Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and
Speaker 1: I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me, smirking at my unusual delivery as usual,
Speaker 1: is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. I've got an idea for
Speaker 1: a movie, and it goes like this. It's about a
Speaker 1: boy who gets his finger caught in a bottle of
Speaker 1: Mr pib. You know, he mystifies me. If somebody can
Speaker 1: clue me in as to the genesis of that quote,
Speaker 1: please let us know. It's a fantastic song. Alright, So
Speaker 1: today we're going to talk about something that we can't
Speaker 1: believe we haven't talked about before. Yeah. In fact, we
Speaker 1: did a search just before we got it started on
Speaker 1: this podcast just to make sure we haven't talked about
Speaker 1: it before. And according to our search, we have never
Speaker 1: talked about YouTube, at least not specifically about YouTube. I'm
Speaker 1: sure we've mentioned YouTube because you know, there's a site
Speaker 1: called YouTube. So YouTube turns out it's a big thing um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting to think it's just six years old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a little six and a half. So
Speaker 1: it's but it's it's hard to it's hard to think
Speaker 1: about the Internet before YouTube because YouTube is just everywhere,
Speaker 1: like either you're on the site or you're going to
Speaker 1: some blog or some news site that has incorporated a
Speaker 1: YouTube video into an article. I mean it's everywhere. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but you know, of course, uh, the
Speaker 1: UM Apple mobile operating system iOS, famous for not using flash,
Speaker 1: had to incorporate a U YouTube specific app because YouTube
Speaker 1: used flash on its uh delivery pages radio pages, so
Speaker 1: you couldn't go to you tube via the web browser
Speaker 1: and watch it because it flash wasn't supported on the iOS, right, right,
Speaker 1: So they made an app specifically for that. Course. Android
Speaker 1: also has a YouTube app UM. And and also we
Speaker 1: should go ahead and point out before anyone writes in
Speaker 1: that YouTube is very busy converting over flash videos to
Speaker 1: HTML five. Yes, yes, so you can watch on non
Speaker 1: flash enabled browsers of any type. UM. Also video cameras
Speaker 1: now you know they're their internet some of them are
Speaker 1: Internet enabled and you can go ahead and upload, shoot
Speaker 1: and upload right away. So I mean, just the fact
Speaker 1: that the feature is built in specifically so that you
Speaker 1: can upload your videos online shows what kind of a
Speaker 1: difference YouTube is made in our If I use my
Speaker 1: smartphone and I take a video, one of my options
Speaker 1: is I can share it directly to my YouTube channel
Speaker 1: immediately after I'm done shooting it, assuming that I've got
Speaker 1: a connection strong enough to send that data up to YouTube,
Speaker 1: which is pretty awesome. Yeah, it means that the user
Speaker 1: generated content era is really in full swing right now
Speaker 1: because you've got people who are reporting news events, they're
Speaker 1: capturing historic moments on their phones, and it's immediately sharing
Speaker 1: with billions of people around the world. Um, that's pretty phenomenal.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a great story to tell, right because
Speaker 1: you're like, hey, you know that we often wonder what
Speaker 1: is the the personal experience of this particular historic event,
Speaker 1: And we know this historic event happened, but what was
Speaker 1: it like if you were there? And now, more often
Speaker 1: than not, we know because someone somewhere had a device
Speaker 1: that was capturing video and then they uploaded it to YouTube. So,
Speaker 1: believe it or not, this all began on Valentine's Day,
Speaker 1: February two thousand five. Uh, the It was the the
Speaker 1: idea of three coworkers, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Joe
Speaker 1: Ed Karim, who worked for a company called pay Pal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: also still around and doing well. So they were heard
Speaker 1: of that they were working for PayPal, and they saw
Speaker 1: an opportunity. They thought, what if we created a website
Speaker 1: that would allow people to upload and share videos. It's
Speaker 1: sort of the same way that people were uploading and
Speaker 1: sharing photos. But you know, there were there were a
Speaker 1: few sites online where you could find video online. It's
Speaker 1: not like video had never been done online before, but
Speaker 1: there wasn't a place to go to create an account
Speaker 1: and become a part of a user generated video site.
Speaker 1: And uh so they registered the domain name YouTube dot
Speaker 1: com in February two thousan five, and the first video
Speaker 1: on YouTube dot com didn't go up until April, almost
Speaker 1: the end of April two thousan five. And again this
Speaker 1: was a chowd kareem at the San Diego Zoo with
Speaker 1: some elephants called me at the zoo. Yes, okay anyway,
Speaker 1: um so yeah, he he. Uh. This was not a
Speaker 1: huge internet sensation because at that time, no one could
Speaker 1: access YouTube. It wasn't until May that they launched a
Speaker 1: beta of the of YouTube dot com and at that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they launched a beta in in two thousand five
Speaker 1: of May, and they attract around thirty thousand viewers each day,
Speaker 1: which for a site that's just launching, is that's pretty significant.
Speaker 1: You know, that's you know, that's that's a good amount
Speaker 1: of traffic to see people who people who launch a
Speaker 1: brand new site that had no presence on the web beforehand.
Speaker 1: That's exciting and uh and it it was doing pretty well.
Speaker 1: But then they decided to try and um increase their
Speaker 1: membership by running a promotion. Did you hear about this
Speaker 1: promotion that they did? So they're in beta and they
Speaker 1: run a promotion that says they will give away one
Speaker 1: iPod nano per day through the end of the year,
Speaker 1: which was a membership drive attempt essentially, and it worked.
