Media-Culture Update: Case Study of YouTube

## How It All Started

YouTube was created in 2005 by three Paypal employees. The story of how YouTube was created is somewhat unclear, but it started when the three founders spent a day taking photos and videos and then attempted to upload them to the internet, but were unsuccessful. However, with their various backgrounds in computer science, they were able to solve the problem together and created the site called YouTube. The three founders never expected YouTube to become as popular and powerful as it is today.

## The Power of YouTube

YouTube is currently the third most trafficked site on the Internet. As mentioned in the previous page, YouTube resolved many networking issues that had previously made video sharing difficult and inconvenient. The site's growth has been staggering and its use seemingly never-ending. YouTube not only allows individuals to post and share videos, but also connects people from across the world by enabling users to derive common interests with others whom they would have never interacted with. Following are some statistics recorded by the organization.

### Momentum

* YouTube has now trafficked over a billion online users, which is nearly a third of the current average user population of the Internet.
* Every day people view over a hundred million hours worth of YouTube videos and content, having generated billions of video and page views since its launch.
* YouTube's desktop and mobile platforms have independently engaged more individuals between the age of 18-49 years-old on average than any cable network in the United States ever has.
* The total time spent watching videos on YouTube has increased by 60% y/y, which is the fastest growth in usage the organization has experienced in the past two years.
* The number of people who watch YouTube videos every day has currently increased by 40% y/y since March of 2014.
* The number of individuals who engage with YouTube by setting it as their homepage has increased by more than 300% y/y (similar to how individuals may view the first presented channel upon engaging with their television).

### Product

* Approximately 80% of YouTube views originate from outside the continental United States.
* YouTube has launched locally platformed versions of their site in over 70 countries.
* YouTube allows for site navigation in over 76 foreign languages, which accounts for the needs of about 95% of the Internet population.

### Mobile

* On YouTube's current mobile platform, the average duration of engagement is now over 40 minutes, which is a recorded increase of 50% y/y.
* The average number of hours spent watching videos on YouTube mobile has increased by 100% y/y.
* Over 50% of all views and engagement with YouTube now originate from mobile devices.

### Advertising

* Partner revenue has increased by 50% y/y – and we've seen this level of partner revenue growth for   three years running.
* The number of channels earning six figures each year on YouTube has increased by 50% y/y.
* We're also seeing great adoption of our video ad formats like TrueView, and are continuing to help marketers engage and connect with consumers in new ways. The number of advertisers running video ads on YouTube has increased by more than 40% y/y. And for our top 100 advertisers, the average spend per advertiser has increased by 60% y/y.
* All of the top 100 global brands have run TrueView ads over the past year, and 95% of TrueView advertisers have run campaigns across screens. We're also seeing strong growth in the number of new advertisers adopting TrueView, as the number of advertisers using TrueView grew by 45% in 2014.

### Copyright

* As of October 2014, YouTube has paid out $1 billion to rights holders who have chosen to monetize claims since Content ID first launched in 2007.
* As of July 2015, there are 8,000+ partners using Content ID–including many major network broadcasters, film studios and record labels–who have claimed over 400 million videos, helping them to control their content on YouTube and make money on videos containing copyrighted material.

### Investing in Creators

* The YouTube Spaces team is focused on helping creators make great content through strategic programs and workshops that are largely administered at the YouTube Space production facilities in Los Angeles, New York, London, Tokyo, Sao Paulo and Berlin.
* As of March 2015, creators filming in YouTube Spaces have produced over 10,000 videos which have generated over 1 billion views and 70+ million hours of watch time.

## Viral Videos

The main ingredient to YouTube's success is user participation. Without the millions of users that are on YouTube everyday, it would not be as powerful. With the growth in the participatory culture, there are a plethora of unique videos that are created by people all around the world. It allows users to surf through hundreds of trending videos on a particular subject or person and share what you are watching. Many people do not consider YouTube as a social media site but what YouTube allows users to do does help connect people all across the world, which is essentially what social media is expected to do. An article written by Tyler West looks specifically at videos that have gone viral and what exactly caused them to go viral. West found that each video shared a number of characteristics that are not commonly noticed, such as video titles and length of the video. Videos must include elements like laughter, surprise, and irony.

> " [...] only 6 out of 20 videos portrayed someone laughing within the first thirty seconds. This finding is surprising considering the success of video number 15,“Jill and Kevin’s Big Day,” a video showcasing a an entire church laughing at a dancing wedding party. Although the factors of “surprise” and “irony” are different in nature, they are some- what similar. Something ironic is usually surprising. However, according to this study, the existence of irony does not necessarily manifest itself physically. For a video in the sample to be considered to have an element of 'surprise,' someone in the video had to appear visibly so" [3].
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On the other hand, Jean Burgess finds in her research that viral videos do not have traditional content. Burgess believes there needs to be some sort of oddness to a video for it to be shared among various communities [1].

## Future of Video Sharing and YouTube

Unfortunately, there is no actual way to predict the way YouTube will go. YouTube's future is dependent on how technology and trends change. There is no doubt that YouTube will continue to grow if it can follow those trends. Carter and Arroyo believe YouTube will change the way we look at education.

> "From expanding the current state of the open Web, to opening up inventive possibilities, students and teachers will recreate the YouTube U. classroom: a classroom in which innovation, accelerated by crowds, propels discovery and invention by and through participatory pedagogy" [2].
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Regardless of the changes that technology will bring in the future, many YouTubers have already made huge sums of money and created a career for themselves through YouTube. The future of YouTube is bright for many YouTube celebrities and even people who are just now starting their YouTube journey. In an article on the Guardian.com said that "Today’s fresh-faced YouTubers will be tomorrow’s superbroadcasting moguls." That being said, even if YouTube does not continue to gain popularity over time, it has already created millions of opportunities for people all over the world. Most YouTuber's who have been given the opportunity to be in shows on actual TV have turned them down because they want to stick with YouTube. Therefore, with the rising trends of YouTube and YouTuber's strong beliefs in the bright future of YouTube, it is safe to say that the future of YouTube is looking pretty good.

## References

[1] Burgess, Jean (2008) 'All Your Chocolate Rain Are Belong to Us?' Viral Video, YouTube and the Dynamics of Participatory Culture. In: UNSPECIFIED, (ed) Video Vortex Reader: Responses to YouTube. Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam, pp. 101- 109.

[2] Carter, Geoffrey V., & Arroyo, Sarah J. Tubing the Future: Participatory Pedagogy and YouTube U in 2020. Computers and Composition (2011)

[3] West, Tyler. "Going Viral: Factors That Lead Videos to Become Internet Phenomena." The Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications • Vol. 2, No. 1 • Spring 2011 Going Viral: Factors That Lead Videos to Become Internet Phenomena 2.1 (2011): 76-84. Elon University, 2011. Web.

1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html
2. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html
3. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html
4. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html
5. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html
6. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/yt/press/en-GB/statistics.html