November 14, 2011 • 42 mins
Who created YouTube? When was it founded? How much video is uploaded to YouTube every minute? Join Jonathan and Chris as they dive into the depths of YouTube in this episode of TechStuff.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,
welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
(00:21):
I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Sitting across from me, smirking at my unusual delivery as usual,
is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. I've got an idea for
a movie, and it goes like this. It's about a
boy who gets his finger caught in a bottle of
Mr pib. You know, he mystifies me. If somebody can
(00:41):
clue me in as to the genesis of that quote,
please let us know. It's a fantastic song. Alright, So
today we're going to talk about something that we can't
believe we haven't talked about before. Yeah. In fact, we
did a search just before we got it started on
this podcast just to make sure we haven't talked about
it before. And according to our search, we have never
(01:01):
talked about YouTube, at least not specifically about YouTube. I'm
sure we've mentioned YouTube because you know, there's a site
called YouTube. So YouTube turns out it's a big thing um, yeah,
it's it's interesting to think it's just six years old. Yeah,
you know, it's a little six and a half. So
(01:24):
it's but it's it's hard to it's hard to think
about the Internet before YouTube because YouTube is just everywhere,
like either you're on the site or you're going to
some blog or some news site that has incorporated a
YouTube video into an article. I mean it's everywhere. Yeah.
Not only that, but you know, of course, uh, the
(01:45):
UM Apple mobile operating system iOS, famous for not using flash,
had to incorporate a U YouTube specific app because YouTube
used flash on its uh delivery pages radio pages, so
you couldn't go to you tube via the web browser
and watch it because it flash wasn't supported on the iOS, right, right,
(02:05):
So they made an app specifically for that. Course. Android
also has a YouTube app UM. And and also we
should go ahead and point out before anyone writes in
that YouTube is very busy converting over flash videos to
HTML five. Yes, yes, so you can watch on non
flash enabled browsers of any type. UM. Also video cameras
(02:28):
now you know they're their internet some of them are
Internet enabled and you can go ahead and upload, shoot
and upload right away. So I mean, just the fact
that the feature is built in specifically so that you
can upload your videos online shows what kind of a
difference YouTube is made in our If I use my
smartphone and I take a video, one of my options
(02:48):
is I can share it directly to my YouTube channel
immediately after I'm done shooting it, assuming that I've got
a connection strong enough to send that data up to YouTube,
which is pretty awesome. Yeah, it means that the user
generated content era is really in full swing right now
because you've got people who are reporting news events, they're
(03:09):
capturing historic moments on their phones, and it's immediately sharing
with billions of people around the world. Um, that's pretty phenomenal.
That's a that's a great story to tell, right because
you're like, hey, you know that we often wonder what
is the the personal experience of this particular historic event,
And we know this historic event happened, but what was
(03:31):
it like if you were there? And now, more often
than not, we know because someone somewhere had a device
that was capturing video and then they uploaded it to YouTube. So,
believe it or not, this all began on Valentine's Day,
February two thousand five. Uh, the It was the the
(03:53):
idea of three coworkers, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Joe
Ed Karim, who worked for a company called pay Pal. Yeah,
also still around and doing well. So they were heard
of that they were working for PayPal, and they saw
an opportunity. They thought, what if we created a website
(04:15):
that would allow people to upload and share videos. It's
sort of the same way that people were uploading and
sharing photos. But you know, there were there were a
few sites online where you could find video online. It's
not like video had never been done online before, but
there wasn't a place to go to create an account
and become a part of a user generated video site.
(04:37):
And uh so they registered the domain name YouTube dot
com in February two thousan five, and the first video
on YouTube dot com didn't go up until April, almost
the end of April two thousan five. And again this
was a chowd kareem at the San Diego Zoo with
some elephants called me at the zoo. Yes, okay anyway,
(05:03):
um so yeah, he he. Uh. This was not a
huge internet sensation because at that time, no one could
access YouTube. It wasn't until May that they launched a
beta of the of YouTube dot com and at that. Yeah,
so they launched a beta in in two thousand five
of May, and they attract around thirty thousand viewers each day,
(05:27):
which for a site that's just launching, is that's pretty significant.
You know, that's you know, that's that's a good amount
of traffic to see people who people who launch a
brand new site that had no presence on the web beforehand.
That's exciting and uh and it it was doing pretty well.
But then they decided to try and um increase their
(05:49):
membership by running a promotion. Did you hear about this
promotion that they did? So they're in beta and they
run a promotion that says they will give away one
iPod nano per day through the end of the year,
which was a membership drive attempt essentially, and it worked.
(06:12):
People started signing up like gangbusters, hoping to win one
of those iPod nanos. Well, then you've got these three
guys who say, look, we've got this videos sharing site.
We've got a huge amount of interest. Look at how
many people are signing up per day. Look at how
many thousands of people are watching videos per day. So
they start shopping that around to venture capitalists, and uh
(06:36):
that got venture capitalists interested in investing, and by November
of two thousand five, uh Sequoia invested three point five
million dollars in funding to YouTube. So this this site
is half a year old, right, it has no way
of generating revenue at this point. There's no way for
(06:57):
YouTube to make money. There's they don't they don't have
anything in place. They don't charge anyone for uploading stuff,
and only that video has a pretty high bandwidth requirement. Yeah,
and it's anyone who has their own website on their
own web host knows a lot of companies charge for
the amount of bandwidth that you use. Now, UH mine
(07:21):
says it doesn't. However, if I had a website the
size of Amazon on there, I don't know if they
would change their Like, okay, we don't except for you.
You know. Now now we're talking big bandwid Yeah, because
you're talking about lots of resources dedicated on the network
to keep your site going. Not just your site, like,
not just the servers that you're running and wherever you
(07:44):
happen to be, but the actual backbone of the Internet,
you know, having to carry that traffic and of course,
there's arguments about whether or not that would slow down
other traffic, and then there's arguments about whether or not
that's the responsibility of the Internet service provider versus the
site owner. We're not going to get into all that. Plus,
you make a good point, it's not really when you
(08:04):
think about it, it's not just bandwidth, it's also server
space because video can be very resource intensive, both bandwidth
and server space, and so, uh, this is going to
require some money to to keep it going and growing
at that rate. Yeah, because YouTube does not take a
peer to peer approach. It's not it's not like your
video is hosted on your computer and people are watching
(08:27):
it through you know, YouTube's acting as some sort of
traffic controller and allowing people to watch it. You know,
you are uploading those videos to YouTube, and so YouTube
has to store those videos somewhere, which means that they
have a server farm actually probably lots of them by now,
because by now especially yeah, by now, well we'll get
back to talking about two thousand and five. So three
(08:49):
point five million dollars in funding that lets YouTube continue
to uh, to stay afloat and work and grow and
kind of figure out what they're gonna do so. By
that time, they were up to about two million videos
viewed per day and two thousand registered users. So you
get down to December of two thousand five, December five
(09:13):
and YouTube opens officially to the public. They are out
of beta. So they got three point five millions dollars
before even getting out of beta. Man, when I hear
stories like this, I just think I'm so stupid. I
wish I were smart like these guys. These guys, they
just nailed it right. So December fifteen, two thousand five,
(09:36):
opens officially. There are twenty people working for YouTube, a
staff of twenty people, around twenty people working for that company.
And do you know what happened on December five? What happened?
Two days out of beta? What's that lazy Sunday? Happened?
The Saturday night live clip I posted to YouTube and
(10:00):
started getting two million views per week. Um. That's also
what helped launch Andy Sandberg's you know, startdom to startom Um,
not that he hadn't started it on his own, you
know that right, Lonely Island. But um, actually, according to
my notes, UM NBC two months later said you can't
(10:23):
show this anymore and YouTube pulled it down. Of course,
that just illustrates that copyright has been an issue for
YouTube from the beginning. Yeah, and we'll get more into
that in a little bit. Yeah, the I actually read something.
