Business Spotlight: YouTube Part 1

Ask an elementary school student what they want to be when they grow up and it’s highly likely they’ll say a YouTuber. And who can blame them? YouTube is the second-most visited website in the world, and some of its biggest stars earn more than $20 million (¥2.2 billion) per year. But it hasn’t always been this way. YouTube started as the brainchild of three PayPal employees in 2005. Initially, the founders had hoped to start an online dating site, but they soon recognized the potential of video-sharing and released a rudimentary version of today’s YouTube onto the internet in April 2005. YouTube’s easy-to-use interface made it an overnight success and by the summer of 2006 it was receiving over 100 million views per day, making it one of the fastest-growing websites ever. However, with popularity came complications. More and more equipment had to be acquired to handle the big user numbers, and the company ran into legal issues due to copyright infringements. To avoid further issues, YouTube made agreements with several large media companies and started running advertisements. As a result, the site began to feature professionally made media, as well as the amateur content it had become known for. To be continued… This article was provided by The Japan Times Alpha.