Speaker 1: People started signing up like gangbusters, hoping to win one
Speaker 1: of those iPod nanos. Well, then you've got these three
Speaker 1: guys who say, look, we've got this videos sharing site.
Speaker 1: We've got a huge amount of interest. Look at how
Speaker 1: many people are signing up per day. Look at how
Speaker 1: many thousands of people are watching videos per day. So
Speaker 1: they start shopping that around to venture capitalists, and uh
Speaker 1: that got venture capitalists interested in investing, and by November
Speaker 1: of two thousand five, uh Sequoia invested three point five
Speaker 1: million dollars in funding to YouTube. So this this site
Speaker 1: is half a year old, right, it has no way
Speaker 1: of generating revenue at this point. There's no way for
Speaker 1: YouTube to make money. There's they don't they don't have
Speaker 1: anything in place. They don't charge anyone for uploading stuff,
Speaker 1: and only that video has a pretty high bandwidth requirement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's anyone who has their own website on their
Speaker 1: own web host knows a lot of companies charge for
Speaker 1: the amount of bandwidth that you use. Now, UH mine
Speaker 1: says it doesn't. However, if I had a website the
Speaker 1: size of Amazon on there, I don't know if they
Speaker 1: would change their Like, okay, we don't except for you.
Speaker 1: You know. Now now we're talking big bandwid Yeah, because
Speaker 1: you're talking about lots of resources dedicated on the network
Speaker 1: to keep your site going. Not just your site, like,
Speaker 1: not just the servers that you're running and wherever you
Speaker 1: happen to be, but the actual backbone of the Internet,
Speaker 1: you know, having to carry that traffic and of course,
Speaker 1: there's arguments about whether or not that would slow down
Speaker 1: other traffic, and then there's arguments about whether or not
Speaker 1: that's the responsibility of the Internet service provider versus the
Speaker 1: site owner. We're not going to get into all that. Plus,
Speaker 1: you make a good point, it's not really when you
Speaker 1: think about it, it's not just bandwidth, it's also server
Speaker 1: space because video can be very resource intensive, both bandwidth
Speaker 1: and server space, and so, uh, this is going to
Speaker 1: require some money to to keep it going and growing
Speaker 1: at that rate. Yeah, because YouTube does not take a
Speaker 1: peer to peer approach. It's not it's not like your
Speaker 1: video is hosted on your computer and people are watching
Speaker 1: it through you know, YouTube's acting as some sort of
Speaker 1: traffic controller and allowing people to watch it. You know,
Speaker 1: you are uploading those videos to YouTube, and so YouTube
Speaker 1: has to store those videos somewhere, which means that they
Speaker 1: have a server farm actually probably lots of them by now,
Speaker 1: because by now especially yeah, by now, well we'll get
Speaker 1: back to talking about two thousand and five. So three
Speaker 1: point five million dollars in funding that lets YouTube continue
Speaker 1: to uh, to stay afloat and work and grow and
Speaker 1: kind of figure out what they're gonna do so. By
Speaker 1: that time, they were up to about two million videos
Speaker 1: viewed per day and two thousand registered users. So you
Speaker 1: get down to December of two thousand five, December five
Speaker 1: and YouTube opens officially to the public. They are out
Speaker 1: of beta. So they got three point five millions dollars
Speaker 1: before even getting out of beta. Man, when I hear
Speaker 1: stories like this, I just think I'm so stupid. I
Speaker 1: wish I were smart like these guys. These guys, they
Speaker 1: just nailed it right. So December fifteen, two thousand five,
Speaker 1: opens officially. There are twenty people working for YouTube, a
Speaker 1: staff of twenty people, around twenty people working for that company.
Speaker 1: And do you know what happened on December five? What happened?
Speaker 1: Two days out of beta? What's that lazy Sunday? Happened?
Speaker 1: The Saturday night live clip I posted to YouTube and
Speaker 1: started getting two million views per week. Um. That's also
Speaker 1: what helped launch Andy Sandberg's you know, startdom to startom Um,
Speaker 1: not that he hadn't started it on his own, you
Speaker 1: know that right, Lonely Island. But um, actually, according to
Speaker 1: my notes, UM NBC two months later said you can't
Speaker 1: show this anymore and YouTube pulled it down. Of course,
Speaker 1: that just illustrates that copyright has been an issue for
Speaker 1: YouTube from the beginning. Yeah, and we'll get more into
Speaker 1: that in a little bit. Yeah, the I actually read something.