I didn't write it down to my notes, so I
don't have the specific date, but I did read something
about how Jon Stewart appeared on a news talk show
(10:44):
wasn't the Daily Show, it was some other show that
he was on in his capacity as host of the
Daily Show, and that more people viewed it on YouTube
than they saw it on television. And so that was
another one of those wake up calls of hey, this
is this is a big deal. Uh So, getting into
January of two thousand six, by that time, users are
watching around twenty five million videos per day. So that's
(11:06):
a astronomical number. I mean, you think about less than
a year old. It went from thirty thousand views a
day when it first launched two over twenty five million
videos per day. Um and by March of that year,
users were uploading twenty thousand videos per day. So you've
got twenty thousand videos being uploaded each day, You've got
(11:28):
twenty million videos being watched each day. It's you know,
it's clearly a phenomenon. And then in April of two
thousand six, YouTube gets another eight million dollars in funding
from from venture capitalists. Because at that point there beenwidth
costs were around one million dollars per month. It's pretty significant. Yeah,
(11:49):
still didn't have any way of generating revenue. By the way,
So you've got this company that again sounds familiar, doesn't
have any way of making money, is very expensive to operate,
and is incredibly popular, and so you have this question of, well,
it's amazingly popular and if it went away, people would
be really upset. And Uh, there's gonna be opportunity here,
we just haven't been able to create it yet. Uh.
(12:12):
Do you back that horse or do you say, you
know what, Uh, it's an interesting idea, but I just
don't think my money is gonna be safe there. Well,
if you were one of those capitalists back in two
thousand and six, I hope you backed your horse. Well,
you know, if if if I were, uh, let's say,
working for a very large company at this point, I
(12:32):
would be thinking, wow, look at this. You know, they
don't have a plan. Uh, but it's obvious there's opportunity here.
And uh, if we if we say, purchase them outright?
We could, uh, we could. We could make a lot
of this, or it could it could you know, be
too much for us to handle if we can't find
(12:53):
a way to monetize it. If we just had some
creative people who were really good at finding ways to
make money from something like that, we could buy these
guys outright. That would be amazing, wouldn't it. I mean,
you'd have to be somebody big. You're you're foreshadowing. I
haven't gotten there yet. I'm just saying, okay, okay, Well
we'll keep that in mind. Well, do you know what
(13:15):
happened In April six, two thou six, one of the
greatest YouTube videos of all time was uploaded to YouTube. Yes,
one of the ones that, for for many many ages
held the title of the most watched YouTube video of
all time. It is no longer that that video. By
the way, I will tell you what is the most
watched video of all time on YouTube? Towards the end
(13:37):
of the podcast, okay, is this uh the Evolution of dance?
The Evolution of dance, Yes, which at the time of
the recording of this podcast has about two point five
million views. That's a lot of views. That's a lot
of Ye, that's still one of the most watched video,
especially when you talk about user generated because the one
(13:59):
that has taken the top spot now is not a
user generated video. So we'll we'll go back into that
nixt and talk about that in a little bit. Because
YouTube has gotten so big now that major players and
other forms of media have partnered with YouTube because your
YouTube's where the audience is, right, I mean, you have
these major players that could be putting their stuff on
(14:20):
their own sites, and most of them do, but if
the audience is already at YouTube, it makes sense to
partner with him and and not fight with them. And
we'll get more into that in a little bit. So,
uh yeah, that that launched on April six. That was
that was first uploaded then. And if you don't know
what the Evolution of Dance video is on YouTube, you
should go check it out. It is pretty entertaining. It's
a guy who named Judson who does a series of
(14:43):
dances from various eras and it's not truly an evolution
because he jumps around in the timeline quite a little bit,
but it is an entertaining, uh show of some of
the more ridiculous dance moves that that human beings have
created over time. And he's quite quite funny in the
way he strings them together. He doesn't a very very
(15:03):
fluid and funny way. Um. And if you haven't seen it,
then that's pretty remarkable since a two million point five
you know, people, well maybe not people views because some
of those are probably repeat viewings. Um. And then you
get to right around that time, YouTube accounted for forty
(15:25):
three of all the videos viewed on the internet back
in uh in two thousand and six, So if you
were watching a video on the Internet, there was nearly
a fifty fifty chance that was on YouTube. Yeah, and
so it's YouTube and everybody else and of them is YouTube.
(15:45):
That is that's huge. I mean, that's huge for anything
anything on the internet. If you're like, you know, I
sell shoes on the internet, and forty percent of the
people who buy shoes on the internet do it through
my store, that means, you know, all of your competitors
added together, are just barely more of the market than
you are. That is a huge story. Uh. And then
(16:07):
we get into July of two thousand and six. At
that point they hit a hundred million videos viewed per
day and the staff. This this was reflected in YouTube's
hiring craze. They went from a staff of twenty to
just over thirty. Clearly they were drunk with power. Um.
(16:29):
Now this is a good example because the YouTube, I mean,
we should also point out YouTube launched after the bubble
burst in the dot com bubble, so presumably they were
able to learn from some of the mistakes made by
companies in the dot com bubble where they there were
other companies before the bubble burst that started to get big,
(16:51):
got a huge uh investment going where lots of people
were pouring money into these companies. They expanded out of control,
far beyond their capability of managing that, and then they collapsed.
YouTube took a different view there. They expanded, but it
wasn't like they went from a staff of twenty to
a staff of two hundred to a staff of two thousand.
(17:12):
You know, they were doing it in a much more
controlled way, which is you know, I don't know any
of the founders of YouTube, they won't return my calls,
but I assume that they were. They were doing this
in a very deliberate way. You know, they weren't hiring
people just because they could hire people. They were hiring
the people they needed, which is, you know, a great advice.
(17:34):
So now we're getting into October two thousand and six,
and this is where the foreshadowing that Chris was was
engaged in earlier pays off. So it was October nine,
two thousand six, when a certain announcement hit the the interwebs,
which I know some of you hate, so I'm gonna
say it again, the interwebs, the series of tubes, the
(17:55):
series of tubes. Yes, this was when a certain large
company said that it was interested in purchasing YouTube for
a tidy little sum, only one point six five billion
with a B with a B dollars. That is a
big with the B number. When you factor in all
the investment money we've talked about up to this point,
(18:16):
it ranged it's right around twelve million with an M.
So for a company to come out and say I
want to buy you for one point six five billion
with a B, you listen. And of course that that
company's name was Google, yep, Google, and uh Google was saying, hey,
you know, we see potential in this in this as
(18:39):
we think that this is a valuable company. We wanted
to be part of ours and at that time, that
was the most Google had ever paid for an acquisition.
Since then, Google has thrown money around like it was nothing,
but at back in two thousand six one point six
five billion dollars, that was the biggest acquisition they had
made up to that point. Yes, yes, so they got
(19:02):
a lot for their money though, oh they sure did.
They got a lot of bandwidth charges from um. Yeah.
And and so you want to continue with your timeline,
because that's that's where my timeline where I ended. And
I started focusing on more kind of stats about YouTube.
But you've got more about their history. If you have
any other highlights you would like to hit, yeah, um, yeah,
(19:23):
I actually pulled part of my time from the Brief
but Impactful History of YouTube by H. David Lydsky And
this was actually done in February two ten. There have
been some other stuff, other significant events. That's probably the biggest. Uh,
that's probably where the the YouTube the pure YouTube timeline
ends to some degree. Um. But there are some some
(19:47):
important events since the Google acquisition. One of the first
was the presidential debate. July seven was the first YouTube
CNN debate UM and people were allowed to submit their
own questions on video, so that aired. Although that aired
on on national TV. It also it was sort of
(20:09):
a marriage between uh TV and YouTube, which was, you know,
a very different sort of opportunity for debate because usually
the questions for presidential abate are decided upon by you know,
the news agencies, UH and people who are preparing these
and they're unveiled right then and there. Um let's see.
(20:30):
UH and and seven of the sixteen presidential candidates in
the two thousand eight presidential election UH in the United
States were announced on YouTube. UM. So that just shows
that the politics in the United States are being influenced
by uh, the audiences who are tuning in to the internet. UM.
(20:51):
Susan Boyle in two thousand nine became a celebrity on YouTube. Uh.
You know, we've talked about people that. That's probably why
you were thinking that we had a YouTube episode, because
we were talking about people who got picked up after
being that's true. We talked about people who became like
celebrities like Mr Bieber. Yeah, well what and that's foreshadowing. UM.
(21:16):
Let's see. In October two thousand nine, YouTube passed a
billion videos per day. You know, you've but you've skipped
over a very important day in YouTube history, which one
was that January nine? Which one? What what? What? What happened?
