What you didn't know about YouTube.
Summary
TLDRThis video reveals the top 40 lesser-known secrets about YouTube, from its initial concept as a dating site to its current status as a video-sharing giant. It covers the platform's history, including the first video to reach a million views and the most viewed video ever. The video also explores hidden features, such as keyboard shortcuts and mobile gestures, and delves into YouTube's rating systems and scrapped features like annotations. Additionally, it touches on the platform's mysteries, like the 'Webdriver Torso' channel and the 'rickrolling' phenomenon, finishing with insights into YouTube's growth and the sheer volume of content uploaded daily.
Takeaways
- π Typing 'awesome' on a computer keyboard while on YouTube can make the timeline bar turn into a flashing rainbow color.
- πΊ YouTube was initially intended to be a dating site where people could upload videos to find their ideal partner.
- π The first video on YouTube was just 19 seconds long and featured one of the founders at the zoo.
- π The first video to reach 1 billion views was 'Gangnam Style', which was so popular it broke YouTube's view counter.
- π΅ The most viewed video on YouTube is 'Baby Shark Dance', while the most liked video is 'Despacito' with 50 million likes.
- π The most searched term on YouTube worldwide is the Korean pop group BTS.
- π YouTube has undergone several rating system changes, from stars to a like and dislike system, and now to just a like counter.
- π₯ Video responses, a feature that allowed users to upload a video reply to another video, were scrapped due to low engagement.
- π YouTube has a secret page at youtube.com/new for premium subscribers to test experimental features.
- π YouTubers can earn special play buttons for reaching subscriber milestones, with custom and ultra-rare versions for higher tiers.
- π« YouTube is banned in certain countries like China, Iran, North Korea, and Turkmenistan to limit Western cultural influence.
Q & A
What was the original purpose of YouTube when it was first created?
-The original purpose of YouTube was to serve as a dating website where people could upload videos of themselves talking about their ideal partner to find them.
Why did YouTube change from being a dating site to a platform for all kinds of videos?
-YouTube transitioned from a dating site to a platform for all kinds of videos because no one uploaded dating videos, and the founders decided to open it up to various content types to encourage more uploads.
What was the first video ever uploaded on YouTube?
-The first video ever uploaded on YouTube was a 19-second clip of one of the founders standing around at the zoo.
Which video was the first to reach a billion views on YouTube?
-The first video to reach a billion views on YouTube was 'Gangnam Style' by PSY.
What is the most viewed video on YouTube as of the time the script was written?
-As of the time the script was written, the most viewed video on YouTube was 'Baby Shark Dance' with almost 12 billion views.
What is the most liked video on YouTube?
-The most liked video on YouTube is 'Despacito' by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee, with 50 million likes.
What is the most searched term on YouTube worldwide?
-The most searched term on YouTube worldwide is BTS, the Korean pop group.
What are some hidden features on YouTube for desktop users?
-Some hidden features for desktop users include the ability to loop a video or copy its URL with a single right-click, and enabling picture-in-picture mode with a double right-click.
What is the current maximum length for a YouTube video?
-The current maximum length for a YouTube video is 12 hours.
Why did YouTube decide to set a limit on video length?
-YouTube decided to set a limit on video length because no one was going to watch hundreds of hours of content in one go, and they would have to pay for the servers to store those videos.
What is the origin of the term 'Rickrolling'?
-The term 'Rickrolling' originated in 2007 when a user tricked people into clicking a link to watch a trailer for Grand Theft Auto 4, but instead sent them to Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up' video.
How many employees did YouTube have when it was acquired by Google?
-When Google acquired YouTube in 2006, it had only 65 employees.
How much content is uploaded to YouTube every minute?
-Every minute, users upload 500 hours of content to YouTube.
Outlines
π YouTube's Hidden Secrets and History
The paragraph reveals fascinating secrets about YouTube's inception and evolution. Initially intended as a dating site, YouTube transformed into a video-sharing platform. It's named for its video upload feature and the old CRT televisions. The first video was a short clip of a founder at the zoo. The video discusses the first videos to reach certain view milestones, like the Nike ad with Ronaldinho and Psy's 'Gangnam Style.' It also covers YouTube's most viewed and liked videos, and the most searched term, which is BTS. The paragraph ends with a mention of YouTube's hidden features, such as the ability to loop videos and use picture-in-picture mode on computer, and mobile gestures like swiping up for fullscreen.
