Subtitles section Play video
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(organ grinder music)
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- Oh, hello there, young man
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or lady.
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Let me tell you the story of one of your favorite
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websites as I knew it back in my day.
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It's story time.
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SoYouTube is a phenomenon
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that we have all come to love.
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For many of us, it's not only a site that we use
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to learn things, like how to fix the sink,
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but it's also the site where we consume
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most of our entertainment.
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But even though many of us have made
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this website part of our everyday lives,
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very few of us know about its origins
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or just how big it really is today.
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So, today, I'm going to give you some
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little-known information about the website
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that you've come to love so much.
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So, here it is.
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10 fascinating facts about YouTube
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you didn't know.
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Number one is stats and traffic.
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There are more than 1 billion unique users
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that visit YouTube every month,
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so it's no wonder that billions of hours
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of video get watched daily,
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making YouTube the Internet's largest
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video hosting website.
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But what really makes YouTube unique
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is that many of the same people that are consuming
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this insane amount of content
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are the same people creating it.
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In fact, more than 300 hours of video are uploaded
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to YouTube every minute.
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To put that into context, the amount of video
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uploaded to the website every month is more than
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the three major U.S. television networks have created
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in the last 60 years.
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While YouTube was created and is hosted in the U.S.,
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more than 80% of traffic that comes to the website
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is from outside of the U.S.,
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meaning that all of those views allow people like me
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to make a living off of what they love,
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which is making videos.
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So, thank you for watching no matter
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where it is: at home, at work,
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on your phone on the toilet.
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Some of you are watching this video
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right now on the pooper.
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I know.
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Number two is origins.
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YouTube was founded in February of 2005
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by three early PayPal employees:
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Steven Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim.
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Hurley joined the other founders
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after he read an article about the startup
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in Wired magazine.
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He emailed them about a job,
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after which he was brought on to design
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the logo for the company,
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which is still used today.
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Interestingly, the initial seed money for YouTube
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came from when eBay bought PayPal
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and provided bonuses to the three guys.
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When it started to become popular,
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the choice of the name YouTube.com
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became a huge problem for a similarly named
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website UTube.com.
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The site's owner, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment
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filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November of 2006
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after being regularly overloaded by people
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looking for the site.
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Universal Tube has since changed
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the name of their website to UTubeOnline.com.
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Could you imagine if any of the viral sensations
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that happened now occurred back then?
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That would be pretty confusing.
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"Hey Jimmy, this guy's emailing me
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"about a Harlem Shake.
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"Do we carry one of those?"
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Number three is YouTube as a dating service.
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Not many people know that YouTube
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actually first started as a video dating service.
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Originally called Tune In and Hook Up,
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the website was heavily influenced
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by the website Hot or Not.
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Although it operated in the same fashion,
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the three founders decided not to go
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with the dating site idea,
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but decided to keep the video portion of it.
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Then, two important events occurred
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that forever shaped what we would come to know
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as YouTube.
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The first event was when Karim was unable to find
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the infamous Janet Jackson
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wardrobe malfunction video online.
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The second event was when Hurley and Chen
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were unable to share a video from a dinner party
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with friends due to the email attachment limitations
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that still exist today.
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These two important events made the founders realize
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that there was a huge untapped potential
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for video sharing online,
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and they decided to fill that need.
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I love how honest they are
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about how the website started, too.
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"Well, I couldn't find the titties I wanted to see
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"online, so I started a website that I could use
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"to watch them titties."
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Number four is humble beginnings.
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YouTube offices are known for being cool places
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full of free food, drinks,
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and awesome facilities for employees,
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but the original YouTube office, created in 2005,
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was anything but glamorous.
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In fact, Chad Hurley's garage was the foundation
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for the first-ever YouTube office.
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They started off slow,
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but eventually in 2006 were able to move
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into an office space above a pizzeria
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near San Mateo, California.
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It was there that they hired the first 20 YouTube employees
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all eager to be a part of something
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exciting and new.
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Surprisingly, and embarassingly,
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in an attempt to popularize the site,
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the company offered $100 to attractive girls
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who posted 10 videos or more on the site.
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Yeah, that's kinda creepy.
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The advertisement was even placed on Craigslist
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but was completely ignored,
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leaving YouTube with no responses.
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What is it about tech nerds and garages,
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inventors and garages,
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and bands and garages?
