News JVTech YouTube turns 18 today: This is what it looked like when it started
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If you’re under the age of 18, you know that YouTube is older than you, and if you’re a long-time user, this doesn’t make you any younger and you should recognize YouTube’s images of yesteryear.
YouTube, 18 years of history
It’s Valentine’s Day and if some use this day to celebrate the love they have for their other half, I prefer to take the opportunity to celebrate my special affection for a website, and last but not least. As a matter of fact, It’s the day YouTube blows out its 18 candles.
On February 14th, 2005, all video hosting platforms show the tip of their noses. Vimeo has been here for a year and our beloved Dailymotion isn’t coming until next month. Back then, three former PayPal employees decided to create their own version. Jawed Karim, one of the three protagonists, is the one featured in the very first video posted to YouTube entitled “Me at the Zoo”.
We’re not going to lie to each other, when you’ve surfed YouTube for years, it’s hard not to fall into nostalgia. Personally, I grew up watching YouTube, and without being a veteran, I feel like I’ve seen a lot of trends. JI regularly feel a bit old when I see an old video in my thread that I know well that was posted “10 years ago”. It’s not just an uncomfortable feeling, it brings back good memories.
This is what YouTube has looked like over the years
If you’re new to YouTube, you might not know that the platform has changed a lot since its inception. And if you’re a veteran, you might have forgotten that the user interface of the world’s most popular video hosting site has nothing to do with how it looked yesterday. Just like his algorithm, YouTube adapts and changes its face over time, whether we like it or not.
The website Web Design Museum you can go back in time and see what the websites looked like years ago. So we can see YouTube and its evolution over the years, starting in 2005. The least we can say is that it started out in a very simple way: a logo, a search bar, tags, suggested videos and a lot of emptiness.
YouTube is starting to have a certain architecture 2006 with the appearance of tabs, friends, categories, history, the slogan “Broadcast Yourself”… Most importantly, we can see the advent of five-star video ratings before the thumbs-up and thumbs-down era. At this time, the most popular videos on the platform do not exceed 150,000 views. 2006 was also the year Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. an amazing number for the time.
When we take a jump In 2011 we see YouTube modernizing itself, and adds ads on its homepage. And by 2013, Google searched and modified the look of its website many times to arrive a clean look that follows the trend with tabs on the left side.
2013
We hope this little trip brought back memories for you. Today, YouTube removed the dislike count, added a premium version so it’s not inundated with ads, allowed live streaming, still has copyright issues, and is still dominated by music.