π YouTube Mysteries and Platform Evolution
This paragraph delves into YouTube's mysteries, such as the 'number file' video with a glitch showing 301 views, and the 'Seinfeld without people' video. It also discusses the ability to create a video with no title using a zero-width non-joiner character. The paragraph mentions 'Webdriver Torso,' a channel that sparked conspiracy theories due to its abstract content, later revealed to be a Google test channel. It also talks about YouTube's reward system, including the silver, gold, and diamond play buttons, and the materials they're made from. The paragraph includes lesser-known features like using arrow keys to navigate videos and sharing video links with specific timestamps.
π« Banned in Certain Countries and YouTube's Growth
The final paragraph discusses YouTube's ban in countries like China, Iran, North Korea, and Turkmenistan. It covers the history of video length limits, with a mention of the longest video by 'multitaster' and the continuous live stream by 'Lo-Fi hip hop radio beats to relax.' The paragraph also touches on YouTube's lawsuit with Universal Tube and Roll Form Equipment and the platform's acquisition by Google. It provides statistics on the amount of content uploaded per minute and the hypothetical time it would take to watch all uploaded YouTube videos. The paragraph concludes with a thank you for watching the video.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘YouTube
π‘CRT Televisions
π‘Gangnam Style
π‘Baby Shark Dance
π‘Despacito
π‘YouTube Rewind 2018
π‘Annotations
π‘Video Responses
π‘Secret Page (youtube.com/new)
π‘Play Buttons
π‘Rickrolling
Highlights
Typing 'awesome' on a computer keyboard makes the video timeline turn to a flashing rainbow color.
YouTube was initially intended to be a dating website where users could upload videos to find their ideal partner.
The first video on YouTube was just 19 seconds long and featured one of the founders at the zoo.
The first video to reach one million views was a Nike ad featuring Ronaldinho.
The first video to reach 100 million views was Avril Lavigne's 'Girlfriend'.
The first video to hit 1 billion views was 'Gangnam Style', which broke YouTube's view counter.
The most viewed video on YouTube is 'Baby Shark Dance' with almost 12 billion views.
The most liked video is 'Despacito' with 50 million likes.
The most searched term on YouTube worldwide is the Korean pop group BTS.
Right-clicking a video once allows you to loop it or copy the URL, and right-clicking twice enables picture-in-picture mode.
On mobile, you can swipe up to fullscreen a non-fullscreen video and swipe down to minimize it.
YouTube originally started with a star rating system, which was later replaced by a like and dislike bar, and now just a like counter.
Video responses, which were like video comments, were scrapped due to their low click-through rate.
Annotations, which allowed creators to add text boxes to their videos, were dropped because they didn't work on mobile.
YouTube has a secret page at youtube.com/new for premium subscribers to try out experimental features.
YouTube views would freeze at 301 due to an old glitch, which was highlighted in a video with exactly 301 views and 3.3 million likes.
There's a video titled 'Seinfeld without people' that shows what the show would look like with new people.
It's possible to create a video with no title on YouTube using a zero-width non-joiner character.
The channel 'Webdriver Torso' was part of a conspiracy theory until it was revealed to be a Google channel for testing.
YouTubers can earn custom play buttons for hitting certain subscriber milestones, such as 50 million and 100 million subscribers.
The diamond play button is not made of real diamond, and the materials of other play buttons are also revealed.
YouTube is banned in China, Iran, North Korea, and Turkmenistan to limit Western cultural influence.
The longest video on YouTube was 596.5 hours long before the platform set a 12-hour limit on video lengths.
The most viewed playlist on YouTube is 'Clean Vines for the children of Jesus' with 3.6 billion playlist views.
When Google acquired YouTube in 2006, it had only 65 employees and was valued at 1.65 billion dollars.
Every minute, users upload 500 hours of content to YouTube, which would take 200,000 years to watch.
