Difficulty in finding enough dating videos led to a change of plans, with the site’s founders deciding to accept uploads of any video. They created posts on Craigslist asking attractive women to upload videos of themselves to YouTube in exchange for a $100 reward. Hurley and Chen said that the original idea for YouTube was a video version of an online dating service and had been influenced by the website Hot or Not. According to a story that has often been repeated in the media, Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube during the early months of 2005, after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen’s apartment in San Francisco.
YouTube has faced numerous challenges and criticisms in its attempts to deal with copyright, including the site’s first viral video, Lazy Sunday, which had to be taken down, due to copyright concerns. On November 11, 2021, after testing out this change in March of the same year, YouTube announced it would start hiding dislike counts on videos, making them invisible to viewers. That was disputed by Billboard, which said that the two billion views had been moved to Vevo, since the videos were no longer active on YouTube.
In April 2017, YouTube set an eligibility requirement of 10,000 lifetime views for a paid subscription. Usually, no more than half of the eligible videos have a pre-roll advertisement, due to a lack of interested advertisers. According to TubeMogul, in 2013 a pre-roll advertisement on YouTube (one that is shown before the video starts) cost advertisers on average $7.60 per 1000 views. Google stated that it had “begun an extensive review of our advertising policies and have made a public commitment to put in place changes that give brands more control over where their ads appear”.
Videos of the 2.5% of artists categorized as “mega”, “mainstream” and “mid-sized” received 90.3% of the relevant views on YouTube and Vevo in that year. Indie creators have built grassroots followings numbering in the thousands at very little cost or effort, while mass retail and radio promotion proved problematic. As of 2018update, public access to YouTube is blocked by China, North Korea, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Eritrea, Sudan and South Sudan mostly due to freedom of speech laws.
In May 2022, Google announced that they would be shutting down YouTube Go in August 2022. On February 1, 2018, it was rolled out in 130 countries worldwide, including Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, and Iraq. In February 2017, YouTube Go was launched in India, and expanded in November 2017 to 14 other countries, including Nigeria, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Kenya, and South Africa. Discovery (including among others Bravo, USA Network, Syfy, Disney Channel, CNN, Cartoon Network, E!, Fox Sports 1, Freeform, FX and ESPN). Other functions of Google Play Movies & TV were integrated into the Google TV service.
This will occur on channels whose content is deemed “advertiser-friendly”, and all revenue will go directly to Google without any share given to the uploader. DeFranco argued that not being able to earn advertising revenue on such videos was “censorship by a different name”. The move was seen as an attempt to ensure that videos being monetized did not lead to controversy, but was criticized for penalizing smaller YouTube channels.
In June 2007, YouTube began trials of a system for automatic detection of uploaded videos that infringe copyright. On November 1, 2016, the dispute with GEMA was resolved, with Google content ID being used to allow advertisements to be added to videos with content protected by GEMA. Three successful complaints for copyright infringement against a user account will result in the account and all of its uploaded videos being deleted. YouTube does not view videos before they are posted online, and it is left to copyright holders to issue a DMCA takedown notice pursuant to the terms of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act. At the time of uploading a video, YouTube users are shown a message asking them not to violate copyright laws.
new features to help creators shine on TV screens
Besides helping to bolster ratings and long-term viewership for Saturday Night Live, “Lazy Sunday”‘s status as an early viral video helped establish YouTube as an important website. YouTube was not the first video-sharing site on the Internet; Vimeo was founded in November 2004, though that site remained a side project of its developers from CollegeHumor. The site exited beta in December 2005, by which time the site was receiving 8 million views a day. Between November 2005 and April 2006, the company raised money from various investors, with Sequoia Capital and Artis Capital Management being the largest two.
- In early April 2017, the YouTube channel h3h3Productions presented evidence claiming that a Wall Street Journal article had fabricated screenshots showing major brand advertising on an offensive video containing Johnny Rebel music overlaid on a Chief Keef music video, citing that the video itself had not earned any ad revenue for the uploader.
