25 Interesting Facts About YouTube You Might Not Know

   

YouTube has a massive following and is extremely popular around the world, but there’s probably a lot you don’t know about it. Today, YouTube has expanded to include tutorials, reviews, videos, music videos, skits, and other content. It has so much content that it is enough to satisfy anyone’s entertainment needs. Let’s broaden your understanding of YouTube by going through some of the interesting facts about YouTube.

   

Also read: 20 Interesting Facts About Google

1. YouTube was launched on Valentine’s Day.

The domain was activated on February 14th, 2005, but the video upload feature wasn’t added until April 23 of that year. Jawed Karim, a co-founder, posted the first video a little over two months later.

2. Paypal has a long connection with YouTube.

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, the three YouTube founders, all worked for PayPal. They funded the site’s early development with money they received from eBay’s purchase of PayPal.

3. YouTube was originally a dating site.

Next on our list of interesting facts about YouTube, is something quite shocking and strange. YouTube did not start out with the same concept as it does now. According to rumours, YouTube began as a video dating site called “Tune In Hook Up,” which was modeled after the popular Hot or Not show at the time. But fate had other plans, and the three founders decided against going that route.

4. Google currently owns YouTube

In October 2006, Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube. Which, at the time, seemed like a lot of money, but now appears to be a pittance in comparison to the value of YouTube.

5. YouTube has a total 2.6 Bn users as of April 2022

6.  YouTube has opened a free production space in Los Angeles.

YouTube has opened a free production space in Los Angeles, but only for those with at least 10,000 subscribers. Even those with a single subscriber can participate in classes on how to grow their channel, as well as attend comedy nights, mixers, and musical performances.

7. YouTube is banned in China, Iran, North Korea, South Sudan and Turkmenistan as of May 2022.  

YouTube’s mission to reach every household on the planet hasn’t always been smooth sailing. More than 25 countries have blocked access at various times. Germany, Finland, and Brazil are among the usual suspects, as well as some surprises. Many videos featuring copyrighted songs were unavailable in Germany due to royalties disputes between GEMA and YouTube.

8. YouTube Vs Utube

“Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment,” a manufacturer of pipes and tubing products used the domain utube.com since 1996. However, it was visited by thousands of people everyday looking for YouTube and hence its servers couldn’t handle the traffic. It had filed a lawsuit against YouTube in November 2006 for trademark infringement asking YouTube to change its domain name, however, the lawsuit was dismissed in the court. However, both the companies reached an agreement later – utube.com is now owned by Youtube and the URL redirects to the YouTube home page while ‘Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment’ changed it’s domain  name to utubeonline.com

9. YouTube has its own April’s Fools Pranks.

April Fool’s Day pranks first appeared on YouTube in 2008. The tradition continued till 2016. They once teamed up with the satirical newspaper “The Onion” to claim that the video-sharing website was launched as a contest and would soon be defunct.

10. YouTube made $19.77 billion in ad revenue in 2020

Advertising is one of the key revenue streams for YouTube. YouTube made $28.8 billion in advertising revenue in 2021.

11. YouTube Music without Ads is available.

If you don’t like ads interfering with your favorite music and videos, you can subscribe to YouTube Premium for an ad-free experience across the video platform, as well as access to premium YouTube Originals.

12. Baby Shark – a children’s animated video 

Baby Shark – a children’s animated video song became the first YouTube video to reach 10 Bn views in January 2022. It was released by Pinkfong – a South Korean entertainment company. It became the most-viewed YouTube video in November 2020 and still holds the record.

13. Avril Lavigne was the first artist to reach 100 million views on YouTube.

   

The smash-hit by Avril Lavigne After its release in 2008, Girlfriend became the first song to reach 100 million views. The video’s popularity was questioned, with Lavigne’s public relations firm accused of manipulating the system.

14. Gangnam Style Was First to 1 Billion Views

Do you recall “Gangnam Style”? You do, of course. In 2012, the infectious song and accompanying ludicrously fun music video – which popularised the invisible-horse dance – were unavoidable (and at pretty much every wedding or celebratory event with a dance floor thereafter). Psy’s “Gangnam Style was uploaded on July 15, 2012 became the first music video to reach one billion views on YouTube on December 21, 2012.

15. ‘YouTube Rewind 2018’ was the most disliked YouTube video of all time with around 19 Mn dislikes before the ‘dislike’ counter was disabled recently.

For a long time, the Justin Bieber song Baby was the most disliked video on YouTube. In the nine years, it had been online, it had received over 10 million “thumbs down.” However, YouTube Rewind 2018 smashed the record in spectacular fashion in December 2018. It received an incredible 19 million downvotes before the dislike counter was discontinued.

 

16. The first-ever YouTube video was released on April 25, 2005.

Over 219 million people have watched YouTube’s first video. Jawed Karim, a co-founder of YouTube, uploaded the first video to the site on April 25, 2005. It’s called “Me at the Zoo”, lasts 19 seconds, and was recorded at the San Diego Zoo.

17. The maximum upload limit for a YouTube video 256 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less. 

When YouTube first launched, there were no restrictions on the length of videos that could be uploaded. However, in 2006, the site implemented a 10-minute time limit to address issues with copyright infringement. By default, the current upload time limit on YouTube is up to 15 minutes. Verified accounts can upload videos longer than 15 minutes. However, the maximum upload limit for YouTube videos is 256 GB or 12 hours, whichever is less.

18. The most popular brand channel is LEGO.

Next on our list of interesting facts about YouTube is this one. LEGO has 14.3 million subscribers and nearly 17 billion views on its videos as of 2022.

19. T-Series continues to have the most subscribers.

T-Series, Indian film production company & record label continues to have the most subscribers on YouTube as of May 2022. (213 million)

20. YouTube removed the public display of dislike counts on videos in November 2021.

After testing in early 2021, YouTube removed the public display of dislike counts on videos in November 2021, claiming that users frequently used the dislike feature as a form of cyberbullying and brigading, according to internal research.

21. Felix Kjellberg is the YouTuber with the most subscribers.

The next one on our list of interesting facts about YouTube is about PewDiePie. PewDiePie is the name of his YouTube channel, which you may be familiar with. Until T-Series dethroned him on March 27, 2019, his channel reigned supreme on YouTube for six years in a row. Despite this, he continues to be the most subscribed person on YouTube.

22. Every minute, more than 500 hours of video were uploaded.

Every minute, more than 500 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube as of February 2020. This equates to about 30,000 hours of new content being uploaded every hour.

23. Charlie bit my finger!

“Charlie bit my finger!” is one of the most iconic YouTube videos of all time. It was the most viewed video on YouTube from October 2009 to the end of 2011. The video’s profits were sufficient to allow the family to purchase a new home. British Newspaper, The Mirror reported that the video had made around £1 million ($1.3 million) in royalties and ads as of 2017.

It was ranked as No.1  YouTube video in the list of YouTube’s 50 greatest viral videos by the TIME Magazine. It was surprising also found Osama bin Laden’s audio/visual collection on his computer.  The video was auctioned as an NFT for over $700,000 in May 2021 was later unlisted on May 24. It had received close to almost 900 Mn views before being unlisted.

24. It is quite popular.

With 2 Billion users worldwide, YouTube is the second-most-visited website. Google.com is the most visited website of the world.

That concludes our collection of interesting facts about YouTube. The figures are mind-boggling, especially considering that YouTube didn’t even exist until recently. If you liked our list of YouTube facts, you might be interested in some of our other articles.

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