Speaker 1: I didn't write it down to my notes, so I
Speaker 1: don't have the specific date, but I did read something
Speaker 1: about how Jon Stewart appeared on a news talk show
Speaker 1: wasn't the Daily Show, it was some other show that
Speaker 1: he was on in his capacity as host of the
Speaker 1: Daily Show, and that more people viewed it on YouTube
Speaker 1: than they saw it on television. And so that was
Speaker 1: another one of those wake up calls of hey, this
Speaker 1: is this is a big deal. Uh So, getting into
Speaker 1: January of two thousand six, by that time, users are
Speaker 1: watching around twenty five million videos per day. So that's
Speaker 1: a astronomical number. I mean, you think about less than
Speaker 1: a year old. It went from thirty thousand views a
Speaker 1: day when it first launched two over twenty five million
Speaker 1: videos per day. Um and by March of that year,
Speaker 1: users were uploading twenty thousand videos per day. So you've
Speaker 1: got twenty thousand videos being uploaded each day, You've got
Speaker 1: twenty million videos being watched each day. It's you know,
Speaker 1: it's clearly a phenomenon. And then in April of two
Speaker 1: thousand six, YouTube gets another eight million dollars in funding
Speaker 1: from from venture capitalists. Because at that point there beenwidth
Speaker 1: costs were around one million dollars per month. It's pretty significant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: still didn't have any way of generating revenue. By the way,
Speaker 1: So you've got this company that again sounds familiar, doesn't
Speaker 1: have any way of making money, is very expensive to operate,
Speaker 1: and is incredibly popular, and so you have this question of, well,
Speaker 1: it's amazingly popular and if it went away, people would
Speaker 1: be really upset. And Uh, there's gonna be opportunity here,
Speaker 1: we just haven't been able to create it yet. Uh.
Speaker 1: Do you back that horse or do you say, you
Speaker 1: know what, Uh, it's an interesting idea, but I just
Speaker 1: don't think my money is gonna be safe there. Well,
Speaker 1: if you were one of those capitalists back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six, I hope you backed your horse. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, if if if I were, uh, let's say,
Speaker 1: working for a very large company at this point, I
Speaker 1: would be thinking, wow, look at this. You know, they
Speaker 1: don't have a plan. Uh, but it's obvious there's opportunity here.
Speaker 1: And uh, if we if we say, purchase them outright?
Speaker 1: We could, uh, we could. We could make a lot
Speaker 1: of this, or it could it could you know, be
Speaker 1: too much for us to handle if we can't find
Speaker 1: a way to monetize it. If we just had some
Speaker 1: creative people who were really good at finding ways to
Speaker 1: make money from something like that, we could buy these
Speaker 1: guys outright. That would be amazing, wouldn't it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you'd have to be somebody big. You're you're foreshadowing. I
Speaker 1: haven't gotten there yet. I'm just saying, okay, okay, Well
Speaker 1: we'll keep that in mind. Well, do you know what
Speaker 1: happened In April six, two thou six, one of the
Speaker 1: greatest YouTube videos of all time was uploaded to YouTube. Yes,
Speaker 1: one of the ones that, for for many many ages
Speaker 1: held the title of the most watched YouTube video of
Speaker 1: all time. It is no longer that that video. By
Speaker 1: the way, I will tell you what is the most
Speaker 1: watched video of all time on YouTube? Towards the end
Speaker 1: of the podcast, okay, is this uh the Evolution of dance?
Speaker 1: The Evolution of dance, Yes, which at the time of
Speaker 1: the recording of this podcast has about two point five
Speaker 1: million views. That's a lot of views. That's a lot
Speaker 1: of Ye, that's still one of the most watched video,
Speaker 1: especially when you talk about user generated because the one
Speaker 1: that has taken the top spot now is not a
Speaker 1: user generated video. So we'll we'll go back into that
Speaker 1: nixt and talk about that in a little bit. Because
Speaker 1: YouTube has gotten so big now that major players and
Speaker 1: other forms of media have partnered with YouTube because your
Speaker 1: YouTube's where the audience is, right, I mean, you have
Speaker 1: these major players that could be putting their stuff on
Speaker 1: their own sites, and most of them do, but if
Speaker 1: the audience is already at YouTube, it makes sense to
Speaker 1: partner with him and and not fight with them. And
Speaker 1: we'll get more into that in a little bit. So,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, that that launched on April six. That was
Speaker 1: that was first uploaded then. And if you don't know
Speaker 1: what the Evolution of Dance video is on YouTube, you
Speaker 1: should go check it out. It is pretty entertaining. It's
Speaker 1: a guy who named Judson who does a series of
Speaker 1: dances from various eras and it's not truly an evolution
Speaker 1: because he jumps around in the timeline quite a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it is an entertaining, uh show of some of
Speaker 1: the more ridiculous dance moves that that human beings have
Speaker 1: created over time. And he's quite quite funny in the
Speaker 1: way he strings them together. He doesn't a very very
Speaker 1: fluid and funny way. Um. And if you haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: then that's pretty remarkable since a two million point five
Speaker 1: you know, people, well maybe not people views because some
Speaker 1: of those are probably repeat viewings. Um. And then you
Speaker 1: get to right around that time, YouTube accounted for forty
Speaker 1: three of all the videos viewed on the internet back
Speaker 1: in uh in two thousand and six, So if you
Speaker 1: were watching a video on the Internet, there was nearly
Speaker 1: a fifty fifty chance that was on YouTube. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so it's YouTube and everybody else and of them is YouTube.
Speaker 1: That is that's huge. I mean, that's huge for anything
Speaker 1: anything on the internet. If you're like, you know, I
Speaker 1: sell shoes on the internet, and forty percent of the
Speaker 1: people who buy shoes on the internet do it through
Speaker 1: my store, that means, you know, all of your competitors
Speaker 1: added together, are just barely more of the market than
Speaker 1: you are. That is a huge story. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: we get into July of two thousand and six. At
Speaker 1: that point they hit a hundred million videos viewed per
Speaker 1: day and the staff. This this was reflected in YouTube's
Speaker 1: hiring craze. They went from a staff of twenty to
Speaker 1: just over thirty. Clearly they were drunk with power. Um.
