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Monday, 13 January 2025

Nearly two decades of YouTube

I was thinking about YouTube the other day, and how long I have been using the platform. YouTube, in it's current video form and NOT being a dating site, was established in June 2005 (Today I Found Out, 2023), and has grown to be the behemoth it now is over almost two decades. 

It turns out that I was a reasonably early adopter, with the first newsletter that I mention YouTube being from June of 2006 (here) where I talk about Hitwise having announced that YouTube is the most visited video website, having already trapped 43% of the video market share (Young, 2006).

The philosophy/strapline/guiding principle of the platform was changed in June 2005 from "Tune In, hook up" (Today I Found Out, 2023, 10:28) to "Your digital video repository" (12:17). I remember the latter version from only a year later. And - when we stop to consider it, to have captured 43% market share in a year is quite something (Young, 2006).

From the beginning, YouTube made it easy to upload video, automating much of the technical stuff in the background: such like codecs, plug ins and extensions. The user audience got the simple, quick and streamlined experience, a la Krug (2014), and YouTube did the tricky bits of stage management in the wings (Today I Found Out, 2023). 

And that, according to Today I Found Out (2023), was YouTube's competitive advantage, and is possibly why YouTube has outlived most of its rivals.


Sam

References:

Krug, S. (2014). Don't Make Me Think: A common sense approach to web and mobile usability (Revised ed.). Pearson Education.

Today I Found Out. (2023, November 18). What was the First YouTube Video and How Did YouTube Start? [video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/7GC9v-EYcsQ

Young, S. (2006, June 2). Newsletter Issue 115, June 2006. Acts of Leadership. https://www.samyoung.co.nz/2006/06/newsletter-issue-115-june-2006.html

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