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Agence France-Presse

YouTube has evolved from a dinner party lark 20 years ago into a modern lifestyle staple poised to overtake US cable television in paid viewership.
PayPal colleagues Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim conceived YouTube in 2005, reportedly during a dinner party. The domain YouTube.com launched on Valentine’s Day that year.
Video uploading capabilities were added on April 23, when Karim posted the first video, titled “Me at the Zoo”. The 19-second clip showing Karim at the San Diego Zoo’s elephant exhibit has garnered 348 million views.
Over the next 20 years, the site has expanded beyond what was imagined possible back in 2005.
“YouTube was started by tech bros who wanted a video hosting service to watch reruns of Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ during the Super Bowl,” said eMarketer analyst Ross Benes.
“Now, it’s the world’s largest digital video service in terms of time spent and ad revenue – it’s an utter behemoth.”

YouTube reached more than 2.5 billion viewers globally last year, with its music and premium-tier subscribers hitting 100 million, according to market tracker Statista.
Users worldwide watch more than a billion hours of YouTube content daily on television sets alone, Alphabet’s Google reported.
“If you go back 20 years, it would have seemed laughable that this website with kids making parody videos would become a threat to Disney, ABC and CBS,” eMarketer’s Benes said.
“That’s what they were able to accomplish.”
YouTube’s breakthrough came from challenging traditional TV titans without requiring studios or production costs. It was users who were creating and uploading the content.
The platform hosts everything from concert clips to political campaign ads to how-to videos and much more.
“The amount of new stuff coming out is a firehose that you can’t turn off, so people are always tuning in,” Benes said.
According to Google, more than 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

Analysts consider Google’s 2006 purchase of YouTube for US$1.65 billion in stock a pivotal moment. It combined Google’s search-and-advertising expertise with a video-sharing platform that had passionate users.
“YouTube was part of the recovery from the dot-com collapse, when people realized monetisation was actually important,” said tech analyst Rob Enderle. “YouTube became an example of how dot-coms should have been done, as opposed to how they were done in the late 1990s.”
Google used its advertising know-how to build a successful model, sharing revenue with creators who attract significant audiences.
The company also enhanced technology and negotiated with studios to address copyright violations on what was once considered the Wild West of video content.
“The piracy aspect isn’t quite there the way it used to be at YouTube,” eMarketer’s Benes said. “They used to have nudity, too.”
YouTube also worked its way past concerns that disturbing content, like parody videos of popular cartoon characters in violent or risqué situations, were being served up to children by its recommendation software.
The company launched a free “Kids” app that was promoted as a safe space for children, and is constantly tweaking its algorithm to avoid offending users, advertisers and governments.
Analyst Enderle credited much of YouTube’s development into a formidable platform to former chief executive Susan Wojcicki, who died last year.
“She was phenomenal at her job and showcased how something like this should be done,” Enderle said.

YouTube is projected to surpass all US cable television services in paid subscribers within two years, according to eMarketer.
The platform now competes with streaming services like Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime, as well as short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram’s Reels.
In response to TikTok’s popularity, YouTube introduced its “Shorts” feature, which averages more than 70 billion views daily.
“As the original streaming-video platform, YouTube has continued to evolve and differentiate,” Mike Proulx, vice-president and research director at Forrester, said. “It’s the de facto standard for long-form user-generated video, literally defining the modern ‘creator’.”
While YouTube’s recommendation algorithm has traditionally favoured established creators, long-time content maker “Robert G” noted that emerging creators are once again being featured on the homepage.
“I’m really happy that YouTube is changing,” said Robert G, who began uploading videos in 2009.
“YouTube is part of me; it is what I do.”


YouTube, the world’s largest online video service, turns 20 on Valentine’s Day

Meet Jake Paul’s Olympian speed-skater girlfriend Jutta Leerdam: the 26-year-old Dutch athlete won a silver medal at the Beijing 2022 Olympics and ‘never ever expected to date’ the YouTuber-turned-boxer

Monkeys attack tourists at Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, egged on by YouTubers, officials say

Gen Z chef goes from shooting viral TikTok cooking videos to owning a restaurant in Madrid

YouTube and YouTubers

YouTube was reportedly conceived as a dinner-party lark 20 years ago. The domain YouTube.com was launched on Valentine’s Day in 2005. Photo: AFP

YouTube’s founders supposedly created the service so people can watch reruns of the infamous “wardrobe malfunction” of Janet Jackson, left, at the end of her half-time show with fellow singer Justin Timberlake at Super Bowl XXXVIII in Houston, Texas, on February 1, 2004. Photo: Reuters