Speaker 1: Now this is a good example because the YouTube, I mean,
Speaker 1: we should also point out YouTube launched after the bubble
Speaker 1: burst in the dot com bubble, so presumably they were
Speaker 1: able to learn from some of the mistakes made by
Speaker 1: companies in the dot com bubble where they there were
Speaker 1: other companies before the bubble burst that started to get big,
Speaker 1: got a huge uh investment going where lots of people
Speaker 1: were pouring money into these companies. They expanded out of control,
Speaker 1: far beyond their capability of managing that, and then they collapsed.
Speaker 1: YouTube took a different view there. They expanded, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't like they went from a staff of twenty to
Speaker 1: a staff of two hundred to a staff of two thousand.
Speaker 1: You know, they were doing it in a much more
Speaker 1: controlled way, which is you know, I don't know any
Speaker 1: of the founders of YouTube, they won't return my calls,
Speaker 1: but I assume that they were. They were doing this
Speaker 1: in a very deliberate way. You know, they weren't hiring
Speaker 1: people just because they could hire people. They were hiring
Speaker 1: the people they needed, which is, you know, a great advice.
Speaker 1: So now we're getting into October two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: and this is where the foreshadowing that Chris was was
Speaker 1: engaged in earlier pays off. So it was October nine,
Speaker 1: two thousand six, when a certain announcement hit the the interwebs,
Speaker 1: which I know some of you hate, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say it again, the interwebs, the series of tubes, the
Speaker 1: series of tubes. Yes, this was when a certain large
Speaker 1: company said that it was interested in purchasing YouTube for
Speaker 1: a tidy little sum, only one point six five billion
Speaker 1: with a B with a B dollars. That is a
Speaker 1: big with the B number. When you factor in all
Speaker 1: the investment money we've talked about up to this point,
Speaker 1: it ranged it's right around twelve million with an M.
Speaker 1: So for a company to come out and say I
Speaker 1: want to buy you for one point six five billion
Speaker 1: with a B, you listen. And of course that that
Speaker 1: company's name was Google, yep, Google, and uh Google was saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, we see potential in this in this as
Speaker 1: we think that this is a valuable company. We wanted
Speaker 1: to be part of ours and at that time, that
Speaker 1: was the most Google had ever paid for an acquisition.
Speaker 1: Since then, Google has thrown money around like it was nothing,
Speaker 1: but at back in two thousand six one point six
Speaker 1: five billion dollars, that was the biggest acquisition they had
Speaker 1: made up to that point. Yes, yes, so they got
Speaker 1: a lot for their money though, oh they sure did.
Speaker 1: They got a lot of bandwidth charges from um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and so you want to continue with your timeline,
Speaker 1: because that's that's where my timeline where I ended. And
Speaker 1: I started focusing on more kind of stats about YouTube.
Speaker 1: But you've got more about their history. If you have
Speaker 1: any other highlights you would like to hit, yeah, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I actually pulled part of my time from the Brief
Speaker 1: but Impactful History of YouTube by H. David Lydsky And
Speaker 1: this was actually done in February two ten. There have
Speaker 1: been some other stuff, other significant events. That's probably the biggest. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's probably where the the YouTube the pure YouTube timeline
Speaker 1: ends to some degree. Um. But there are some some
Speaker 1: important events since the Google acquisition. One of the first
Speaker 1: was the presidential debate. July seven was the first YouTube
Speaker 1: CNN debate UM and people were allowed to submit their
Speaker 1: own questions on video, so that aired. Although that aired
Speaker 1: on on national TV. It also it was sort of
Speaker 1: a marriage between uh TV and YouTube, which was, you know,
Speaker 1: a very different sort of opportunity for debate because usually
Speaker 1: the questions for presidential abate are decided upon by you know,
Speaker 1: the news agencies, UH and people who are preparing these
Speaker 1: and they're unveiled right then and there. Um let's see.
Speaker 1: UH and and seven of the sixteen presidential candidates in
Speaker 1: the two thousand eight presidential election UH in the United
Speaker 1: States were announced on YouTube. UM. So that just shows
Speaker 1: that the politics in the United States are being influenced
Speaker 1: by uh, the audiences who are tuning in to the internet. UM.
Speaker 1: Susan Boyle in two thousand nine became a celebrity on YouTube. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we've talked about people that. That's probably why
Speaker 1: you were thinking that we had a YouTube episode, because
Speaker 1: we were talking about people who got picked up after
Speaker 1: being that's true. We talked about people who became like
Speaker 1: celebrities like Mr Bieber. Yeah, well what and that's foreshadowing. UM.
Speaker 1: Let's see. In October two thousand nine, YouTube passed a
Speaker 1: billion videos per day. You know, you've but you've skipped
Speaker 1: over a very important day in YouTube history, which one
Speaker 1: was that January nine? Which one? What what? What? What happened?
Speaker 1: Then there was a video that I think is incredibly
Speaker 1: important that was uploaded on January nine. Does it involve
Speaker 1: a very furry personality. No, no, no, no, Keyboard Cat
Speaker 1: was before that. I was gonna say no to January
Speaker 1: three two nine was annoying Orange? Is this real life?
Speaker 1: I have two fingers, I have four fingers. David after Dinnie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: which again, you know, you were just talking about Susan
Speaker 1: while becoming a big celebrity. Well, some other folks became
Speaker 1: sort of celebrities too through YouTube videos that just went viral.