Then there was a video that I think is incredibly
important that was uploaded on January nine. Does it involve
(21:38):
a very furry personality. No, no, no, no, Keyboard Cat
was before that. I was gonna say no to January
three two nine was annoying Orange? Is this real life?
I have two fingers, I have four fingers. David after Dinnie, Yeah,
which again, you know, you were just talking about Susan
(22:00):
while becoming a big celebrity. Well, some other folks became
sort of celebrities too through YouTube videos that just went viral.
And David after the Dentist After the Dentist is a
viral video that hit over a hundred million views, almost
a hundred and one million views of the recording of
this podcast. And that's, you know, again, an example of
(22:24):
how powerful YouTube had become at that point, because, uh,
through their partner program, which we'll talk about in a second,
you could actually start making money off of a video
that you were just going to share. I mean, there
was never any necessarily intent on the part of David's
father to make money off this video. He just thought,
my son is hilarious and I want to share this
(22:46):
with people, and it just took off from there and
afterwards he actually started making some serious cash off that.
In fact, there are people who have been able to
quit their day job because their YouTube channel took off.
That's appressive. Um. And speaking of that too, I mean, uh, basically,
according to Mr Litzky's article, uh, you know, in October,
(23:09):
they did pass a billion videos per day. Um. But
the thing is, even though they had revenue of about
two million dollars that year, they spent seven million storing
and serving the video. Um. And uh you know, of course,
uh uh there are other bits and pieces UM yeah,
(23:33):
I mean, like I see what you did there. Um.
You know the partnerships you mentioned with some of the
content agencies because they're up until this point we've kind
of avoided talking about, um, you know, people who had
butted heads with YouTube over licensing and copyright issues. We
should probably touch on that. In fact, in fact that
the most famous one was Viacom Yes Viacom. Viacom sued
(23:57):
YouTube Yes for a copyright and inagment because what was
happening was that you had users that were uploading videos
that contained copyrighted material. Music videos. Music videos were a
big one, or using songs um that Sony also was
looking into, you lawsuits against Google, but using music that
was licensed, music that hadn't been licensed for that video,
(24:19):
that was a big no no. And you see that
all the time on YouTube because open up like any
YouTube video that's a montage of stuff and there's usually
some unlicensed music playing in the background, and if someone
makes a complaint, YouTube will actually take either take the
video down or sometimes they'll just strip the soundtrack out
of a video. So you'll have a video that originally
had music set to it and now it's silent, and
(24:40):
you might wonder, well, why is this video have no
noise or sound or anything, And that's probably the case.
It's that they had originally put some sort of unlicensed
music in the background and YouTube had to respond to
a complaint. But you uh, you also had folks just
uploading uh television episodes, usually in segments, because only YouTube
limited you to ten minutes of video perer video when
(25:04):
you upload if you weren't a partner, now it's fifteen minutes.
And uh, if you're a partner you don't have those limitations.
But uh, you know people would upload movies and batches
like could be Um, I don't know, We'll say, uh
Kremlin's Part one of twelve, Part two of twelve, and
part three of twelve, and people would watch these these movies. Uh,
(25:27):
and you know YouTube was the one that was being
held responsible for it, and Viacom was really seeking huge
amounts of damages for this, and um, eventually this was settled. Uh.
The uh what happened was that the judge in the
case came to the conclusion that, uh, they were YouTube
(25:49):
was protected under the under one of the copyright Acts
and that they had they had safe harbor, so that
they weren't the ones held responsible for what users were doing.
That was YouTube's uh stance was that you know, we
provide a place where people to upload video. We're not
We're not the ones putting the videos up. We're providing
(26:11):
the landscape those videos. So yeah, it was June, New
York District Court granted a request for a summary judgment
and held that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor
of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and uh that's what
allows YouTube to continue to work and YouTube does have
a policy that if someone is posting video that violates
(26:34):
intellectual property, the owner of the intellectual property can request
for that video to be taken down or they can
leave it up because some some companies have said, you know,
this video has gotten really really popular and it's promoting
our product, so maybe what we should do is just
shut up and let it happen. Um, which is you
know that that's a valid uh strategy in some cases.
(26:56):
And also YouTube even allows if you're a content owner
and you discover someone's got your content on YouTube, you
can actually work with YouTube so that if they put
ads on that content, you're the one who gets the
money from the ads. So you know, then you're like, oh, sure,
let them keep my copyrighted material up there. Just give
me the money from the advertisement because that way that
(27:18):
means I don't have to upload it. And and if
multiple people are doing it, then I collected from multiple
streams and I'm rolling in cash while people are keeping
their videos up. So uh, they they've done a lot
to work with content creators to make sure that they're
satisfied that YouTube is not promoting copyright infringement. They even
(27:40):
have a technology called content i d that scans videos
looking for copyright violations. That's helpful because with the amount
of material that's uploaded every day, forty eight hours per minute.
Every minute that passes, forty eight hours of material are
uploaded to YouTube. Yeah, so two days worth of videos
(28:04):
are uploaded each minute. So yeah, you know, you figure
like there's there's way more content on YouTube than anyone
could ever see in their lifetime. Um and if you've
got that much content going up, and you even if
you had a staff of thousands, you could not pour
through all the hours of content searching for copyright infringement
(28:27):
instances and respond to them. It's just impossible. And and
if you were to put some sort of limitation on that,
it would hurt the users. And that was YouTube's argument,
and the district court agreed, and UH YouTube is now
moved into the realm of creating its own content in
a way too, because earlier in two thousand eleven, which
(28:48):
is the year in which we're recording, is UH YouTube
reached an agreement to UH to buy next new networks,
so you know, and they they're they have UH their
own online videos. So now YouTube is not only partnering
with different providers, but there are uh in some respect
doing their own things. So, um, YouTube is really matured
(29:12):
greatly in a very short period of time. Yeah, and
we had someone to ask us how people on YouTube
make money. That would be the partner program. And the
partner program allows people not just people, but companies as well.
I mean, you've got established companies like music companies and
and television and movie studios that can partner with YouTube.
But uh, we usually think of the individual partners. Um,
(29:35):
these are the YouTube video creators who create a video
and it goes viral, like David after the dentist YouTube. Yeah,
YouTube will approach the person who uploaded that video and say, hey,
you know, your video is getting really good traffic and
it would benefit both us and you if we could
(29:55):
put advertisements against that video. And if we do this,
you will get most of the money from the advertisement.
You know, most of that that cash is going to
go to you will will just take a percentage of it.
And because YouTube has lots of partners, millions of partners,
those little percentages that YouTube takes adds up and volume,
(30:16):
and then the person who created the video gets most
of the actual ad money for their particular video. So
that's how you can actually make money off YouTube. If
you create a video that goes viral and has millions
of views, you can make enough money where like I said,
that could be your living. There are people who who
pull six figures from their YouTube videos from advertisement. That's
(30:38):
that's a lot of cash, you know. And if you're
able to consistently create videos that get that kind of traffic,
which is really difficult. A lot of these videos are memes,
which means it's a flash in the pan. You see
it and you think it's amazing, and it's awesome, and
it becomes like the talk of the Internet for an
extended time. But then you do your next thing and
(30:58):
no one pays attention because it's not the first thing.
You know, We've seen that happen a lot. Not everyone
can be Ninja Cat, right right? Uh? Not everyone? Like
I think of the the well evolution of the dance,
like that first video was crazy popular, hun an a
two million views. He did a second video evolution of
(31:20):
the dance, to which still is popular, I mean way
more popular than most videos, significantly more like seventeen million
views or something, but still that's one tenth of the views.
That is older video cut. So, uh, that's probably a
bad example because with seventeen million views, I'm sure he's
still very comfortable with the amount of money that video
(31:42):
pulls in. But uh, you know that that's just an
example of how you might create something that goes really
does really well, and then the next thing you create
doesn't really hit anybody. That being said, there are people
out there who are creating content, putting it up on
YouTube and just making a living off of it. They've got,
you know, people who have subscribed to that channel and
(32:03):
they're just, uh, they're just killing it. Well, I know
what that Some people uh may say, well that sounds great,
and then six months from now they're going to write
in and say, hey, Jonathan, you said that I could
make six figures on YouTube. But the thing is your
mileage may vary. In Google will tell you that. If
you look at the f a Q for the Partner program,
it says there's a question that says how much money
(32:24):
can I expect to make? And they the answer essentially says, well,
you can't expect to make anything necessarily. It varies with
the content of you know, the public is fickle, so
you never know what's gonna be the next flavor of
the week. Hopefully it'll be you, in which case cut
us in um. But but yeah, I mean, there's there's
(32:44):
no guarantee that you can generate the kind of traffic
that's gone going to allow you to quit your job
or avoid getting one in the first place. Now, if
you if you create a video, they get some good traction.
