History of Online Video growth from early video cameras to the evolution of YouTube.
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Video conferencing, uploading videos, these are all things that we’re all similar with nowadays, but where did all these come from? This time, we’re gonna take a look at the history of online video.
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Throughout the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, displaying media on a computer entered the forefront of consumer technology. However, streaming the videos faced several technical headaches, including CPU power and bandwidth limitations. In the late 1990’s, the admin of the internet solved these problems by creating greater network bandwidth, more access to networks, commercialization and a set of standard protocols and formats. This led to an increase in computer networking and a more powerful home computer, which ushered in the era of streaming media online. This meant that you could watch somebody else’s video, but the option to share one or just post a video online didn’t exist. This frustration led three friends, Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim to create YouTube in February of 2005. The site’s main goal centered around allowing users to post videos online and share them with a wide range of people. The domain name, www.youtube.com, was activated on February 15, 2005. The first video to be posted on April 23 of 2005 was of YouTube creator, Jawed, at the zoo. It can still be viewed today.
A beta test of the site was available in May of 2005 prior to the official launch of that year. After a lackluster response, they revamped the site to offer more social networking capabilities, such as adding friends and personal messaging. The public response was huge and by July of 2006, more than 65,000 new videos were being uploaded daily, as well as receiving a daily average of 100 million video views. The website averaged nearly 20 million visitors per month. In October of 2006, Google announced that it had bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. By November of 2008, YouTube had grown so much that it had reached an agreement with MGM, Lion’s Gate Entertainment, and CBS, which would allow the companies to post full-length films and television shows on the site, accompanied by advertisements.
One thing is certain. YouTube and online video-sharing is now part of our culture. Years ago, nobody had the equipment to shoot professional looking video and, even if they did, there was no way to actually distribute your videos. In the early to mid-‘90’s, the equipment started to become more readily available for consumers, such as editing software and higher quality cameras. This made it possible to create higher quality videos, but there was still no way to distribute them. Today, you can create you videos in the privacy of your own home, make them look very professional and get them online to be seen and distributed amongst the biggest audience out there – the internet. This is the most exciting time to do video, from Ask a Ninja to the Newman Newman guy, you can now show more people your work at a higher volume than any other time in history, all with a simple click of a button.
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