Transcripts
if you're on a computer right now you
can type the letters awesome on your
keyboard and the timeline bar of this
video will turn to a flashing rainbow
color welcome to my top 40 secrets that
you didn't know about YouTube from the
bizarre way it started to the unexpected
things people search for to the cool
tricks that you didn't know you can do
on it so the site is actually called
YouTube because it allows you to upload
your own videos and two because back
when everyone was using those old CRT
televisions based on cathode ray tube
technology tube is what people used to
call their TV and it was actually meant
to be
a dating website it's crazy to think
about now but the entire concept of
YouTube back in 2005 was for people to
upload videos of themselves talking
about the partner of their dreams with
the hope to find them but no one did
which led the founders who were
basically a set of three ex-paypal
employees to even start offering random
women twenty dollars to upload and get
the ball rolling and still none of them
said yes which is when they made the
best decision of their entire lives to
open YouTube up to all kinds of videos
not just dating requests and then to
start things off with the very first one
which was no joke just 19 seconds of one
of these founders
standing around at the zoo can you
imagine telling this guy back then that
this video would ever get to tens of
millions of comments and hundreds of
millions of views okay time for a
lightning round the next eight facts are
all of the biggest things that have
happened on YouTube since it started the
first video to ever hit a million views
was a Nike ad featuring Ronaldinho which
even today is pretty mind-blowing the
first to 100 million was Avril Lavigne's
girlfriend song though people suspect
she used paid adverts to pump up those
numbers and the first to hit 1 billion
was size Gangnam Style which became such
a movement that it happened people
across the entire world dancing away
like budget Cowboys in fact Gangnam
Style's views were so explosive that
they actually broke YouTube's view
counter and so since then YouTube's
decided to massively raise the cap of
how many views a video is allowed to get
to now over nine quintillion which
should keep us going for a while unless
you all like this video and it somehow
becomes a global phenomenon but that
leads us to today where the most viewed
video ever is now at almost 12 billion
views and it is
baby shark dance that's not the most
liked video though
definitely not the most liked the most
liked is in fact the song despacito with
50 million likes and the most dislike
used to be Justin Bieber's song Baby but
that's now been replaced by YouTube's
very own rewind 2018. so thanks for this
gem YouTube and finally the most
searched YouTube term worldwide is BTS
the Korean pop group now
oh
okay I had this really cool transition
planned but it's not working oh my god
oh
the things come out
the diamond I can't believe that
just leave it there for now then I guess
now one of the most useful things that
you didn't know about the platform is
that there are two hidden menus when
you're watching on a computer when you
right click once on a video you can Loop
it or instantly copy the URL and then if
you right click twice in a row you
unlock the option to use picture in
picture mode that lets you drag this
mini window around on your desktop while
you work on something else and then if
you're on mobile there's some really
cool gestures you can do like if you
want to full screen a non-full screen
video you actually just swipe up and
then to minimize when full screen is
wiped down I didn't know half of this
stuff till I started working on this
video so if you are finding it
interesting then the sub to the channel
would be you Mungus
over the years YouTube has gone through
a number of different rating systems
they originally started with stars where
you could give any YouTube video you
watched a rating from one to five and
the overall result will be displayed in
search results before you clicked on it
this was then dropped for a like and
dislike bar which has now been dropped
to just a like counter and essentially I
think that because the algorithm has got
more and more intelligent and better at
using user Behavior to figure out which
videos are goods and which aren't it
doesn't now need that level of manual
user input that it used to be and the
rating system isn't the only thing that
YouTube scrapped over the years another
key way that viewers used to be able to
interact with videos was by uploading
video responses which were basically
like comments but filmed on your busted
webcam they were dropped because well
plenty of people made video responses
but on average they only got a
click-through rate of
0.0004 percent which is just abysmal no
one wanted to watch them but one thing
that I really do miss is annotations it
used to be a case that if you ever made
a mistake in a video you could just go
into your YouTube editor and add a
little text box to your video at a
specific time code to correct it which
is just way better than what you have to
do now that is basically delete the
video make the change and then re-upload
it again YouTube apparently dropped the
feature because it didn't work on mobile
but then presumably the solution would
just be to make it work on mobile
YouTube has a secret page at youtube.com
new where they let YouTube premium
subscribers try out new experimental
features they're working on then also
pay people for completing feedback
surveys and speaking of Secrets we're
now in the top 20. and so it's time to
talk about some of YouTube's Biggest
Mysteries like this video by the channel
number file titled why do YouTube views
freeze at 301. it was about an old
glitch on YouTube where a video's view
count would basically stop updating for
a few hours after it hit 301 and this
video has exactly 301 views with 3.3
million likes yeah YouTube is basically
trolling everyone if you type in
Seinfeld without people you will find a
video that shows what the TV show would
have look like with new people on a
video that has no description and even
more bizarrely no title as for how you
can make a video with no title YouTube
technically doesn't allow it but you can
loophole it by using a character called
a zero with non-joiner it's the thing
that goes between two letters to join
them together except that when it's on
its own it is invisible or even stranger
yet with these YouTube Mysteries is
Webdriver Torso this channel popped up
in 2013 and all it does is upload these
weird abstract clips of red and blue
rectangles with strange tones and
gibberish titles there are plenty of odd
channels on YouTube but this one is so
baffling and almost creepy that it
started a full-blown conspiracy theory
within the YouTube Community people
wanted answers what's the purpose why do
they have 600 124 000 videos of this
stuff and who was behind it all
well of course it was Google it turned
out to be an internal channel that the
company used to test out external
features before they roll them out to
others but this being Google they also
made sure they trolled as many people as
possible on the way and to commemorate
all the conspiracies that this thing
generated Google has now made it so that
if you search for Webdriver Torso on
Google the logo will change to these red
and blue rectangles number 15 now and I
want to touch on rewards Pacific
starters you might know that YouTubers
can earn themselves a silver play button
when they hit a hundred thousand Subs a
gold one when they hit a million subs
and a diamond one when they hit 10
million Subs but YouTube has now also
started giving some channels a custom
play button when they hit 50 million
subscribers and then an ultra limited
red and black diamond when they hit 100.