YouTube might end up promoting that on their main page,
which will help. Yeah, that'll help a lot. That'll they'll
drive even more traffic. But so there is YouTube can
(33:04):
do some things that will help the bottom line for you,
but you have no control over those things. You know.
You The best advice I can give anyone who's looking
at putting up videos on YouTube is one, don't expect
to make money. Don't do it for the money, because
if you're doing it for the money and it doesn't
work out, then you're gonna be really disillusioned and disappointed.
And to put out the best stuff you possibly can
(33:28):
make original stuff, all original stuff, or they won't take
it right doing original piece. Make it the best you
can make it, and best means different things, like it
doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the most polished video,
and it may mean that it's you know, something that's
just it strikes that funny bone, you know, it's the
thing that like, it's that perfect timing where anyone who
(33:49):
watches it immediately just has that big reaction. Uh so yeah,
you just gotta put out the best stuff you can
and then if it resonates with people, then you know,
things could move on their own. But uh, that's you know,
you can't you can't expect that or aim for that.
You just have to aim for doing the best you
can and hope that that that catches on. I know
(34:10):
I know people who are trying to do that right now.
Um so yeah, that's good advice for anyone. And uh
of course, you know, you also have to get to
the point where you're not gonna mind if people put
ads up on your content, because that's how you would
actually make the money. Um, I can't believe they put
an ado. I think we're video. Ever, Also, YouTube now
(34:35):
supports HD content. They didn't originally, but they do now
and apparently, um they now have more HD content on
YouTube than you will find on any other online site.
So not particularly surprising, not not entirely surprising. And ten
of all the videos on YouTube are actually available in HD,
(34:55):
which is again pretty impressive because that that doesn't just
mean that you know, you tube it is able to
support that, it mean also speaks a lot about how
HD cameras have filtered into the consumer market and how
they're taking a larger and larger share, I mean ten pc.
That's pretty impressive. Um. I know their content i D
software I talked about, do you know how many how
(35:17):
much video it scans each day? One years worth every day? Yeah,
a century worth of video. Like if you were to
actually watch those videos back to back, it would take
you a century to watch them. That's how much the
content i D scans each day. That's that's pretty crazy. Um. Yeah.
(35:39):
And then they've got more than seventeen million users now
and lots of millions of different channels. You know, you
can create a channel and um have a whole playlist
of videos that are related to one another. There are
there are a lot of examples now of web video
series that used YouTube to really get a foothold and
become successful. The Guild as an example, Felicia Days the Guild,
(36:02):
which is that's the example, right, yeh. But but Chad
vaderah The Chad Vader web video series was also they
used YouTube and that got a leg up there. Um,
there are other other sites that use YouTube in order
to encode the videos and then they'll they'll they'll link
the video onto their site so you can watch the
video on their site, but it's still living back at
(36:23):
YouTube's servers. So Red Versus Blue is another example of that.
I've talked about that show multiple times, but they use that.
If you pay attention, you see Oh wait, there's a
little YouTube logo down there. Um, yeah, it's it's pretty
exciting stuff. Oh and I remember I was going to
say I was gonna tell people what the most watched
video of all time according to the time of this podcast.
(36:45):
Do you know what it is already? Well? I already
foreshadowed it, Yeah you did, so you know you know
the name anyway? Yeah, it's justin Bieber. Do you know
which song it is, isn't it baby Baby? Yeah? Um?
You want to you want to take a stab at
how many how many views? I'll tell I'll tell you
this not it's it's fewer than a billion. Last time
(37:06):
I saw it was more than five million. Yeah, they
more people have watched that video since you saw it,
because I didn't. I got it from an article, not
from actually going to YouTube. Six and forty two point
seven million views. That's impressive. That's a lot of babies, Yes,
it is. That's like a that's like a couple of
countries worth of babies right there. And and and you know,
(37:29):
I know a lot of people are not justin Bieber fans,
but you have to admit it's it's kind of amazing
that we're living in an age where somebody's video that
they post to YouTube is enough to propel you to
be in an international star. Yeah, you know, I mean
it makes sense that we're also recording this on Friday Friday.
(37:51):
I mean there's another example, right, another video that went viral,
and I mean for good or for ill? And you know,
she definitely she She made quite a bit of money
off that and then ended up donating it. I think
it's pretty phenomenal. So yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, it's
it is interesting and it's nice that YouTube exists, and
it gives people who are really creative and who have
(38:13):
access to some very basic video capture and editing software, uh,
the ability to share their vision with everybody else. Now
in some cases you're gonna get like, you know, the
standard Uh I was shooting video and this funny accident happened.
I mean, those videos are always gonna be popular on YouTube.
But you've got a lot of actual, like written content
(38:33):
on YouTube too, sketches and maybe some improv stuff as well,
and musicians who are just recording themselves playing various things.
People who otherwise would never have had a platform. They
just would not have ever had that chance. They wouldn't
be one of those lucky few who were seen by
the right person to move up to the next level. Well,
YouTube really gives them that that chance. And again it's
(38:56):
not a sure thing. I mean, you might be the
most talented person in the world, end up load the
video that is gorgeous and people just don't watch it.
Sometimes that happens. But it's a much better chance than
being someone who's working year after year after year and
dive bars trying to be discovered as the next you know,
R and B singer or something. You know, Chris can
tell you he's he's he's I'm not the next R
(39:19):
and B singer. No, but you're you're you know, you
beat the Skins. Yeah, you know, you've you've you've you've
had a taste of the rock and roll lifestyle. You
know how elusive it is. How do you afford that
rock and roll lifestyle? I don't know. I always smash
a guitar at the end of every show. That's that's
not how you do right now anyway. Yeah, So that
(39:41):
I guess that will wrap up our discussion on YouTube.
Did you have anything else you wanted to add before
we kind of signed off? No, But in in terms
of of Internet success stories, uh, obviously YouTube is one
of the biggest, and in just a few short years,
you know, six and a half years as at the
time we're recording this amazingly short period of time. So
(40:03):
it's just I think it just serves as an indicator
of how much the Internet has changed people's lives. It's
it's also interesting. It shows that if you just recognize
that there is a need for something out there and
you build, you build a robust enough platform for it,
you can become a success. I mean, the same sort
of thing is true of other big success stories on
(40:24):
the Internet like Facebook or Twitter, you know, or even Google.
Things that companies that build a service that they just
see that there is the opportunity to either introduce something
totally new or to improve upon something that previously existed
but just was not ideal and and have success from it. So,
uh yeah, it's a it's a great story. Um. I'm
(40:48):
curious to see, you know, I'm hoping that it continues
to uh to to grow, and I'm really curious to
see what kind of content comes out of it, because
you know, we're seeing a lot of really creative stuff
and I would love to to, like, maybe five years
from now, think about wouldn't it be cool if everybody
was staying around the water cooler talking about the latest
(41:09):
episode of a web series that had been using YouTube
as a as a platform, rather than talking about the
latest television episode or in addition to television episodes. I mean,
I could easily see that happening, although, of course, with
the amount of content that's available on YouTube and the
variety of content that's available on YouTube, you may not
(41:31):
have quite as many people watching the same stuff. Like
I was watching channel number five thousand, six hundred and
eighty three last night or are you watching? Oh, I
was like three orders of magnitude over yep. So um,
I guess we'll we'll we'll wrap this up with um
when you know the only quote I can think of,
(41:52):
which is a Charlie bit my finger. If any of
you out there want us to talk about anything specif
big specific companies or services or technologies you want, you know,
you might be thinking, you know, this is really interesting,
but I've always wanted to know how Sherman tank works.