Speaker 1: And David after the Dentist After the Dentist is a
Speaker 1: viral video that hit over a hundred million views, almost
Speaker 1: a hundred and one million views of the recording of
Speaker 1: this podcast. And that's, you know, again, an example of
Speaker 1: how powerful YouTube had become at that point, because, uh,
Speaker 1: through their partner program, which we'll talk about in a second,
Speaker 1: you could actually start making money off of a video
Speaker 1: that you were just going to share. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was never any necessarily intent on the part of David's
Speaker 1: father to make money off this video. He just thought,
Speaker 1: my son is hilarious and I want to share this
Speaker 1: with people, and it just took off from there and
Speaker 1: afterwards he actually started making some serious cash off that.
Speaker 1: In fact, there are people who have been able to
Speaker 1: quit their day job because their YouTube channel took off.
Speaker 1: That's appressive. Um. And speaking of that too, I mean, uh, basically,
Speaker 1: according to Mr Litzky's article, uh, you know, in October,
Speaker 1: they did pass a billion videos per day. Um. But
Speaker 1: the thing is, even though they had revenue of about
Speaker 1: two million dollars that year, they spent seven million storing
Speaker 1: and serving the video. Um. And uh you know, of course,
Speaker 1: uh uh there are other bits and pieces UM yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I see what you did there. Um.
Speaker 1: You know the partnerships you mentioned with some of the
Speaker 1: content agencies because they're up until this point we've kind
Speaker 1: of avoided talking about, um, you know, people who had
Speaker 1: butted heads with YouTube over licensing and copyright issues. We
Speaker 1: should probably touch on that. In fact, in fact that
Speaker 1: the most famous one was Viacom Yes Viacom. Viacom sued
Speaker 1: YouTube Yes for a copyright and inagment because what was
Speaker 1: happening was that you had users that were uploading videos
Speaker 1: that contained copyrighted material. Music videos. Music videos were a
Speaker 1: big one, or using songs um that Sony also was
Speaker 1: looking into, you lawsuits against Google, but using music that
Speaker 1: was licensed, music that hadn't been licensed for that video,
Speaker 1: that was a big no no. And you see that
Speaker 1: all the time on YouTube because open up like any
Speaker 1: YouTube video that's a montage of stuff and there's usually
Speaker 1: some unlicensed music playing in the background, and if someone
Speaker 1: makes a complaint, YouTube will actually take either take the
Speaker 1: video down or sometimes they'll just strip the soundtrack out
Speaker 1: of a video. So you'll have a video that originally
Speaker 1: had music set to it and now it's silent, and
Speaker 1: you might wonder, well, why is this video have no
Speaker 1: noise or sound or anything, And that's probably the case.
Speaker 1: It's that they had originally put some sort of unlicensed
Speaker 1: music in the background and YouTube had to respond to
Speaker 1: a complaint. But you uh, you also had folks just
Speaker 1: uploading uh television episodes, usually in segments, because only YouTube
Speaker 1: limited you to ten minutes of video perer video when
Speaker 1: you upload if you weren't a partner, now it's fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: And uh, if you're a partner you don't have those limitations.
Speaker 1: But uh, you know people would upload movies and batches
Speaker 1: like could be Um, I don't know, We'll say, uh
Speaker 1: Kremlin's Part one of twelve, Part two of twelve, and
Speaker 1: part three of twelve, and people would watch these these movies. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you know YouTube was the one that was being
Speaker 1: held responsible for it, and Viacom was really seeking huge
Speaker 1: amounts of damages for this, and um, eventually this was settled. Uh.
Speaker 1: The uh what happened was that the judge in the
Speaker 1: case came to the conclusion that, uh, they were YouTube
Speaker 1: was protected under the under one of the copyright Acts
Speaker 1: and that they had they had safe harbor, so that
Speaker 1: they weren't the ones held responsible for what users were doing.
Speaker 1: That was YouTube's uh stance was that you know, we
Speaker 1: provide a place where people to upload video. We're not
Speaker 1: We're not the ones putting the videos up. We're providing
Speaker 1: the landscape those videos. So yeah, it was June, New
Speaker 1: York District Court granted a request for a summary judgment
Speaker 1: and held that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor
Speaker 1: of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and uh that's what
Speaker 1: allows YouTube to continue to work and YouTube does have
Speaker 1: a policy that if someone is posting video that violates
Speaker 1: intellectual property, the owner of the intellectual property can request
Speaker 1: for that video to be taken down or they can
Speaker 1: leave it up because some some companies have said, you know,
Speaker 1: this video has gotten really really popular and it's promoting
Speaker 1: our product, so maybe what we should do is just
Speaker 1: shut up and let it happen. Um, which is you
Speaker 1: know that that's a valid uh strategy in some cases.
Speaker 1: And also YouTube even allows if you're a content owner
Speaker 1: and you discover someone's got your content on YouTube, you
Speaker 1: can actually work with YouTube so that if they put
Speaker 1: ads on that content, you're the one who gets the
Speaker 1: money from the ads. So you know, then you're like, oh, sure,
Speaker 1: let them keep my copyrighted material up there. Just give
Speaker 1: me the money from the advertisement because that way that
Speaker 1: means I don't have to upload it. And and if
Speaker 1: multiple people are doing it, then I collected from multiple
Speaker 1: streams and I'm rolling in cash while people are keeping
Speaker 1: their videos up. So uh, they they've done a lot
Speaker 1: to work with content creators to make sure that they're
Speaker 1: satisfied that YouTube is not promoting copyright infringement. They even
Speaker 1: have a technology called content i d that scans videos
Speaker 1: looking for copyright violations. That's helpful because with the amount
Speaker 1: of material that's uploaded every day, forty eight hours per minute.
