YouTube Celebrates 5 years and 2B Views/Day!

May 19

MikeWeb Industry YouTube No Comments

Although it seems like it only launched yesterday, YouTube turned five this week and to celebrate this landmark, the site has announced an additional milestone: a whopping two billion page views per day.  To put this figure into context, YouTube added that this is nearly double the combined prime time viewing figures of the 3 major US TV networks.

Few can argue that YouTube has revolutionized the way people share videos online and this was underlined a mere 18 months after its launch when Google acquired the site in a high profile takeover.  To commemorate its fifth birthday the site has released a series of videos titled ‘My YouTube Story’ which includes clips and features of people from around the globe telling how YouTube has changed their lives.  Documentary filmmaker Stephen Higgins is also involved and has produced a series of touching clips which feature in the initial release.  If you are a regular YouTube user you can also get involved by uploading your own story and YouTube has said it intends to put these videos on a ‘global map’ along with an interactive timeline of clips.  A few stats on Youtube:

• 1 billion views a day – 2009
• 2 billion views a day – 2010
• 3rd most popular site on the planet (Alexa)
• Available in 23 countries and 24 languages
• Average time spent on site – 15 minutes
• 70% of site traffic is from outside the US

The popularity of YouTube means that for many the Internet would not be the same without it and the numbers above firmly back this up.  In fact it would take you 1700 years to watch every video on the site!  Would the site be so popular if Google hadn’t taken it under its wing? Well that remains to be seen, but Google is continuing to develop online video sharing including the imminent arrival of Google TV, meaning YouTube could become even more accessible.  Here’s to the next five years, Happy Birthday YouTube!