Could you please go ahead and do that episode? Let
us know. You can email us. Our email adres is
(42:14):
tech Stuff at how stuff Works dot com, or you
can visit us on Twitter or Facebook. Are handled there
is tech stuff hs W and Chris and I will
talk to you again really soon. Be sure to check
out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising
and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works iPhone
(42:37):
app has arrived down at it today on iTunes, brought
to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,
welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
(00:21):
I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Sitting across from me, smirking at my unusual delivery as usual,
is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. I've got an idea for
a movie, and it goes like this. It's about a
boy who gets his finger caught in a bottle of
Mr pib. You know, he mystifies me. If somebody can
(00:41):
clue me in as to the genesis of that quote,
please let us know. It's a fantastic song. Alright, So
today we're going to talk about something that we can't
believe we haven't talked about before. Yeah. In fact, we
did a search just before we got it started on
this podcast just to make sure we haven't talked about
it before. And according to our search, we have never
(01:01):
talked about YouTube, at least not specifically about YouTube. I'm
sure we've mentioned YouTube because you know, there's a site
called YouTube. So YouTube turns out it's a big thing um, yeah,
it's it's interesting to think it's just six years old. Yeah,
you know, it's a little six and a half. So
(01:24):
it's but it's it's hard to it's hard to think
about the Internet before YouTube because YouTube is just everywhere,
like either you're on the site or you're going to
some blog or some news site that has incorporated a
YouTube video into an article. I mean it's everywhere. Yeah.
Not only that, but you know, of course, uh, the
(01:45):
UM Apple mobile operating system iOS, famous for not using flash,
had to incorporate a U YouTube specific app because YouTube
used flash on its uh delivery pages radio pages, so
you couldn't go to you tube via the web browser
and watch it because it flash wasn't supported on the iOS, right, right,
(02:05):
So they made an app specifically for that. Course. Android
also has a YouTube app UM. And and also we
should go ahead and point out before anyone writes in
that YouTube is very busy converting over flash videos to
HTML five. Yes, yes, so you can watch on non
flash enabled browsers of any type. UM. Also video cameras
(02:28):
now you know they're their internet some of them are
Internet enabled and you can go ahead and upload, shoot
and upload right away. So I mean, just the fact
that the feature is built in specifically so that you
can upload your videos online shows what kind of a
difference YouTube is made in our If I use my
smartphone and I take a video, one of my options
(02:48):
is I can share it directly to my YouTube channel
immediately after I'm done shooting it, assuming that I've got
a connection strong enough to send that data up to YouTube,
which is pretty awesome. Yeah, it means that the user
generated content era is really in full swing right now
because you've got people who are reporting news events, they're
(03:09):
capturing historic moments on their phones, and it's immediately sharing
with billions of people around the world. Um, that's pretty phenomenal.
That's a that's a great story to tell, right because
you're like, hey, you know that we often wonder what
is the the personal experience of this particular historic event,
And we know this historic event happened, but what was
(03:31):
it like if you were there? And now, more often
than not, we know because someone somewhere had a device
that was capturing video and then they uploaded it to YouTube. So,
believe it or not, this all began on Valentine's Day,
February two thousand five. Uh, the It was the the
(03:53):
idea of three coworkers, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Joe
Ed Karim, who worked for a company called pay Pal. Yeah,
also still around and doing well. So they were heard
of that they were working for PayPal, and they saw
an opportunity. They thought, what if we created a website
(04:15):
that would allow people to upload and share videos. It's
sort of the same way that people were uploading and
sharing photos. But you know, there were there were a
few sites online where you could find video online. It's
not like video had never been done online before, but
there wasn't a place to go to create an account
and become a part of a user generated video site.
(04:37):
And uh so they registered the domain name YouTube dot
com in February two thousan five, and the first video
on YouTube dot com didn't go up until April, almost
the end of April two thousan five. And again this
was a chowd kareem at the San Diego Zoo with
some elephants called me at the zoo. Yes, okay anyway,
(05:03):
um so yeah, he he. Uh. This was not a
huge internet sensation because at that time, no one could
access YouTube. It wasn't until May that they launched a
beta of the of YouTube dot com and at that. Yeah,
so they launched a beta in in two thousand five
of May, and they attract around thirty thousand viewers each day,
(05:27):
which for a site that's just launching, is that's pretty significant.
You know, that's you know, that's that's a good amount
of traffic to see people who people who launch a
brand new site that had no presence on the web beforehand.
That's exciting and uh and it it was doing pretty well.
But then they decided to try and um increase their
(05:49):
membership by running a promotion. Did you hear about this
promotion that they did? So they're in beta and they
run a promotion that says they will give away one
iPod nano per day through the end of the year,
which was a membership drive attempt essentially, and it worked.
(06:12):
People started signing up like gangbusters, hoping to win one
of those iPod nanos. Well, then you've got these three
guys who say, look, we've got this videos sharing site.
We've got a huge amount of interest. Look at how
many people are signing up per day. Look at how
many thousands of people are watching videos per day. So
they start shopping that around to venture capitalists, and uh
(06:36):
that got venture capitalists interested in investing, and by November
of two thousand five, uh Sequoia invested three point five
million dollars in funding to YouTube. So this this site
is half a year old, right, it has no way
of generating revenue at this point. There's no way for
(06:57):
YouTube to make money. There's they don't they don't have
anything in place. They don't charge anyone for uploading stuff,
and only that video has a pretty high bandwidth requirement. Yeah,
and it's anyone who has their own website on their
own web host knows a lot of companies charge for
the amount of bandwidth that you use. Now, UH mine
(07:21):
says it doesn't. However, if I had a website the
size of Amazon on there, I don't know if they
would change their Like, okay, we don't except for you.
You know. Now now we're talking big bandwid Yeah, because
you're talking about lots of resources dedicated on the network
to keep your site going. Not just your site, like,
not just the servers that you're running and wherever you
(07:44):
happen to be, but the actual backbone of the Internet,
you know, having to carry that traffic and of course,
there's arguments about whether or not that would slow down
other traffic, and then there's arguments about whether or not
that's the responsibility of the Internet service provider versus the
site owner. We're not going to get into all that. Plus,
you make a good point, it's not really when you
(08:04):
think about it, it's not just bandwidth, it's also server
space because video can be very resource intensive, both bandwidth
and server space, and so, uh, this is going to
require some money to to keep it going and growing
at that rate. Yeah, because YouTube does not take a
peer to peer approach. It's not it's not like your
video is hosted on your computer and people are watching
(08:27):
it through you know, YouTube's acting as some sort of
traffic controller and allowing people to watch it. You know,
you are uploading those videos to YouTube, and so YouTube
has to store those videos somewhere, which means that they
have a server farm actually probably lots of them by now,
because by now especially yeah, by now, well we'll get
back to talking about two thousand and five. So three
(08:49):
point five million dollars in funding that lets YouTube continue
to uh, to stay afloat and work and grow and
kind of figure out what they're gonna do so. By
that time, they were up to about two million videos
viewed per day and two thousand registered users. So you
get down to December of two thousand five, December five
(09:13):
and YouTube opens officially to the public. They are out
of beta. So they got three point five millions dollars
before even getting out of beta. Man, when I hear
stories like this, I just think I'm so stupid. I
wish I were smart like these guys. These guys, they
just nailed it right. So December fifteen, two thousand five,
(09:36):
opens officially. There are twenty people working for YouTube, a
staff of twenty people, around twenty people working for that company.
And do you know what happened on December five? What happened?
Two days out of beta? What's that lazy Sunday? Happened?
The Saturday night live clip I posted to YouTube and
(10:00):
started getting two million views per week. Um. That's also
what helped launch Andy Sandberg's you know, startdom to startom Um,
not that he hadn't started it on his own, you
know that right, Lonely Island. But um, actually, according to
my notes, UM NBC two months later said you can't
(10:23):
show this anymore and YouTube pulled it down. Of course,
that just illustrates that copyright has been an issue for
YouTube from the beginning. Yeah, and we'll get more into
that in a little bit. Yeah, the I actually read something.
