Infinite Path

The first video uploaded to YouTube was a charming affair entitled ‘Me at the Zoo’ by co-founder Jawed Karim. Now, just over five years later, it has been revealed that the site receives over two billion hits a day.

The extraordinary rise of YouTube was not predicted by founders Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim when the 19 second video was posted on the site on 23 April 2005. Now, though, the site is celebrating its fifth birthday and gets nearly double the number of people tuning in than the US’s three prime time TV stations combined.

The site was bought by Google at the end of 2006 for $1.65bn and, since then, it has become a staple of social networking, not to mention modern journalism. The evocative imagery of a wounded girl dying in front of a crowd during the Iranian election protests shows that the site has also shaped history, allowing amateur videographers to report on important events and bring fresh angles to stories that otherwise may not have been shown.

A YouTube interview with President Barack Obama, Ronaldinho’s Nike advert, and Susan Boyle’s performance on Britain’s Got Talent were all given greater publicity on the site and this is reflected in the ethos of the company. With the slogan ‘Broadcast Yourself’, Mr Hurley stated that the company’s aim was “to create a level playing field that gave everyone that ability to be seen and heard”. The fact that you can have President Obama and your trip to the zoo hosted on the same site proves that this goal has been successfully realised.

Catharine P Taylor, media blogger at news website BNET.com, has expressed her belief that YouTube is very much at the forefront of popular culture. Describing the site as a “game changer” she expressed her admiration that the site provides opportunities for the average citizen to become a big hit, saying that this would have been unheard of five years ago.

Mr Hurley believes that the site still has “much further to go” and, although admitting that he is proud of the site’s achievement so far, he accepts that there is still “a lot of work ahead”. In an Internet culture that is continually evolving, where YouTube will head next is a question asked by many. Many analysts believe that the site will become part of Google’s “media cloud” in which you can access a wide range of digitised content including films, books, magazines, and TV shows.

Live streaming is the obvious place for YouTube to go because 40% of all online video watched in the US is viewed on YouTube. Some believe that it could become a traditional distributor of content, very much like the American cable channels. Further links to portable devices may also be generated.

Like most online companies in the social sphere, finding a profitable business model has been difficult for YouTube but 2010 could be the year this changes. However, Bloomberg News has pointed out that advertisers may be reluctant to appear on the site as its content is not as strictly controlled as that on other outlets. User generated content is YouTube’s main strength and this carries a risk because editorial standards are far looser, meaning that the content is more likely to shock or offend people.

Furthermore, in the social sphere, people are generally turned off by advertising and move to other sites. This means that any marketing strategy would have to be well-defined and executed by YouTube executives.

Mr Hurley has admitted that his company is willing to work with anyone and with traffic already extremely strong (only seven months ago, the site clocked up over a million downloads a day), the YouTube juggernaut is showing no signs of stopping just yet.