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I guess if you need to solve something,
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you just go sleep in your garage.
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(snap) Boom.
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Done.
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Number five is now and then.
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Before 300 hours of video was being uploaded
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to the site every minute,
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it all started with just one,
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a 19 second clip called "Me at the Zoo."
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Shot by Yakov Lapitsky, a friend of Jawed Karim,
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it shows Jawed at the San Diego Zoo
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in front of an elephant enclosure
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talking about how long their trunks are.
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Since its upload on April 23, 2005,
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it has gained a whopping almost 19 million views.
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It's the only video on Jawed's channel,
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yet that channel has gained over 70,000 subscribers.
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In 2008, Jawed launched a venture fund
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called Youniverty Ventures,
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which helps current and former university students
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realize their business ideas.
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However, Jawed still remains interested in YouTube
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and even spoke out agains the Google+ integration
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in 2013 that requires users to have a Google+ account
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in order to comment on videos,
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which is something everyone loved so very much.
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Well, the first YouTube video may have been basic,
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but at least he wasn't twerking or something.
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Those were simpler times.
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Number six is YouTube's purchase.
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Within just one year of being launched,
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YouTube became a very popular video sharing site.
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This got the attention of Google
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who saw the potential that online video had,
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and in October of 2006, Google bought YouTube
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for $1.6 billion in stock
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from the three founders only 18 months
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after the site's creation.
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This worked out quite well
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because the founders were just as interested
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in selling the website as Google was interested
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in buying it.
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At the time, YouTube had been in multiple legal battles
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with several media companies
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over copyright infringement lawsuits.
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Another reason that the founders
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were so eager to sell it was that on top of the lawsuits,
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despite its popularity, YouTube was losing money
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at a rate of $500,000 a month.
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Of course, Google doesn't enter any business arrangement
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with the intention of losing money,
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so they were the ones to introduce
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advertising on the platform.
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Since that purchase, YouTube has grown
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exponentially, year over year,
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making it the second biggest search engine
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just behind Google.com.
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So, in other words, Google has a monopoly
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on Internet search.
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No Microsoft.
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Don't say Bing.
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Shut, shut your mouth.
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Shut your mouth.
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No one uses it.
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It's never gonna be a thing.
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Just stop.
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Number seven is milestones.
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You may be curious as to some
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of the firsts, or milestones on YouTube,
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so here's some notable ones.
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The first ever YouTube video to hit
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1 million views was Brazilian soccer star
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Ronaldinho's Nike ad called "Touch of Gold"
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after it went viral in 2005.
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In 2006, NBC became the first traditional media company
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to strike a deal with YouTube
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to put their content on the site.
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In 2007, YouTube launched the Partnership Program,
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which allowed people to get paid
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for the content that they upload
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to the site, which of course, changed everything.
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In April of 2009, YouTube and Vivendi
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teamed up to launch the new music video
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service called Vevo.
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In November of 2009,
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high-definition video was
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finally enabled on the site.
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In 2010, YouTube began offering movies
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for rent on the site.
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In 2011, YouTube Live was created to enable
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the website to stream everything
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from concerts to news coverage.
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And of course, as of today, there are thousands
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of YouTube partners making a living
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off of the site.
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It's a good living, as long as you can get past
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the troll comments.
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I know I'm bald, ok, damn! (loud crying)
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Number eight is research.
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Over the years, a lot of research has been done
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on Youtube, its success, and how it's affected culture.
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But, despite all the research collected,
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it's still not known what makes a video
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go viral, although humor,
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genuine emotion, and the human experience
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all seem to be the most appealing factors.
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In fact, research concluded that "going viral"
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is not a strategy, but instead, an outcome.
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They also found that the success of YouTube
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came down to four key factors.
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The service offers video recommendations
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via the "related video list."
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Next, is that users can easily share videos
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and embed videos on popular websites.
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The third is that there's a sense of community
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and interactivity on the site.
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And, finally, of course, the incentive
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of the partnership program.
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Of course, if there was a fifth,
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it would be cat videos.
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A staple of any successful video sharing site, my friends.
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Number nine is sharing.
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YouTube was, in fact, not the first video sharing website.
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Started in 1997 by Chase Norlin,
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ShareYourWorld.com was the first-ever
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video-sharing website.
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It was designed to watch and share video
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over the Internet.