YouTube reached more than 2.5 billion viewers globally last year. Photo: Shutterstock

Former YouTube chief executive Susan Wojcicki speaks during the introduction of YouTube TV in Los Angeles on February 28, 2017. She died of lung cancer at age 56 last year. Photo: AP

The AI video arms race and why Google and others are paying YouTube creators for footage

YouTube megastar Alan Chikin Chow. Photo: Youtube/Alan Chikin Chow

Vloggers on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok are selling unused footage to AI video companies to diversify their income streams. Photo: Shutterstock

AI companies are paying content creators between US$1 and US$4 per minute of footage, with 4K video and footage captured by drones or using 3D animations fetching a higher price. Photo: Shutterstock

YouTuber Alan Chikin Chow is represented by Creative Artists Agency, a company which has over a dozen clients in talks with AI companies. Photo: YouTube/Alan Chikin Chow

CAA also represents Amelia Dimoldenberg, who recently interviewed Ryan Reynolds on her web series Chicken Shop Date. Photo: YouTube/Amelia Dimoldenberg

Shanghai food writer turns to YouTube to bring ‘amazing’ Chinese cuisine stories to world

A dumpling master preparing the dough for Chinese soup dumplings. Photo: Sheila Zhao

Christopher St. Cavish is a household name in Shanghai, and has been called “the Bourdain of China”. Now the food writer known for his Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index is telling hidden food stories from across China on YouTube. Photo: Sheila Zhao

St. Cavish in Kaifeng city, in China’s Henan province. He is revered for his expert knowledge of Chinese food. Photo: Graeme Kennedy

Xiaolongbao soup dumplings are an obsession for Christopher St. Cavish, who released his well-received Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index in 2015. Photo: Sheila Zhao

Christopher St. Cavish took four measurements of dumplings for his viral Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index: their weight, that of the soup and of the filling, and the thickness of the wrapper. Photo: Sheila Zhao

St. Cavish used calipers and scales to take measurements for his Shanghai Soup Dumpling Index. Photo: Sheila Zhao

Workers quickly fold xiaolongbao for the steamer. Photo: Sheila Zhao

A “dumpling master” prepares the dough for xiaolongbao, or soup dumplings. Photo: Sheila Zhao

Videographer and photographer Graeme Kennedy, who has previously collaborated with St. Cavish, works on the YouTube channel with him. Photo: Sheila Zhao

From Aespa’s KCON show to YouTube, Hong Kong K-pop cover dancers are chasing their dreams

Members of Hong Kong K-pop dance cover group Pixel HK. Photo: PixelHK

K-pop dance cover group Pixel HK during a shoot in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. The group copies the choreography, costumes and mannerisms of their favourite Korean artists for their YouTube videos, as part of an international trend. Photo: Annie Cheung

Hong Kong K-pop fans perform Aespa’s hit single “Next Level” alongside the group at KCON Hong Kong. Photo: KCON Hong Kong

Cherri Au backstage at Hong Kong KCON 2024. For her, dancing alongside Aespa was a dream come true. Photo: Cherri Au

From left, Sherry Lai, Anna Kwok, Tiana Li, Rain To, Yulia Ng, Jessica Tse and Yanyi Choi of Pixel HK perform a K-pop dance routine in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Photo: Annie Cheung

From left, Tiana Li, Yanyi Choi and Sherry Lai of Pixel HK. Photo: @auaugust_

From left, Jessica Tse, Yulia Ng, Rain To and Anna Kwok of Pixel HK. Photo: @auaugust_ 

6 pop stars who started out on YouTube: from Justin Bieber and The Weeknd to Shawn Mendes, Troye Sivan, Alessia Cara and Conan Gray – but who was completely anonymous at first?

The Weeknd, Alessia Cara and Shawn Mendes all got their start on YouTube. Photos: @theweekend, @alessiaspastpresentfuture/Instagram; Invision/AP

Before Justin Bieber shot to global fame, he had been covering songs as a kid. Photo: Universal Music

Troye Sivan in 2018. Photo: Shutterstock

Young Troye Sivan posted vlogs on YouTube. Photo: Troye Sivan/YouTube

Conan Gray’s song “Idle Town”, released in 2017, went viral. Photo: YouTube

Shawn Mendes at the 2020 Grammys. Photo: AP

Abel Tesfaye aka The Weeknd, in 2015. Photo: AP

Alessia Cara got her big break covering a song by The Neighbourhood. Photo: @alessiasmusic/Instagram

YouTube, the world’s largest online video service, turns 20 on Valentine’s Day

More than 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute