YouTube is a large online video-sharing platform that users can upload and share content to for free.
The website ranks second on Alexa’s ranking of the most visited websites in the world.
Content on the platform spans across a wide range of areas from music videos, to lectures of any sort, films, and more recently live broadcasts.
The website is now part of Google’s portfolio, who acquired the platform in 2006 for $1.65 billion.
What’s the story of YouTube?
YouTube was founded by three ex-PayPal employees back in February 2005. Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim created the platform after Hurley and Chen had problems sharing homemade videos of a house party.
However, Karim usually says the idea for the website came up following Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction at Super Bowl 2004 which exposed her breast in from of millions of spectators.
YouTube was then launched in February 2005, as a start-up with an investment of $11.5 million made by Sequoia Capital.
The first ever uploaded video was “Me at the zoo”, by Karim. Today, the website amounts to four billion video views a day with one billion people entering the website to watch the content.
