27 / 66
YouTube Is Born
25
acting as a window to the world to them. They have a chance to experi-
ence cultures beyond their border. They would never have had the op-
portunity to do that before,” Chad said in a 2007 interview.
YouTube has become a way for people to share their unique experi-
ences without a need for an official news outlet. Anyone can upload a
video to YouTube, and anyone can come to watch that video with a reli-
able Internet connection. YouTube has adapted to help people become
more connected than ever before. Some of the community features that
were added were comments and tags. People who post and watch any
video on YouTube can interact with each other, as long as comments
are enabled on that video. Messages can even be sent from one user to
another.
Some people have said that YouTube is redefining television, but the
creators of YouTube do not feel that way. “It’s definitely not television.
It’s a different
medium
,” Chad Hurley said. “It’s a different experience.
People just have a chance to consume video.”
GROWTH
Soon, YouTube was considered to be one of the fastest growing websites
on the web. In July of 2006, users were uploading more than 65,000
videos each day, and there were 100 million unique views occurring per
Make Connections
One of the ways YouTube pulled in so many users so quickly was
by promising rewards for using the website. In 2005, an iPod
Nano was promised to one random user per day until the end of
the year, which helped pull in a lot of new users. What kept the
users there, however, was how useful and fun the website was!