Speaker 1: Every minute that passes, forty eight hours of material are
Speaker 1: uploaded to YouTube. Yeah, so two days worth of videos
Speaker 1: are uploaded each minute. So yeah, you know, you figure
Speaker 1: like there's there's way more content on YouTube than anyone
Speaker 1: could ever see in their lifetime. Um and if you've
Speaker 1: got that much content going up, and you even if
Speaker 1: you had a staff of thousands, you could not pour
Speaker 1: through all the hours of content searching for copyright infringement
Speaker 1: instances and respond to them. It's just impossible. And and
Speaker 1: if you were to put some sort of limitation on that,
Speaker 1: it would hurt the users. And that was YouTube's argument,
Speaker 1: and the district court agreed, and UH YouTube is now
Speaker 1: moved into the realm of creating its own content in
Speaker 1: a way too, because earlier in two thousand eleven, which
Speaker 1: is the year in which we're recording, is UH YouTube
Speaker 1: reached an agreement to UH to buy next new networks,
Speaker 1: so you know, and they they're they have UH their
Speaker 1: own online videos. So now YouTube is not only partnering
Speaker 1: with different providers, but there are uh in some respect
Speaker 1: doing their own things. So, um, YouTube is really matured
Speaker 1: greatly in a very short period of time. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we had someone to ask us how people on YouTube
Speaker 1: make money. That would be the partner program. And the
Speaker 1: partner program allows people not just people, but companies as well.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got established companies like music companies and
Speaker 1: and television and movie studios that can partner with YouTube.
Speaker 1: But uh, we usually think of the individual partners. Um,
Speaker 1: these are the YouTube video creators who create a video
Speaker 1: and it goes viral, like David after the dentist YouTube. Yeah,
Speaker 1: YouTube will approach the person who uploaded that video and say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, your video is getting really good traffic and
Speaker 1: it would benefit both us and you if we could
Speaker 1: put advertisements against that video. And if we do this,
Speaker 1: you will get most of the money from the advertisement.
Speaker 1: You know, most of that that cash is going to
Speaker 1: go to you will will just take a percentage of it.
Speaker 1: And because YouTube has lots of partners, millions of partners,
Speaker 1: those little percentages that YouTube takes adds up and volume,
Speaker 1: and then the person who created the video gets most
Speaker 1: of the actual ad money for their particular video. So
Speaker 1: that's how you can actually make money off YouTube. If
Speaker 1: you create a video that goes viral and has millions
Speaker 1: of views, you can make enough money where like I said,
Speaker 1: that could be your living. There are people who who
Speaker 1: pull six figures from their YouTube videos from advertisement. That's
Speaker 1: that's a lot of cash, you know. And if you're
Speaker 1: able to consistently create videos that get that kind of traffic,
Speaker 1: which is really difficult. A lot of these videos are memes,
Speaker 1: which means it's a flash in the pan. You see
Speaker 1: it and you think it's amazing, and it's awesome, and
Speaker 1: it becomes like the talk of the Internet for an
Speaker 1: extended time. But then you do your next thing and
Speaker 1: no one pays attention because it's not the first thing.
Speaker 1: You know, We've seen that happen a lot. Not everyone
Speaker 1: can be Ninja Cat, right right? Uh? Not everyone? Like
Speaker 1: I think of the the well evolution of the dance,
Speaker 1: like that first video was crazy popular, hun an a
Speaker 1: two million views. He did a second video evolution of
Speaker 1: the dance, to which still is popular, I mean way
Speaker 1: more popular than most videos, significantly more like seventeen million
Speaker 1: views or something, but still that's one tenth of the views.
Speaker 1: That is older video cut. So, uh, that's probably a
Speaker 1: bad example because with seventeen million views, I'm sure he's
Speaker 1: still very comfortable with the amount of money that video
Speaker 1: pulls in. But uh, you know that that's just an
Speaker 1: example of how you might create something that goes really
Speaker 1: does really well, and then the next thing you create
Speaker 1: doesn't really hit anybody. That being said, there are people
Speaker 1: out there who are creating content, putting it up on
Speaker 1: YouTube and just making a living off of it. They've got,
Speaker 1: you know, people who have subscribed to that channel and
Speaker 1: they're just, uh, they're just killing it. Well, I know
Speaker 1: what that Some people uh may say, well that sounds great,
Speaker 1: and then six months from now they're going to write
Speaker 1: in and say, hey, Jonathan, you said that I could
Speaker 1: make six figures on YouTube. But the thing is your
Speaker 1: mileage may vary. In Google will tell you that. If
Speaker 1: you look at the f a Q for the Partner program,
Speaker 1: it says there's a question that says how much money
Speaker 1: can I expect to make? And they the answer essentially says, well,
Speaker 1: you can't expect to make anything necessarily. It varies with
Speaker 1: the content of you know, the public is fickle, so
Speaker 1: you never know what's gonna be the next flavor of
Speaker 1: the week. Hopefully it'll be you, in which case cut
Speaker 1: us in um. But but yeah, I mean, there's there's
Speaker 1: no guarantee that you can generate the kind of traffic
Speaker 1: that's gone going to allow you to quit your job
Speaker 1: or avoid getting one in the first place. Now, if
Speaker 1: you if you create a video, they get some good traction.
