YouTube Channeling Success after Trillion-View Year

On April 23, 2005, the revolution wasn’t televised; it was uploaded. Yakov Lapitsky’s “Me at the Zoo” became the first video posted on a new video sharing website, YouTube, launched by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. Their mission: “To give everyone a voice.”

Today, YouTube is streaming four billion online videos every day, a 25 percent increase in the last eight months, Reuters reports. That’s a lot of Justin Bieber, whose “Baby” music video featuring Ludacris currently ranks atop the list of the zeitgeist-capturing website’s most popular videos of all time (as of the beginning of January 2011).

Google, which purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, has taken the site beyond the personal computer. Versions of the site are accessible on smartphones and televisions. Roughly 60 hours of video are now uploaded every minute, Reuters notes.

YouTube comes off its most-watched year yet: 1 trillion playbacks, which the company’s Rewind blog post figures, is about 140 views for every person on earth. The most popular videos of 2011? Topping the list, according to the company, is Rebecca Black’s ultimate one-hit blunder “Friday,” followed by the hilarious Ultimate Dog Tease. Also on the list was one of the best commercials that debuted at last year’s Super Bowl, Volkswagon’s The Force,” the one with the talking infant twins, and two music videos from the comedy combine, Lonely Island, that premiered on “Saturday Night Live,” “Jack Sparrow” featuring Michael Bolton and “The Creep” with John Waters.

Most of YouTube’s content does not make money. Three billion videos are monetized, the company told Reuters. Google said that is business running graphical “display” ads was generating $5 billion in revenue on an annualized run rate business.

YouTube launched a much-debated redesign of its website late last year that emphasized channels (curated content). This followed Google Inc.’s announcement in November about the creation of about 100 online video channels that will deliver original programming from Madonna, Jay-Z, Ashton Kutcher, wellness guru Deepak Chopra, skateboard icon Tony Hawk, and others. The majority will launch this year.