In a future history of media, YouTube’s fifth birthday may mark the point when Internet video became a grown-up, next to its older sibling, television. The popular video site marked its birthday Sunday and touted its more than two billion views every day.
“That’s nearly double the prime-time audience for all three major U.S. television networks combined,” the site noted on its official blog. The YouTube figure includes its international viewers.
‘Site for Bedroom Vloggers’
YouTube said that “what started as a site for bedroom vloggers and viral videos has evolved into a global platform that supports HD and 3-D, broadcasts entire sports sessions live in 200+ countries,” and delivers Hollywood features, independent films, and videos that document social unrest. The first video ever uploaded to the site, called Me at the Zoo, was posted shortly before the launch by cofounder Jawed Karim, and was 19 seconds long. In 2006, the “site for bedroom vloggers” was purchased for $1.65 billion by Google.
Since then, the site has taken an increasingly prominent position in the culture. Some videos, for instance, have achieved instant classic status, including Susan Boyle’s performance on Britain’s Got Talent competition, Barack Obama’s YouTube videos, and daily uploads of videos from the Iranian election protests.
Appropriately, to celebrate its fifth birthday, the site is starting a Five Year channel, with video stories of how YouTube has “changed or shaped” people’s lives. One story, for instance, features a Hawaii teen who began posting his short fictional movies and later changed his major to film in college. There’s also an interview with Jessica Rose, the actress who played 16-year-old Bree in the hit fake-diary series, Lonely Girl 15.
YouTube asked guest curators to pick their favorites — Net pioneer Vint Cerf, news anchor Katie Couric, talk-show host Conan O’Brien, and film director Pedro…