On April 23, 2005, three former PayPal employees started a video-sharing site called YouTube, which has since grown into an influential media platform with over 1 billion users. Here are some milestones from the website’s history:
  • March 2005: Company’s founders register trademark in preparation for launching site that has no respect for trademarks
  • November 2008: YouTube begins transition to H.264/MPEG-4 AVC for video compression, claiming that the new format is best suited for blurry playback of 30 seconds of a Josh Groban concert recorded on a smartphone
  • May 2009: 34-year-old Virginia man Greg Bailey sits through an annoying car ad to see an awesome shoe ad
  • August 2010: In a groundbreaking deal, YouTube agrees to acquire the official music video for Collective Soul’s 1993 hit “Shine” for $600 million
  • October 2011: Jennifer Carney becomes first person to quit her job to focus on making videos showing off various skin creams she bought
  • March 2013: After courting marketing offers from film distribution houses such as Lions Gate Entertainment and Columbia Pictures, user BenGaY stuns fans by uploading his short film “All Along The Watchtower (Acoustic)” directly to YouTube
  • January 2014: Company celebrates upload of 50th video
  • April 2015: YouTube personality laughed off by millions reports six-figure income on 2014 tax documents
  • June 2048: FBI arrests 55 million for copyright infringement under the Millennium Copyright Act case it’s been building for the past half century