2000 to 2009: The Rise of Social Networks and Economic Crises - The Technical and Social History of Software Engineering - page 301

YouTube hit on what may be a basic human need for people to share images
and videos of things that are important to them. People have kept scrapbooks and
photo albums since the Civil War, but the advent of digital imaging in the 1980s
(discussed in Chapter 7 ) made photography an instant phenomenon instead of a
task requiring chemicals and lengthy development in darkrooms.
For whatever reason, YouTube exploded in popularity and a little more than a
year after it started operation, it was uploading thousands of videos and pictures
per day. It was soon ranked as number 5 in website popularity.
The demographics of YouTube usage is an interesting social commentary on
the use of the World Wide Web in the modern era. For many reasons, young people
are early adapters of new technologies. The majority of YouTube users are teen-
agers. Older people have habits and practices of long standing and are somewhat
less energetic in moving to new techniques.
YouTube epitomized the legend of the rapid “rags-to-riches” ascents of Silicon
Valley entrepreneurs. YouTube was started in 2005 and only a year later in 2006,
it was acquired by Google for $1.65 billion. There have been very few industries
in history that can create so much wealth in such a short time as the software in-
dustry.
YouTube not only grew rapidly but also soon caught national attention. Time
Magazine featured YouTube as its “Person of the Year” in 2006 which, of course,
attracted thousands of new clients.
In 2007, YouTube entered the political domain when, with the Cable News Net-
work (CNN), it provided live footage of some of the presidential debates, with
questions coming in through YouTube. This continues; YouTube also was part of
the 2012 presidential debates and will apparently keep active in the political do-
main.
Although YouTube started as a host for amateur videos and pictures, it added
professional films and videos in 2010 and also started a video rental service in
competition with Amazon, Hulu, and other streaming video companies. Incident-
ally, streaming video is another modern technology that could not have existed 20
years ago.
The popularity of YouTube and its millions of members are factors in
YouTube's advertising revenues. Many companies advertise via YouTube (and
Facebook and Twitter) in order to reach vast numbers of potential new customers.