- In May 2013, Nintendo began enforcing its copyright ownership and claiming the advertising revenue from video creators who posted screenshots of its games.
- That year, the company again changed its interface and at the same time, introduced a new logo with a darker shade of red.
- After testing earlier in 2021, YouTube removed public display of dislike counts on videos in November 2021, claiming the reason for the removal was, based on its internal research, that users often used the dislike feature as a form of cyberbullying and brigading.
- In April 2024, YouTube announced it would be “strengthening our enforcement on third-party apps that violate YouTube’s Terms of Service, specifically ad-blocking apps”.
YouTube Official Blog Card Grid
Additionally, to compete with TikTok and Instagram Reels, YouTube released YouTube Shorts, a short-form video platform. Joining the YouTube Kids app, the company created a supervised mode, designed more for tweens, in 2021. Following criticisms of its implementation of those systems, YouTube started treating all videos designated as “made for kids” as liable under COPPA on January 6, 2020. By February 2017, one billion hours of YouTube videos were being watched every day, and 400 hours worth of videos were uploaded every minute. These channel subscriptions complemented the existing Super Chat ability, launched in 2017, which allows viewers to donate between $1 and $500 to have their comment highlighted. This effort was discontinued in January 2018 and relaunched in June, with US$4.99 channel subscriptions.
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YouTube, a video sharing platform, has faced various criticisms over the years, particularly regarding content moderation, offensive content, and monetization. YouTube VR allows for access to all YouTube-hosted videos, but particularly supports headset access for chicken road 2 game 360° and 180°-degree video (both in 2D and stereoscopic 3D). It also allowed users to preview videos, share downloaded videos through Bluetooth, and offered more options for mobile data control and video resolution. In September 2016, YouTube Go was announced, as an Android app created for making YouTube easier to access on mobile devices in emerging markets.
App I love But…..
First released on February 15, 2015, as an Android and iOS mobile app, the app has since been released for LG, Samsung, and Sony smart TVs, as well as for Android TV. As of June 2017update, the first season of YouTube Originals had received 250 million views in total. In 2012, clicking on the image of a DVD next to the site logo led to a video about a purported option to order every YouTube video for home delivery on DVD. The next year, the site celebrated its “100th anniversary” with a range of sepia-toned silent, early 1900s-style films, including a parody of Keyboard Cat.
- In July 2023, YouTube removed the channel of British journalist Graham Phillips, active in covering the war in Donbas from 2014.
- In September 2016, YouTube Go was announced, as an Android app created for making YouTube easier to access on mobile devices in emerging markets.
- YouTube was not the first video-sharing site on the Internet; Vimeo was founded in November 2004, though that site remained a side project of its developers from CollegeHumor.
- In April 2013, it was reported that Universal Music Group and YouTube have a contractual agreement that prevents content blocked on YouTube by a request from UMG from being restored, even if the uploader of the video files a DMCA counter-notice.
YouTube VR
In 2010, YouTube temporarily released a “TEXTp” mode which rendered video imagery into ASCII art letters “in order to reduce bandwidth costs by $1 per second.” The next year, when clicking on a video on the main page, the whole page turned upside down, which YouTube claimed was a “new layout”. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov labeled the court decision as “symbolic” and warned Google that it “should not be restricting the actions of our broadcasters on its platform.”
Tubi: Movies & Live TV
In December 2024, YouTube began testing a new multiplayer feature for that service, supporting multiplayer functionality across desktop and mobile devices. Starting in June 2024, Google Chrome announced that it would be replacing Manifest V2 in favor of Manifest V3, effectively killing support for most ad-blockers. In late October 2023, YouTube began cracking down on the use of ad blockers on the platform. On February 16, 2023, Wojcicki announced that she would step down as CEO, with Neal Mohan named as her successor.