Speaker 1: YouTube might end up promoting that on their main page,
Speaker 1: which will help. Yeah, that'll help a lot. That'll they'll
Speaker 1: drive even more traffic. But so there is YouTube can
Speaker 1: do some things that will help the bottom line for you,
Speaker 1: but you have no control over those things. You know.
Speaker 1: You The best advice I can give anyone who's looking
Speaker 1: at putting up videos on YouTube is one, don't expect
Speaker 1: to make money. Don't do it for the money, because
Speaker 1: if you're doing it for the money and it doesn't
Speaker 1: work out, then you're gonna be really disillusioned and disappointed.
Speaker 1: And to put out the best stuff you possibly can
Speaker 1: make original stuff, all original stuff, or they won't take
Speaker 1: it right doing original piece. Make it the best you
Speaker 1: can make it, and best means different things, like it
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean it has to be the most polished video,
Speaker 1: and it may mean that it's you know, something that's
Speaker 1: just it strikes that funny bone, you know, it's the
Speaker 1: thing that like, it's that perfect timing where anyone who
Speaker 1: watches it immediately just has that big reaction. Uh so yeah,
Speaker 1: you just gotta put out the best stuff you can
Speaker 1: and then if it resonates with people, then you know,
Speaker 1: things could move on their own. But uh, that's you know,
Speaker 1: you can't you can't expect that or aim for that.
Speaker 1: You just have to aim for doing the best you
Speaker 1: can and hope that that that catches on. I know
Speaker 1: I know people who are trying to do that right now.
Speaker 1: Um so yeah, that's good advice for anyone. And uh
Speaker 1: of course, you know, you also have to get to
Speaker 1: the point where you're not gonna mind if people put
Speaker 1: ads up on your content, because that's how you would
Speaker 1: actually make the money. Um, I can't believe they put
Speaker 1: an ado. I think we're video. Ever, Also, YouTube now
Speaker 1: supports HD content. They didn't originally, but they do now
Speaker 1: and apparently, um they now have more HD content on
Speaker 1: YouTube than you will find on any other online site.
Speaker 1: So not particularly surprising, not not entirely surprising. And ten
Speaker 1: of all the videos on YouTube are actually available in HD,
Speaker 1: which is again pretty impressive because that that doesn't just
Speaker 1: mean that you know, you tube it is able to
Speaker 1: support that, it mean also speaks a lot about how
Speaker 1: HD cameras have filtered into the consumer market and how
Speaker 1: they're taking a larger and larger share, I mean ten pc.
Speaker 1: That's pretty impressive. Um. I know their content i D
Speaker 1: software I talked about, do you know how many how
Speaker 1: much video it scans each day? One years worth every day? Yeah,
Speaker 1: a century worth of video. Like if you were to
Speaker 1: actually watch those videos back to back, it would take
Speaker 1: you a century to watch them. That's how much the
Speaker 1: content i D scans each day. That's that's pretty crazy. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then they've got more than seventeen million users now
Speaker 1: and lots of millions of different channels. You know, you
Speaker 1: can create a channel and um have a whole playlist
Speaker 1: of videos that are related to one another. There are
Speaker 1: there are a lot of examples now of web video
Speaker 1: series that used YouTube to really get a foothold and
Speaker 1: become successful. The Guild as an example, Felicia Days the Guild,
Speaker 1: which is that's the example, right, yeh. But but Chad
Speaker 1: vaderah The Chad Vader web video series was also they
Speaker 1: used YouTube and that got a leg up there. Um,
Speaker 1: there are other other sites that use YouTube in order
Speaker 1: to encode the videos and then they'll they'll they'll link
Speaker 1: the video onto their site so you can watch the
Speaker 1: video on their site, but it's still living back at
Speaker 1: YouTube's servers. So Red Versus Blue is another example of that.
Speaker 1: I've talked about that show multiple times, but they use that.
Speaker 1: If you pay attention, you see Oh wait, there's a
Speaker 1: little YouTube logo down there. Um, yeah, it's it's pretty
Speaker 1: exciting stuff. Oh and I remember I was going to
Speaker 1: say I was gonna tell people what the most watched
Speaker 1: video of all time according to the time of this podcast.
Speaker 1: Do you know what it is already? Well? I already
Speaker 1: foreshadowed it, Yeah you did, so you know you know
Speaker 1: the name anyway? Yeah, it's justin Bieber. Do you know
Speaker 1: which song it is, isn't it baby Baby? Yeah? Um?
Speaker 1: You want to you want to take a stab at
Speaker 1: how many how many views? I'll tell I'll tell you
Speaker 1: this not it's it's fewer than a billion. Last time
Speaker 1: I saw it was more than five million. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: more people have watched that video since you saw it,
Speaker 1: because I didn't. I got it from an article, not
Speaker 1: from actually going to YouTube. Six and forty two point
Speaker 1: seven million views. That's impressive. That's a lot of babies, Yes,
Speaker 1: it is. That's like a that's like a couple of
Speaker 1: countries worth of babies right there. And and and you know,
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people are not justin Bieber fans,
Speaker 1: but you have to admit it's it's kind of amazing
Speaker 1: that we're living in an age where somebody's video that
Speaker 1: they post to YouTube is enough to propel you to
Speaker 1: be in an international star. Yeah, you know, I mean
Speaker 1: it makes sense that we're also recording this on Friday Friday.