I didn't write it down to my notes, so I
don't have the specific date, but I did read something
about how Jon Stewart appeared on a news talk show
(10:44):
wasn't the Daily Show, it was some other show that
he was on in his capacity as host of the
Daily Show, and that more people viewed it on YouTube
than they saw it on television. And so that was
another one of those wake up calls of hey, this
is this is a big deal. Uh So, getting into
January of two thousand six, by that time, users are
watching around twenty five million videos per day. So that's
(11:06):
a astronomical number. I mean, you think about less than
a year old. It went from thirty thousand views a
day when it first launched two over twenty five million
videos per day. Um and by March of that year,
users were uploading twenty thousand videos per day. So you've
got twenty thousand videos being uploaded each day, You've got
(11:28):
twenty million videos being watched each day. It's you know,
it's clearly a phenomenon. And then in April of two
thousand six, YouTube gets another eight million dollars in funding
from from venture capitalists. Because at that point there beenwidth
costs were around one million dollars per month. It's pretty significant. Yeah,
(11:49):
still didn't have any way of generating revenue. By the way,
So you've got this company that again sounds familiar, doesn't
have any way of making money, is very expensive to operate,
and is incredibly popular, and so you have this question of, well,
it's amazingly popular and if it went away, people would
be really upset. And Uh, there's gonna be opportunity here,
we just haven't been able to create it yet. Uh.
(12:12):
Do you back that horse or do you say, you
know what, Uh, it's an interesting idea, but I just
don't think my money is gonna be safe there. Well,
if you were one of those capitalists back in two
thousand and six, I hope you backed your horse. Well,
you know, if if if I were, uh, let's say,
working for a very large company at this point, I
(12:32):
would be thinking, wow, look at this. You know, they
don't have a plan. Uh, but it's obvious there's opportunity here.
And uh, if we if we say, purchase them outright?
We could, uh, we could. We could make a lot
of this, or it could it could you know, be
too much for us to handle if we can't find
(12:53):
a way to monetize it. If we just had some
creative people who were really good at finding ways to
make money from something like that, we could buy these
guys outright. That would be amazing, wouldn't it. I mean,
you'd have to be somebody big. You're you're foreshadowing. I
haven't gotten there yet. I'm just saying, okay, okay, Well
we'll keep that in mind. Well, do you know what
(13:15):
happened In April six, two thou six, one of the
greatest YouTube videos of all time was uploaded to YouTube. Yes,
one of the ones that, for for many many ages
held the title of the most watched YouTube video of
all time. It is no longer that that video. By
the way, I will tell you what is the most
watched video of all time on YouTube? Towards the end
(13:37):
of the podcast, okay, is this uh the Evolution of dance?
The Evolution of dance, Yes, which at the time of
the recording of this podcast has about two point five
million views. That's a lot of views. That's a lot
of Ye, that's still one of the most watched video,
especially when you talk about user generated because the one
(13:59):
that has taken the top spot now is not a
user generated video. So we'll we'll go back into that
nixt and talk about that in a little bit. Because
YouTube has gotten so big now that major players and
other forms of media have partnered with YouTube because your
YouTube's where the audience is, right, I mean, you have
these major players that could be putting their stuff on
(14:20):
their own sites, and most of them do, but if
the audience is already at YouTube, it makes sense to
partner with him and and not fight with them. And
we'll get more into that in a little bit. So,
uh yeah, that that launched on April six. That was
that was first uploaded then. And if you don't know
what the Evolution of Dance video is on YouTube, you
should go check it out. It is pretty entertaining. It's
a guy who named Judson who does a series of
(14:43):
dances from various eras and it's not truly an evolution
because he jumps around in the timeline quite a little bit,
but it is an entertaining, uh show of some of
the more ridiculous dance moves that that human beings have
created over time. And he's quite quite funny in the
way he strings them together. He doesn't a very very
(15:03):
fluid and funny way. Um. And if you haven't seen it,
then that's pretty remarkable since a two million point five
you know, people, well maybe not people views because some
of those are probably repeat viewings. Um. And then you
get to right around that time, YouTube accounted for forty
(15:25):
three of all the videos viewed on the internet back
in uh in two thousand and six, So if you
were watching a video on the Internet, there was nearly
a fifty fifty chance that was on YouTube. Yeah, and
so it's YouTube and everybody else and of them is YouTube.
(15:45):
That is that's huge. I mean, that's huge for anything
anything on the internet. If you're like, you know, I
sell shoes on the internet, and forty percent of the
people who buy shoes on the internet do it through
my store, that means, you know, all of your competitors
added together, are just barely more of the market than
you are. That is a huge story. Uh. And then
(16:07):
we get into July of two thousand and six. At
that point they hit a hundred million videos viewed per
day and the staff. This this was reflected in YouTube's
hiring craze. They went from a staff of twenty to
just over thirty. Clearly they were drunk with power. Um.
(16:29):
Now this is a good example because the YouTube, I mean,
we should also point out YouTube launched after the bubble
burst in the dot com bubble, so presumably they were
able to learn from some of the mistakes made by
companies in the dot com bubble where they there were
other companies before the bubble burst that started to get big,
(16:51):
got a huge uh investment going where lots of people
were pouring money into these companies. They expanded out of control,
far beyond their capability of managing that, and then they collapsed.
YouTube took a different view there. They expanded, but it
wasn't like they went from a staff of twenty to
a staff of two hundred to a staff of two thousand.
(17:12):
You know, they were doing it in a much more
controlled way, which is you know, I don't know any
of the founders of YouTube, they won't return my calls,
but I assume that they were. They were doing this
in a very deliberate way. You know, they weren't hiring
people just because they could hire people. They were hiring
the people they needed, which is, you know, a great advice.
(17:34):
So now we're getting into October two thousand and six,
and this is where the foreshadowing that Chris was was
engaged in earlier pays off. So it was October nine,
two thousand six, when a certain announcement hit the the interwebs,
which I know some of you hate, so I'm gonna
say it again, the interwebs, the series of tubes, the
(17:55):
series of tubes. Yes, this was when a certain large
company said that it was interested in purchasing YouTube for
a tidy little sum, only one point six five billion
with a B with a B dollars. That is a
big with the B number. When you factor in all
the investment money we've talked about up to this point,
(18:16):
it ranged it's right around twelve million with an M.
So for a company to come out and say I
want to buy you for one point six five billion
with a B, you listen. And of course that that
company's name was Google, yep, Google, and uh Google was saying, hey,
you know, we see potential in this in this as
(18:39):
we think that this is a valuable company. We wanted
to be part of ours and at that time, that
was the most Google had ever paid for an acquisition.
Since then, Google has thrown money around like it was nothing,
but at back in two thousand six one point six
five billion dollars, that was the biggest acquisition they had
made up to that point. Yes, yes, so they got
(19:02):
a lot for their money though, oh they sure did.
They got a lot of bandwidth charges from um. Yeah.
And and so you want to continue with your timeline,
because that's that's where my timeline where I ended. And
I started focusing on more kind of stats about YouTube.
But you've got more about their history. If you have
any other highlights you would like to hit, yeah, um, yeah,
(19:23):
I actually pulled part of my time from the Brief
but Impactful History of YouTube by H. David Lydsky And
this was actually done in February two ten. There have
been some other stuff, other significant events. That's probably the biggest. Uh,
that's probably where the the YouTube the pure YouTube timeline
ends to some degree. Um. But there are some some
(19:47):
important events since the Google acquisition. One of the first
was the presidential debate. July seven was the first YouTube
CNN debate UM and people were allowed to submit their
own questions on video, so that aired. Although that aired
on on national TV. It also it was sort of
(20:09):
a marriage between uh TV and YouTube, which was, you know,
a very different sort of opportunity for debate because usually
the questions for presidential abate are decided upon by you know,
the news agencies, UH and people who are preparing these
and they're unveiled right then and there. Um let's see.
(20:30):
UH and and seven of the sixteen presidential candidates in
the two thousand eight presidential election UH in the United
States were announced on YouTube. UM. So that just shows
that the politics in the United States are being influenced
by uh, the audiences who are tuning in to the internet. UM.
(20:51):
Susan Boyle in two thousand nine became a celebrity on YouTube. Uh.
You know, we've talked about people that. That's probably why
you were thinking that we had a YouTube episode, because
we were talking about people who got picked up after
being that's true. We talked about people who became like
celebrities like Mr Bieber. Yeah, well what and that's foreshadowing. UM.
(21:16):
Let's see. In October two thousand nine, YouTube passed a
billion videos per day. You know, you've but you've skipped
over a very important day in YouTube history, which one
was that January nine? Which one? What what? What? What happened?
