Tuesday 28 June 2011

History of YouTube


YouTube's early headquarters in San Mateo
YouTube's headquarters in San Bruno from 2006 to 2010
This article documents the history of video sharing website YouTube.

History

YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal.[1] Prior to PayPal, Hurley studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[2] The domain name "YouTube.com" was activated on February 14, 2005, and the website was developed over the subsequent months. The creators offered the public a preview of the site in May 2005, six months before YouTube made its official debut. Like many technology startups, YouTube was started as an angel-funded enterprise from a makeshift office in a garage. In November 2005, venture firm Sequoia Capital invested an initial $3.5 million;[3] additionally, Roelof Botha, partner of the firm and former CFO of PayPal, joined the YouTube board of directors. In April 2006, Sequoia and Artis Capital Management put an additional $8 million into the company, which had experienced huge popular growth within its first few months.[4]

The History of Youtube

YouTube History 600x1971 The History of Youtube

Economy of YouTube

Economy of YouTube

Before being purchased by Google, YouTube declared that its business model was advertisement-based, making 15 million dollars per month. Some industry commentators have speculated that YouTube's running costs—specifically the bandwidth required—may be as high as 5 to 6 million dollars per month,[15] thereby fueling criticisms that the company, like many Internet startups, did not have a viably implemented business model. Advertisements were launched on the site beginning in March 2006. In April, YouTube started using Google AdSense[citation needed]. YouTube subsequently stopped using AdSense but has resumed in local regions.
Advertising is YouTube's central mechanism for gaining revenue. This issue has also been taken up in scientific analysis. Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams argue in their book Wikinomics that YouTube is an example for an economy that is based on mass collaboration and makes use of the Internet. "Whether your business is closer to Boeing or P&G, or more like YouTube or flickr, there are vast pools of external talent that you can tap with the right approach. Companies that adopt these models can drive important changes in their industries and rewrite the rules of competition" [16] "new business models for open content will not come from traditional media establishments, but from companies such as Google, Yahoo, and YouTube. This new generation of companies is not burned by the legacies that inhibit the publishing incumbents, so they can be much more agile in responding to customer demands. More important, they understand that you don't need to control the quantity and destiny of bits if they can provide compelling venues in which people build communities around sharing and remixing content. Free content is just the lure on which they layer revenue from advertising and premium services".[17]
Tapscott and Williams argue that it is important for new media companies to find ways to make a profit with the help of peer-produced content. The new Internet economy that they term Wikinomics would be based on the principles of openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally. Companies could make use of these principles in order to gain profit with the help of Web 2.0 applications: “Companies can design and assemble products with their customers, and in some cases customers can do the majority of the value creation”.[18] Tapscott and Williams argue that the outcome will be an economic democracy.

YouTube Awards

YouTube Awards


YouTube Awards
Awarded for Best YouTube Videos
Presented by YouTube.com
Country United States
First awarded 2007/2009
Last awarded 2008(recontinued by youtuber)-present
Official website http://www.youtube.com/ytawards07
The YouTube Awards are awards given out as formalized recognition of the best YouTube videos of the preceding year, such as favorite music or comedy genres, as voted by the YouTube community. The awards were organized in 2007 to "call out some of the most popular videos and let the users choose which ones deserve some additional recognition".[1] The awards are the first time that videos would receive any formal recognition; previously, high-ranking videos were only recognized by dynamic lists of most-viewed videos.[1] The winners received a trophy, which was a stand with a large glass "play" button.[2] In addition, they received an invitation to an event to occur "later this year".[3]

Organization

The videos to vote upon are chosen by YouTube staff, while the winners are selected by YouTubers.[1] The Awards were first given in 2007—called the 2006 Awards—for the best videos of 2006. The awards were in seven categories: Adorable, Comedy, Commentary, Creative, Inspirational, Musician of the Year and Series.[1] Each category then comprised 10 videos which YouTubers ranked in order of preference.[4] For the 2007 Awards, five new categories were added: Eyewitness, Instructional, Short Film, Sports and Political; a general "Music" category replaced the "Musician of the Year" category of the previous year. In addition, each category held only six videos for which YouTubers could vote.[5]

2007 Awards

2007 Awards

The 2007 Awards began on March 13, 2008 and lasted for five days, until March 18. YouTubers could vote once per day, but could not change their vote once they voted.[10]
A notable entry in the 2008 Awards was a video of the University of Florida Taser incident, uploaded by The Gainesville Sun; it was entered in the new Eyewitness category.[11] One nomination in the Politics category was an interview with a candidate for the Republican Presidential nomination for the 2008 American presidential election, Ron Paul.[12] Also included in the Politics section was the I Got a Crush... on Obama video. Nominated in the Inspirational category was a stop motion video by Trevor Dougherty, entitled "Stand Up for World Peace."[13][14] The Leave Britney Alone! video by vlogger Chris Crocker was nominated in the Commentary category. Internet meme video Chocolate Rain by singer Tay Zonday was nominated in the Music section;[2] it won.[15]
2007 YouTube Award Winners
Category Winning Video[16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] YouTube Link YouTube User
Adorable Laughing Baby Flash video gsager1234
Comedy Potter Puppet Pals in "The Mysterious Ticking Noise" Flash video NeilCicierega
Commentary LonelyGirl15 is Dead! Flash video WHATTHEBUCKSHOW
Creative The Original Human TETRIS Performance by Guillaume Reymond Flash video notsonoisy
Eyewitness Battle at Kruger Flash video Jason275
Inspirational Blind Painter Flash video texascountryreporter
Instructional How to solve a Rubik's Cube Flash video (part 1) pogobat
Music Chocolate Rain Flash video TayZonday
Politics Stop the Clash of Civilizations Flash video AvaazOrg
Series The Guild Flash video (part 1) watchtheguild
Short Film my name is lisa Flash video sheltonfilms
Sports balloon bowl Flash video davetheknave

2006 Awards

2006 Awards

Voting for the 2006 Awards took place from March 18, 2007 to March 23, 2007.[1] The 2006 YouTube Awards came just a week after Viacom sued YouTube's parent company, Google, for more than $1 billion for copyright infringement of television shows owned by Viacom.[6]
The Awards received criticism from New York Times writer Virginia Heffernan when first organized. She suggested that the Awards created too much of a formalized process on YouTube. YouTube, she argued, should not be about awards and individual recognition of merit. Rather, it should be a free place where one can post videos and express oneself free of judgment on quality.[7] Caroline McCarthy of CNET News commented on the 2007 awards in agreement with Heffernan: she argued that YouTube "is a cultural hub rather than strictly a creative outpost."[3] She also commented many of the most popular videos are not high quality, or original content.[3]
Nominations for the 2006 Awards included noted YouTubers Peter Oakley (geriatric1927), LonelyGirl15, Renetto and Chad Vader.
2006 YouTube Award Winners
Category Winning Video[4][7][8][9] YouTube Link YouTube User
Adorable Kiwi! Flash video Madyeti47
Comedy Smosh Short 2: Stranded Flash video smosh
Commentary Hotness Prevails/Worst Video Ever Flash video thewinekone
Creative Here It Goes Again Flash video OkGo
Inspirational Free Hugs Campaign Flash video                PeaceOnEarth123
Musician of the Year Say It's Possible Flash video terranaomi
Series Ask A Ninja Part 1 Flash video digitalfilmmak