Speaker 1: I mean there's another example, right, another video that went viral,
Speaker 1: and I mean for good or for ill? And you know,
Speaker 1: she definitely she She made quite a bit of money
Speaker 1: off that and then ended up donating it. I think
Speaker 1: it's pretty phenomenal. So yeah, I mean, uh, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it is interesting and it's nice that YouTube exists, and
Speaker 1: it gives people who are really creative and who have
Speaker 1: access to some very basic video capture and editing software, uh,
Speaker 1: the ability to share their vision with everybody else. Now
Speaker 1: in some cases you're gonna get like, you know, the
Speaker 1: standard Uh I was shooting video and this funny accident happened.
Speaker 1: I mean, those videos are always gonna be popular on YouTube.
Speaker 1: But you've got a lot of actual, like written content
Speaker 1: on YouTube too, sketches and maybe some improv stuff as well,
Speaker 1: and musicians who are just recording themselves playing various things.
Speaker 1: People who otherwise would never have had a platform. They
Speaker 1: just would not have ever had that chance. They wouldn't
Speaker 1: be one of those lucky few who were seen by
Speaker 1: the right person to move up to the next level. Well,
Speaker 1: YouTube really gives them that that chance. And again it's
Speaker 1: not a sure thing. I mean, you might be the
Speaker 1: most talented person in the world, end up load the
Speaker 1: video that is gorgeous and people just don't watch it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that happens. But it's a much better chance than
Speaker 1: being someone who's working year after year after year and
Speaker 1: dive bars trying to be discovered as the next you know,
Speaker 1: R and B singer or something. You know, Chris can
Speaker 1: tell you he's he's he's I'm not the next R
Speaker 1: and B singer. No, but you're you're you know, you
Speaker 1: beat the Skins. Yeah, you know, you've you've you've you've
Speaker 1: had a taste of the rock and roll lifestyle. You
Speaker 1: know how elusive it is. How do you afford that
Speaker 1: rock and roll lifestyle? I don't know. I always smash
Speaker 1: a guitar at the end of every show. That's that's
Speaker 1: not how you do right now anyway. Yeah, So that
Speaker 1: I guess that will wrap up our discussion on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Did you have anything else you wanted to add before
Speaker 1: we kind of signed off? No, But in in terms
Speaker 1: of of Internet success stories, uh, obviously YouTube is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest, and in just a few short years,
Speaker 1: you know, six and a half years as at the
Speaker 1: time we're recording this amazingly short period of time. So
Speaker 1: it's just I think it just serves as an indicator
Speaker 1: of how much the Internet has changed people's lives. It's
Speaker 1: it's also interesting. It shows that if you just recognize
Speaker 1: that there is a need for something out there and
Speaker 1: you build, you build a robust enough platform for it,
Speaker 1: you can become a success. I mean, the same sort
Speaker 1: of thing is true of other big success stories on
Speaker 1: the Internet like Facebook or Twitter, you know, or even Google.
Speaker 1: Things that companies that build a service that they just
Speaker 1: see that there is the opportunity to either introduce something
Speaker 1: totally new or to improve upon something that previously existed
Speaker 1: but just was not ideal and and have success from it. So,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it's a it's a great story. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: curious to see, you know, I'm hoping that it continues
Speaker 1: to uh to to grow, and I'm really curious to
Speaker 1: see what kind of content comes out of it, because
Speaker 1: you know, we're seeing a lot of really creative stuff
Speaker 1: and I would love to to, like, maybe five years
Speaker 1: from now, think about wouldn't it be cool if everybody
Speaker 1: was staying around the water cooler talking about the latest
Speaker 1: episode of a web series that had been using YouTube
Speaker 1: as a as a platform, rather than talking about the
Speaker 1: latest television episode or in addition to television episodes. I mean,
Speaker 1: I could easily see that happening, although, of course, with
Speaker 1: the amount of content that's available on YouTube and the
Speaker 1: variety of content that's available on YouTube, you may not
Speaker 1: have quite as many people watching the same stuff. Like
Speaker 1: I was watching channel number five thousand, six hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty three last night or are you watching? Oh, I
Speaker 1: was like three orders of magnitude over yep. So um,
Speaker 1: I guess we'll we'll we'll wrap this up with um
Speaker 1: when you know the only quote I can think of,
Speaker 1: which is a Charlie bit my finger. If any of
Speaker 1: you out there want us to talk about anything specif
Speaker 1: big specific companies or services or technologies you want, you know,
Speaker 1: you might be thinking, you know, this is really interesting,
Speaker 1: but I've always wanted to know how Sherman tank works.
Speaker 1: Could you please go ahead and do that episode? Let
Speaker 1: us know. You can email us. Our email adres is
Speaker 1: tech Stuff at how stuff Works dot com, or you
Speaker 1: can visit us on Twitter or Facebook. Are handled there
Speaker 1: is tech stuff hs W and Chris and I will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join
Speaker 1: how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising
Speaker 1: and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The How Stuff Works iPhone
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Speaker 1: to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready,
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