Then there was a video that I think is incredibly
important that was uploaded on January nine. Does it involve
(21:38):
a very furry personality. No, no, no, no, Keyboard Cat
was before that. I was gonna say no to January
three two nine was annoying Orange? Is this real life?
I have two fingers, I have four fingers. David after Dinnie, Yeah,
which again, you know, you were just talking about Susan
(22:00):
while becoming a big celebrity. Well, some other folks became
sort of celebrities too through YouTube videos that just went viral.
And David after the Dentist After the Dentist is a
viral video that hit over a hundred million views, almost
a hundred and one million views of the recording of
this podcast. And that's, you know, again, an example of
(22:24):
how powerful YouTube had become at that point, because, uh,
through their partner program, which we'll talk about in a second,
you could actually start making money off of a video
that you were just going to share. I mean, there
was never any necessarily intent on the part of David's
father to make money off this video. He just thought,
my son is hilarious and I want to share this
(22:46):
with people, and it just took off from there and
afterwards he actually started making some serious cash off that.
In fact, there are people who have been able to
quit their day job because their YouTube channel took off.
That's appressive. Um. And speaking of that too, I mean, uh, basically,
according to Mr Litzky's article, uh, you know, in October,
(23:09):
they did pass a billion videos per day. Um. But
the thing is, even though they had revenue of about
two million dollars that year, they spent seven million storing
and serving the video. Um. And uh you know, of course,
uh uh there are other bits and pieces UM yeah,
(23:33):
I mean, like I see what you did there. Um.
You know the partnerships you mentioned with some of the
content agencies because they're up until this point we've kind
of avoided talking about, um, you know, people who had
butted heads with YouTube over licensing and copyright issues. We
should probably touch on that. In fact, in fact that
the most famous one was Viacom Yes Viacom. Viacom sued
(23:57):
YouTube Yes for a copyright and inagment because what was
happening was that you had users that were uploading videos
that contained copyrighted material. Music videos. Music videos were a
big one, or using songs um that Sony also was
looking into, you lawsuits against Google, but using music that
was licensed, music that hadn't been licensed for that video,
(24:19):
that was a big no no. And you see that
all the time on YouTube because open up like any
YouTube video that's a montage of stuff and there's usually
some unlicensed music playing in the background, and if someone
makes a complaint, YouTube will actually take either take the
video down or sometimes they'll just strip the soundtrack out
of a video. So you'll have a video that originally
had music set to it and now it's silent, and
(24:40):
you might wonder, well, why is this video have no
noise or sound or anything, And that's probably the case.
It's that they had originally put some sort of unlicensed
music in the background and YouTube had to respond to
a complaint. But you uh, you also had folks just
uploading uh television episodes, usually in segments, because only YouTube
limited you to ten minutes of video perer video when
(25:04):
you upload if you weren't a partner, now it's fifteen minutes.
And uh, if you're a partner you don't have those limitations.
But uh, you know people would upload movies and batches
like could be Um, I don't know, We'll say, uh
Kremlin's Part one of twelve, Part two of twelve, and
part three of twelve, and people would watch these these movies. Uh,
(25:27):
and you know YouTube was the one that was being
held responsible for it, and Viacom was really seeking huge
amounts of damages for this, and um, eventually this was settled. Uh.
The uh what happened was that the judge in the
case came to the conclusion that, uh, they were YouTube
(25:49):
was protected under the under one of the copyright Acts
and that they had they had safe harbor, so that
they weren't the ones held responsible for what users were doing.
That was YouTube's uh stance was that you know, we
provide a place where people to upload video. We're not
We're not the ones putting the videos up. We're providing
(26:11):
the landscape those videos. So yeah, it was June, New
York District Court granted a request for a summary judgment
and held that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor
of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and uh that's what
allows YouTube to continue to work and YouTube does have
a policy that if someone is posting video that violates
(26:34):
intellectual property, the owner of the intellectual property can request
for that video to be taken down or they can
leave it up because some some companies have said, you know,
this video has gotten really really popular and it's promoting
our product, so maybe what we should do is just
shut up and let it happen. Um, which is you
know that that's a valid uh strategy in some cases.
(26:56):
And also YouTube even allows if you're a content owner
and you discover someone's got your content on YouTube, you
can actually work with YouTube so that if they put
ads on that content, you're the one who gets the
money from the ads. So you know, then you're like, oh, sure,
let them keep my copyrighted material up there. Just give
me the money from the advertisement because that way that
(27:18):
means I don't have to upload it. And and if
multiple people are doing it, then I collected from multiple
streams and I'm rolling in cash while people are keeping
their videos up. So uh, they they've done a lot
to work with content creators to make sure that they're
satisfied that YouTube is not promoting copyright infringement. They even
(27:40):
have a technology called content i d that scans videos
looking for copyright violations. That's helpful because with the amount
of material that's uploaded every day, forty eight hours per minute.
Every minute that passes, forty eight hours of material are
uploaded to YouTube. Yeah, so two days worth of videos
(28:04):
are uploaded each minute. So yeah, you know, you figure
like there's there's way more content on YouTube than anyone
could ever see in their lifetime. Um and if you've
got that much content going up, and you even if
you had a staff of thousands, you could not pour
through all the hours of content searching for copyright infringement
(28:27):
instances and respond to them. It's just impossible. And and
if you were to put some sort of limitation on that,
it would hurt the users. And that was YouTube's argument,
and the district court agreed, and UH YouTube is now
moved into the realm of creating its own content in
a way too, because earlier in two thousand eleven, which
(28:48):
is the year in which we're recording, is UH YouTube
reached an agreement to UH to buy next new networks,
so you know, and they they're they have UH their
own online videos. So now YouTube is not only partnering
with different providers, but there are uh in some respect
doing their own things. So, um, YouTube is really matured
(29:12):
greatly in a very short period of time. Yeah, and
we had someone to ask us how people on YouTube
make money. That would be the partner program. And the
partner program allows people not just people, but companies as well.
I mean, you've got established companies like music companies and
and television and movie studios that can partner with YouTube.
But uh, we usually think of the individual partners. Um,
(29:35):
these are the YouTube video creators who create a video
and it goes viral, like David after the dentist YouTube. Yeah,
YouTube will approach the person who uploaded that video and say, hey,
you know, your video is getting really good traffic and
it would benefit both us and you if we could
(29:55):
put advertisements against that video. And if we do this,
you will get most of the money from the advertisement.
You know, most of that that cash is going to
go to you will will just take a percentage of it.
And because YouTube has lots of partners, millions of partners,
those little percentages that YouTube takes adds up and volume,
(30:16):
and then the person who created the video gets most
of the actual ad money for their particular video. So
that's how you can actually make money off YouTube. If
you create a video that goes viral and has millions
of views, you can make enough money where like I said,
that could be your living. There are people who who
pull six figures from their YouTube videos from advertisement. That's
(30:38):
that's a lot of cash, you know. And if you're
able to consistently create videos that get that kind of traffic,
which is really difficult. A lot of these videos are memes,
which means it's a flash in the pan. You see
it and you think it's amazing, and it's awesome, and
it becomes like the talk of the Internet for an
extended time. But then you do your next thing and
(30:58):
no one pays attention because it's not the first thing.
You know, We've seen that happen a lot. Not everyone
can be Ninja Cat, right right? Uh? Not everyone? Like
I think of the the well evolution of the dance,
like that first video was crazy popular, hun an a
two million views. He did a second video evolution of
(31:20):
the dance, to which still is popular, I mean way
more popular than most videos, significantly more like seventeen million
views or something, but still that's one tenth of the views.
That is older video cut. So, uh, that's probably a
bad example because with seventeen million views, I'm sure he's
still very comfortable with the amount of money that video
(31:42):
pulls in. But uh, you know that that's just an
example of how you might create something that goes really
does really well, and then the next thing you create
doesn't really hit anybody. That being said, there are people
out there who are creating content, putting it up on
YouTube and just making a living off of it. They've got,
you know, people who have subscribed to that channel and
(32:03):
they're just, uh, they're just killing it. Well, I know
what that Some people uh may say, well that sounds great,
and then six months from now they're going to write
in and say, hey, Jonathan, you said that I could
make six figures on YouTube. But the thing is your
mileage may vary. In Google will tell you that. If
you look at the f a Q for the Partner program,
it says there's a question that says how much money
(32:24):
can I expect to make? And they the answer essentially says, well,
you can't expect to make anything necessarily. It varies with
the content of you know, the public is fickle, so
you never know what's gonna be the next flavor of
the week. Hopefully it'll be you, in which case cut
us in um. But but yeah, I mean, there's there's
(32:44):
no guarantee that you can generate the kind of traffic
that's gone going to allow you to quit your job
or avoid getting one in the first place. Now, if
you if you create a video, they get some good traction.
