A Written History of YouTube
February 26, 2015Hank Green recently wrote a piece about the history of YouTube.
The early days of YouTube are fascinating. You heard about it some while it was growing, and then you heard about it all the time after it’s $1.65B acquisition by Google. People’s minds were blown at the time that. Throwing that kind of money around for something many hadn’t heard all that much about was big news.
At the time, I was working on OnePlaybook and doing some work with video. Some people thought that meant I could be in a similar position simply because “internet” + “video.” I occasionally tricked myself into thinking the same.
Looking back on 2007-2008, the state of the internet, at least the internet I used, was an interesting place. Bloggers were hot. Some people were using Twitter and were excited about microblogging, something no one really says now. Other people scoffed at Twitter’s 140 character limit. I remember someone put together a site based around one character microblogging. Makes me think of something the Onion might do.
Some people had iPhones, and making videos with a phone was a new idea. Individuals were often using YouTube as a mostly vlogging medium, talking into a webcam most of the time.
Digg was still huge and Reddit wasn’t as big as it is now. Heck, “apps” weren’t a part of the regular vernacular outside of restaurants.
Facebook had only recently allowed people outside of college to join and was exploding at an amazing rate.
What’s interesting, is that many of the same big players and powers are still around. They’re still the 600lb gorillas. The big names then are the same big names now with a few exceptions. Instagram was acquired by Facebook. Snapchat is huge in some demographics and non-existent in others. Additionally, many people still question their viability. Pinterest has a strong but small user base. Tumblr was the cool kid and is now part of Yahoo. LinkedIn is still the corner case, handling its niche.
Many of the social web developments in the last 6-8 years have been blips, acquisitions, or minor players. Yes, networks have changed, morphed, and adjusted, there have been IPOs and big money thrown around. But we’re mostly talking about the same companies.
This is contrary to what Hank is saying. Here is one quote that I agree with:
Here’s what I think: Ten years ago, a plug that had been placed in the institution of human connection started to leak. Somewhere around 2011, it blew out completely.
And another one that I agree with the premise of:
…it’s easier to deal with centralized power than distributed power. But forced centralization will only result in the pressure venting elsewhere (as we’re seeing with Twitch and Vine right now).
But I disagree here:
Diversification and competition is inevitable as well.
As you can see above, most of the competition was either around by 2008 and/or acquired in the years since. Including YouTube. Even the new entrant of Vine is just a Twitter product with that machine behind it.
Outside of Snapchat or Pinterest, there’s no new, independent, major player. And Snapchat’s future is questionable. Dubious is too strong of a word. Something will happen and Snapchat will become something. It’s the what that’s questionable. Pinterest is small and niche, but staying strong.
I don’t think we need more social networks. I do think we’re in a period of mostly consolidation, not diversification. That’s somewhat worrisome.
Not that it’s all bad. It still is giving plenty of people a way to publish their videos and is the only social network that pays its users. Including for stupid ones like this:
