos uploaded daily. -
YouTube Announce's They've Been Purchased
Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion, making it Google's second-largest acquisition. Google’s parent company “Alphabet” has reaped immense success from this purchase with YouTube contributing to around 11% of their overall revenue. -
The YouTube Awards Are Announced
YouTube announces that it will be holding a yearly awards ceremony in which users vote on their favorite videos. These awards were only held for two years. Also known as the YouTube Video Awards, creators were recognized for the best user-generated videos of the year. The awards were awarded twice in 2007 and 2008. -
YouTube Gets a New CEO
Chad Hurley steps down as CEO and is replaced by Salar Kamangar. Hurley's reasoning for stepping down was so that he could work on other projects. He plans to stay on as an advisor. -
YouTube Hits Record Uploads
YouTube announced in 2012 that 60 hours of videos are uploaded every minute and the site had 800 million unique visitors per month. -
The First Video to Hit 1 Billion Views
Gangnam Style by Psy becomes the first video to surpass 1 billion views. This video surpassed the most watched video of all time Justin Bieber’s “Baby” 27 days before hitting 1 billion. -
YouTube Introduces a Paid Subscription Service
Initially, the service was called "Music Key" which allowed background play, downloadable music, and had no ads. "Music Key" was rebranded to "YouTube Red" a year later. In 2018 "YouTube Red" was rebranded to "YouTube Premium", and in 2020 it became "YouTube Music". Initially, the price was $10 per month for Music Key. -
YouTube Gaming is Launched
"YouTube Gaming" was launched in both mobile and web formats. It was later merged with the YouTube browser in 2018. YouTube Gaming was created to compete against Amazon’s gaming streaming platform “Twitch”. The YouTube Gaming “portal” included a list of 25,000 games each with their own individual channel with collections of related videos. -
YouTube Kids is Established
Following the implementation of the Child Online Privacy Protection Act creators have to mark whether or not their video is appropriate/safe for children. YouTube Kids of today allows parents to login and make a child-friendly profile where they can set viewing preferences as well as monitor what their child is watching. -
"Dislike" Feature is Removed
The thumbs down button or "dislike" button was removed to protect creators from harassment.