YouTube might end up promoting that on their main page,
which will help. Yeah, that'll help a lot. That'll they'll
drive even more traffic. But so there is YouTube can
(33:04):
do some things that will help the bottom line for you,
but you have no control over those things. You know.
You The best advice I can give anyone who's looking
at putting up videos on YouTube is one, don't expect
to make money. Don't do it for the money, because
if you're doing it for the money and it doesn't
work out, then you're gonna be really disillusioned and disappointed.
And to put out the best stuff you possibly can
(33:28):
make original stuff, all original stuff, or they won't take
it right doing original piece. Make it the best you
can make it, and best means different things, like it
doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the most polished video,
and it may mean that it's you know, something that's
just it strikes that funny bone, you know, it's the
thing that like, it's that perfect timing where anyone who
(33:49):
watches it immediately just has that big reaction. Uh so yeah,
you just gotta put out the best stuff you can
and then if it resonates with people, then you know,
things could move on their own. But uh, that's you know,
you can't you can't expect that or aim for that.
You just have to aim for doing the best you
can and hope that that that catches on. I know
(34:10):
I know people who are trying to do that right now.
Um so yeah, that's good advice for anyone. And uh
of course, you know, you also have to get to
the point where you're not gonna mind if people put
ads up on your content, because that's how you would
actually make the money. Um, I can't believe they put
an ado. I think we're video. Ever, Also, YouTube now
(34:35):
supports HD content. They didn't originally, but they do now
and apparently, um they now have more HD content on
YouTube than you will find on any other online site.
So not particularly surprising, not not entirely surprising. And ten
of all the videos on YouTube are actually available in HD,
(34:55):
which is again pretty impressive because that that doesn't just
mean that you know, you tube it is able to
support that, it mean also speaks a lot about how
HD cameras have filtered into the consumer market and how
they're taking a larger and larger share, I mean ten pc.
That's pretty impressive. Um. I know their content i D
software I talked about, do you know how many how
(35:17):
much video it scans each day? One years worth every day? Yeah,
a century worth of video. Like if you were to
actually watch those videos back to back, it would take
you a century to watch them. That's how much the
content i D scans each day. That's that's pretty crazy. Um. Yeah.
(35:39):
And then they've got more than seventeen million users now
and lots of millions of different channels. You know, you
can create a channel and um have a whole playlist
of videos that are related to one another. There are
there are a lot of examples now of web video
series that used YouTube to really get a foothold and
become successful. The Guild as an example, Felicia Days the Guild,
(36:02):
which is that's the example, right, yeh. But but Chad
vaderah The Chad Vader web video series was also they
used YouTube and that got a leg up there. Um,
there are other other sites that use YouTube in order
to encode the videos and then they'll they'll they'll link
the video onto their site so you can watch the
video on their site, but it's still living back at
(36:23):
YouTube's servers. So Red Versus Blue is another example of that.
I've talked about that show multiple times, but they use that.
If you pay attention, you see Oh wait, there's a
little YouTube logo down there. Um, yeah, it's it's pretty
exciting stuff. Oh and I remember I was going to
say I was gonna tell people what the most watched
video of all time according to the time of this podcast.
(36:45):
Do you know what it is already? Well? I already
foreshadowed it, Yeah you did, so you know you know
the name anyway? Yeah, it's justin Bieber. Do you know
which song it is, isn't it baby Baby? Yeah? Um?
You want to you want to take a stab at
how many how many views? I'll tell I'll tell you
this not it's it's fewer than a billion. Last time
(37:06):
I saw it was more than five million. Yeah, they
more people have watched that video since you saw it,
because I didn't. I got it from an article, not
from actually going to YouTube. Six and forty two point
seven million views. That's impressive. That's a lot of babies, Yes,
it is. That's like a that's like a couple of
countries worth of babies right there. And and and you know,
(37:29):
I know a lot of people are not justin Bieber fans,
but you have to admit it's it's kind of amazing
that we're living in an age where somebody's video that
they post to YouTube is enough to propel you to
be in an international star. Yeah, you know, I mean
it makes sense that we're also recording this on Friday Friday.
(37:51):
I mean there's another example, right, another video that went viral,
and I mean for good or for ill? And you know,
she definitely she She made quite a bit of money
off that and then ended up donating it. I think
it's pretty phenomenal. So yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, it's
it is interesting and it's nice that YouTube exists, and
it gives people who are really creative and who have
(38:13):
access to some very basic video capture and editing software, uh,
the ability to share their vision with everybody else. Now
in some cases you're gonna get like, you know, the
standard Uh I was shooting video and this funny accident happened.
I mean, those videos are always gonna be popular on YouTube.
But you've got a lot of actual, like written content
(38:33):
on YouTube too, sketches and maybe some improv stuff as well,
and musicians who are just recording themselves playing various things.
People who otherwise would never have had a platform. They
just would not have ever had that chance. They wouldn't
be one of those lucky few who were seen by
the right person to move up to the next level. Well,
YouTube really gives them that that chance. And again it's
(38:56):
not a sure thing. I mean, you might be the
most talented person in the world, end up load the
video that is gorgeous and people just don't watch it.
Sometimes that happens. But it's a much better chance than
being someone who's working year after year after year and
dive bars trying to be discovered as the next you know,
R and B singer or something. You know, Chris can
tell you he's he's he's I'm not the next R
(39:19):
and B singer. No, but you're you're you know, you
beat the Skins. Yeah, you know, you've you've you've you've
had a taste of the rock and roll lifestyle. You
know how elusive it is. How do you afford that
rock and roll lifestyle? I don't know. I always smash
a guitar at the end of every show. That's that's
not how you do right now anyway. Yeah, So that
(39:41):
I guess that will wrap up our discussion on YouTube.
Did you have anything else you wanted to add before
we kind of signed off? No, But in in terms
of of Internet success stories, uh, obviously YouTube is one
of the biggest, and in just a few short years,
you know, six and a half years as at the
time we're recording this amazingly short period of time. So
(40:03):
it's just I think it just serves as an indicator
of how much the Internet has changed people's lives. It's
it's also interesting. It shows that if you just recognize
that there is a need for something out there and
you build, you build a robust enough platform for it,
you can become a success. I mean, the same sort
of thing is true of other big success stories on
(40:24):
the Internet like Facebook or Twitter, you know, or even Google.
Things that companies that build a service that they just
see that there is the opportunity to either introduce something
totally new or to improve upon something that previously existed
but just was not ideal and and have success from it. So,
uh yeah, it's a it's a great story. Um. I'm
(40:48):
curious to see, you know, I'm hoping that it continues
to uh to to grow, and I'm really curious to
see what kind of content comes out of it, because
you know, we're seeing a lot of really creative stuff
and I would love to to, like, maybe five years
from now, think about wouldn't it be cool if everybody
was staying around the water cooler talking about the latest
(41:09):
episode of a web series that had been using YouTube
as a as a platform, rather than talking about the
latest television episode or in addition to television episodes. I mean,
I could easily see that happening, although, of course, with
the amount of content that's available on YouTube and the
variety of content that's available on YouTube, you may not
(41:31):
have quite as many people watching the same stuff. Like
I was watching channel number five thousand, six hundred and
eighty three last night or are you watching? Oh, I
was like three orders of magnitude over yep. So um,
I guess we'll we'll we'll wrap this up with um
when you know the only quote I can think of,
(41:52):
which is a Charlie bit my finger. If any of
you out there want us to talk about anything specif
big specific companies or services or technologies you want, you know,
you might be thinking, you know, this is really interesting,
but I've always wanted to know how Sherman tank works.
Could you please go ahead and do that episode? Let
us know. You can email us. Our email adres is
(42:14):
tech Stuff at how stuff Works dot com, or you
can visit us on Twitter or Facebook. Are handled there
is tech stuff hs W and Chris and I will
talk to you again really soon. Be sure to check
out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising
and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works iPhone
(42:37):
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