YouTube celebrated its 20th birthday, with stats showing how popular the platform has become and by announcing some new features, including the ability for users to create their own multiviewers.
As it marked its 20th anniversary, CNBC cited data from Moffett Nathanson that YouTube could be worth as much as $550 billion as a standalone company and that it is on track to become the biggest media company by revenue in 2025, surpassing Disney for the first time.
Separate data from Nielsen shows that YouTube's content accounted for 12.0% of overall TV viewing in March. That was the second consecutive month for YouTube as the top reported media distributor, eclipsing its previous company best share of TV of 11.6%, the researchers noted.
The first YouTube video was uploaded on April 23, 2005 by co-founder Jawed Karim. The 19 second clip, which is called Me at the Zoo, shows him at the San Diego Zoo. It has since racked up more 355 million views and 17 million likes.
Fittingly for its 20th birthday, YouTube reported that on average, there are over 20 million videos uploaded daily to YouTube. It also noted that YouTube isn’t the only one celebrating a birthday this year. Both YouTube Music and YouTube Kids are turning 10.
In terms of stats to mark the occasion, the platform reported that in 2024, YouTube users averaged over 100 million comments on videos on a daily basis and that creators hearted comments from an average of 10 million viewers every day. Last year, on average, YouTube videos received over 3.5 billion likes from users per day.
For the occasion, YouTube also announced a number of improvements to the user experience.
In the next few weeks, YouTube TV members can experiment with building their own multiview with select non-sports content, starting with a small group of popular channels and expanding in the coming months.
Last year, a small group of creators gained access to the ability to voice-reply to comments on their videos. YouTube reported that it will be expanding that feature in 2024.
In addition, users can now create your very own personalized radio station with Ask Music. Ask Music is available on iOS and Android for all YouTube Premium and YouTube Music users.
Beyond that, 4x playback speed is rolling out on YouTube Premium and a number of other features will be arriving this summer that will provide easier navigation, playback, quality tweaks, plus streamlined access to comments, channel info, and subscribing, the company reported.
More information is available here.
