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By Maggie Shiels
Technology reporter, BBC News, Silicon Valley
YouTube said it now gets over two billion hits daily - nearly double the number
of people who tune into the US's three prime time TV stations combined.
The news comes as the site celebrates the day five years ago when the first
beta version of YouTube was launched.
Over seven months ago the video site clocked up one billion downloads.
"I see this great growth opportunity in the online video market and we are
positioning ourselves to be a leader," co-founder Chad Hurley told BBC News.
"We are a stage and we give everyone in the world an opportunity to participate
and that is being a video platform for creating a solution for people to not
only upload and distribute their videos on a global basis but to find and share
videos."
He also said that while the two billion downloads marked a real milestone "I
feel we have much further to go.
From cat videos to political videos to "how to" videos to entertainment -
that is YouTube
Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder
"Two billion video streams is a large number but on average people are only
spending 15 minutes a day on the site compared to five hours a day watching TV.
"I don't think we could have ever planned or imagined we would get to the scale
or the size we are today. We were mostly trying to create a video solution for
ourselves based on our own frustrations. We are proud of what we have achieved
so far but we have a lot of work ahead," said Mr Hurley.
The site was bought by Google near the end of 2006 for $1.65bn.
The early years
The slogan for YouTube is "Broadcast Yourself" which Mr Hurley said was a play
on "be yourself and also captured in my mind the essence of the site which was
to let people express themselves."
The first person to express themselves on the platform was fellow co-founder
Jawed Karim who posted a 19 seconds long video called "Me at the Zoo". It was
uploaded on April 23, 2005 and can still be viewed on the site.
Among the other videos that have made YouTube history is that of a wounded girl
dying in front of a crowd during the Iranian election protests, a YouTube
interview with President Barack Obama, Ronaldinho's Nike advert and singer
Susan Boyle's performance on Britain's Got Talent competition on TV.
"We wanted to create a level playing field that gave everyone that ability to
be seen and heard," said Mr Hurley.
"Maybe early on people only recognised us or explained YouTube by placing it in
a box but there are so many people on our site and we receive so much content
over a 24 hour period, it can't be about one thing.
"And so from cat videos to political videos to "how to" videos to entertainment
- that is YouTube," added Mr Hurley.
Today it hosts channels for everyone from Queen Elizabeth to the Pope and from
President Barack Obama to the Iraqi government.
"YouTube really is a phenomenon and is very much part of popular culture," said
Catharine P Taylor, media blogger at news website BNET.com.
"It really is a game changer because it gives everybody a platform to broadcast
from. There are many examples where an average citizen has become a big hit on
YouTube and that is something that would have been impossible to contemplate
five, six years ago."
The future
In those early days the site was known for hosting pirated snippets of TV shows
or movies. Even today material gets pulled from the site because of issues over
copyright.
"They have made a lot of progress about weeding out illegal content," said
Allen Weiner senior vice president of research at Gartner.
"They are serious about it. Their future depends on it."
As a result YouTube has been working hard to win over content makers as it
modifies its service to stream professional films and cash in on a trend
towards internet television.
Industry watchers have said YouTube could possibly become part of the Google
"media cloud" where people can access films, books, magazines tv shows and
other digitised content.
"YouTube is going to change in a lot of ways in the next few years," Ryan
Lawler of video site NewTeeVee.com told BBC News.
"I think we will see it on more devices and see it used more for live
streaming. There are real opportunities for it to become a traditional content
distributor like the cable channels. YouTube streams make up around 40% of all
online video watched in the US, so there is massive scale there and lot of
opportunity."
Analysts have predicted that while the site has struggled to reach
profitability since its creation, 2010 could be its year.
Bloomberg News pointed out that the biggest challenge facing YouTube
advertising is what makes it so popular - its user generated content. Many
advertisers are wary of placing adverts that might run next to videos that
might also offend or upset the audience.
"Obviously we want to work with everyone and show the value we can bring on
multiple levels. It could be as simple as marketing a movie or show to our
users and driving those audiences to another place for the experience.
"We are trying to create opportunities for everyone and this is not just about
making big deals with major networks," said Mr Hurley.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/8676380.stm
Published: 2010/05/17 08:06:32 GMT