YouTube Kids is an American children’s video app developed by YouTube, a subsidiary of Google. YouTube Premium (formerly Music Key and YouTube Red) is YouTube’s premium subscription service. In 2016, YouTube introduced an option to watch every video on the platform in 360-degree mode with Snoop Dogg. The next year, YouTube added a music button to the video bar that played samples from “Sandstorm” by Darude.
YouTube also released YouTube Music, a third app oriented towards streaming and discovering the music content hosted on the YouTube platform. In 2013, YouTube launched a pilot program for content providers to offer premium, subscription-based channels. By 2010, the company had reached a market share of around 43% and more than 14 billion views of videos, according to comScore.
YouTube Tips and Tricks
Established media, news, and entertainment corporations have also created and expanded their visibility to YouTube channels to reach bigger audiences. Most content is generated by individuals, including collaborations between YouTubers and corporate sponsors. Since its purchase by Google, YouTube has expanded beyond the core website into mobile apps, network television, games, and the ability to link with other platforms.
The year on YouTube: The topics, creators, music, and podcasts that defined 2025
In 2023, YouTube’s advertising revenue totaled $31.7 billion, a 2% increase from the $31.1 billion reported in 2022. It also offers YouTube Premium, a paid subscription option for watching content without ads. Google expanded YouTube’s business model from generating revenue through advertisements alone to offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content explicitly produced for YouTube. YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. The developer, Google, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. Get the official YouTube app on iPhones and iPads.
On September 23, 2025, YouTube parent company Alphabet announced that it would reinstate creators that were banned for spreading misinformation about COVID-19 and the 2020 U.S. presidential election. In December 2024, YouTube introduced new guidelines prohibiting videos with clickbait titles to enhance content quality and combat misinformation. After testing earlier in 2021, YouTube removed public display of dislike counts on videos in November 2021, claiming the reason for the removal was, based on its internal research, that users often used the dislike feature as a form of cyberbullying and brigading. Most of these views came from a relatively small number of videos; according to a software engineer at that time, 30% of videos accounted for 99% of views on the site. Google’s acquisition launched newfound interest in video-sharing sites; IAC, which now owned Vimeo, focused on supporting the content creators to distinguish itself from YouTube. The same day, the company launched a public beta and by November, a Nike ad featuring Ronaldinho became the first video to reach one million total views.
YouTube has an estimated 14.8 billion videos with about 4% of those never having a view. The company stated the decision was in response to experiments which confirmed that smaller YouTube creators were more likely to be targeted in dislike brigading and harassment. On April 9, 2025, YouTube expressed support for the NO FAKES Act of 2025, introduced by Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) and Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and announced an expansion of its pilot program that is designed to identify content generated by AI. On July 30, 2025, amid the implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023 in the United Kingdom, Google announced that it would begin to enforce “age assurance” policies for selected users in the United States as a trial. Around the same time, YouTube started using server-side ad injection, which allows the platform to inject the ads directly into the video, instead of having the ad as a separate file which can be blocked.
Shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, YouTube removed all channels funded by the Russian state. Since April 2016, videos continue to be monetized while the dispute is in progress, and the money goes to whoever won the dispute. The use of Content ID to remove material automatically has led to controversy in some cases, as the videos have not been checked by a human for fair use. When this occurs, the content owner has the choice of blocking the video to make it unviewable, tracking the viewing statistics of the video, or adding advertisements to the video.citation needed
In March 2017, the government of the United Kingdom pulled its advertising campaigns from YouTube, after reports that its ads had appeared on videos containing extremist content. Access to specific videos is sometimes prevented due to copyright and intellectual property protection laws (e.g. in Germany), violations of hate speech, and preventing access to videos judged inappropriate for youth, which is also done by YouTube with the YouTube Kids app and with “restricted mode”. It was distinct from the company’s main Android app and allowed videos to be downloaded and shared with other users.