If you have access to the internet, then you, along with more than 30 million others, most likely go to this site on a daily basis.
This site is the first place you go when you don’t know how to do something, the second most used search engine following Google and has more than 50 million users generating content, including UTM.
On April 23, 2020, YouTube will celebrate its 15th anniversary of the first video being uploaded.
YouTube was created in February 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim after they discovered the difficulty of finding and sharing videos. Not long after creation, though, Google bought the site in 2006 for $1.65 billion and has owned it ever since.
During that time period, the very first video was uploaded to YouTube by one of the cofounders, Jawed Karim, before the site was released to the public for uploading. Me at the zoo, which is still available on YouTube today, is an 18-second video of Karim at the San Diego Zoo talking about the elephants that are seen in the background of the video.
“They probably had no idea it [YouTube] was going to blow up and blossom like it has now,” says Hannah Alexander, Assistant Director of University Relations for Marketing at UTM, about how YouTube has changed since Me at the zoo.
During the past 15 years, there has definitely been some changes for YouTube and the video content that is uploaded now. While there are still some fun, amusing and short videos much like Me at the zoo, there are now some more purposeful and informational videos shared too.
“The shift of watching them move from ‘this is a fun little social media platform’ to this idea that ‘we are a platform to reach an audience,’” said Dr. Tracy Rutledge, Associate Professor of Communications and Co-Graduate Coordinator at UTM, about how YouTube has changed in 15 years.
Rutledge says that this change is easily seen through revenue numbers. Google released in February 2020 that YouTube generated $15.1 billion just in ad revenue in 2019.
Alexander says that this change is seen by what viewers are more interested in now. Viewers are more prone to watching “how-to” videos and just people in their everyday life rather than just funny entertainment videos.
UTM has also been a part of this 15-year change within YouTube. UTM joined YouTube on June 28, 2006, not long after the creation of the site.
Up until now, UTM mainly used YouTube as a place to store its promotional videos and so that viewers can have an easy link to click on to see the videos when shared on other social media accounts.
So, what can you expect of YouTube within the next 15 years?
Within this semester, UTM will be hiring a videographer that will be in charge of completely redoing UTM’s YouTube account.
“The goal is to make our YouTube account our own and to use it more as a marketing tool rather than just a storage place,” Alexander says about how UTM will also be following the new changes seen within YouTube.
As for YouTube as a whole, there are endless ways the site can evolve and adapt.
“I think we will see more partnerships for live streaming services for YouTube with traditional television network,” Rutledge predicts.
Rutledge also believes that YouTube will play a part in teaching other companies about “munchable content” and how to do short form content, which YouTube is so obviously good at.
No matter what changes take place, you, along with more than 30 million other viewers, will get to watch it happen.