the play buttons aren't made of what you
think they are though the silver play
button is made of nickel carbon and zinc
which you know that makes sense lots of
channels hit 100 000 subscribers they
would struggle to give everyone
something made of actual silver but then
to be fair for the gold play buttons you
do get a hollow brass construction and
then a real layer of 24 karat gold in
them and then the diamond play buttons
are a not Hollow very thick metal slab
coated in real silver and no this is not
a real diamond now what you also might
not know about these play buttons though
is that when your channel hits these
Milestones you can choose to buy extras
for your team and they are not cheap
while the diamond play button probably
costs about a hundred dollars to
manufacture based on their raw materials
I paid 3 700 each and now just before
the top 10 these are a couple of my
absolute favorite unknown YouTube
features so you've probably realized
that on a computer you can use the arrow
keys to navigate forward and backward
five seconds at a time but the secret is
that you can also use the angle bracket
keys to go forward or backward one frame
at a time useful for catching all those
fun little Easter eggs we drop in our
videos if you're ever sharing a YouTube
link with someone but you're only trying
to show them a specific part of the
video then just add and T equals to the
end of the URL followed by whatever
timestamp you want the clip to start at
and that custom URL L will take them
straight to that point right it's top 10
time these are the most surprising
things about YouTube so first of all
YouTube is banned in China Iran North
Korea and Turkmenistan to limit the
Western cultural influence on those
people the current lent limit for a
YouTube video is 12 hours but before
YouTube added that limit there's a
channel called multitaster who managed
to make the longest ever video at 596.5
hours YouTube decided that they had to
set a cap because no one was actually
going to watch hundreds of hours in one
go and they were the ones who were going
to have to pay for the servers to store
those videos online but that cap does
not apply to live streams while YouTube
will only save 12 hours once the live
stream ends it won't interrupt your live
stream if you're past that figure and
aside from news stations there is one
channel who is well and truly run with
this you better come across this video
Lo-Fi hip hop radio beats to relax 32.
okay how long do you think that this
live stream has been continuously going
forward with no interruption 10 days 30
days
two years but it's actually kind of
tragic because in July 2022 the stream
was suddenly stopped when YouTube
incorrectly said that there was a
copyright claim so because only 12 hours
can actually be saved on YouTube this
channel Lo-Fi girl they lost no joke
years of their content and have now had
to start the live stream again from
scratch YouTube got sued when they first
started by a company called Universal
tube and roll form equipment because
they felt like it was infringing on
their website
youtube.com thankfully our YouTube won
but if it hadn't we might well be
watching videos right now on
I don't know we tube actually probably
not YouTube so you might have heard
about this thing on the internet not our
Channel just general internet thing
called brick rolling the idea of
tricking someone into clicking a link
that actually takes them to Rick
Ashley's never going to give you a
YouTube video but something that I've
just learned is how this 15 year old
internet tradition actually started so
in 2007 the entire world witnessed the
first ever trailer for Grand Theft Auto
4. it got so many views that the entire
website crashed and so people had to
resort to using other people's links to
watch re-uploaded copies of it and this
was when one user decided to take the
opportunity to instead send people to
this masterpiece the clickers found it
equal parts annoying and also hilarious
that is the beginning of the Rickroll
the most viewed playlist on the entire
platform is not something like top 40
music tracks or relaxing videos to calm
yourself down like you might expect it
is actually Clean Vines for the children
of Jesus with 3.6 billion playlist views
what now you might already know that
YouTube was originally created as its
own independent company and then in 2006
was acquired by Google who still owns it
today what you probably didn't know
though is that when Google bought it
YouTube only had 65 total employees and
was valued at 1.65 billion dollars which
is pretty
hard to imagine when you realize that
now they have 3 000 people at a
valuation closing in on 200 billion not
a bad investment and then just to give
you some context on how enormous
YouTubers become now every single minute
that passes people are uploading 500
hours of content which means that let's
say YouTube wanted to manually check
each video before it went live they
would need 30 000 employees working
every hour of every day just to keep on
top of the current rate and the even
more staggering stat that this
translates to is that if you wanted to
sit down on the sofa one day and watch
every single YouTube video that's been
uploaded so far you would be on that
couch for 200
000 years so thank you for spending 12
minutes of your time on this one
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