YouTube, which was launched on February 14, 2005, is the most popular video platform worldwide. Headquartered at 901 Cherry Avenue San Bruno, California, United States, YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim. Susan Wojcicki is the CEO and Chad Hurley is the Advisor.
There were 2.24 billion Youtube users worldwide in 2021, out of which 12% were men aged 25-34 years, and 9% were women aged 35-44. YouTube has over 2.1 billion viewers every month. It had $28.84 billion in ad revenues worldwide and its ad revenues as a share of Google’s total revenue was 11.2%. The share of global marketers using YouTube in 2021 was 52%.
YouTube Key Figures
Most viewed YouTube channel worldwide
Wiz Khalifa Music
Most subscribed YouTube beauty and style channel
Sandra Cires Art
Highest-paid YouTube star
Mr. Beast
Most viewed U.S. YouTube partner channel
Warner Music
Number of hours uploaded to YouTube every minute
500
Most viewed YouTube video of all time
Baby Shark Dance
Fastest video to reach 100 million YouTube streams
BTS ‘Butter” Official MV
Fastest viral video to reach 1 billion YouTube streams
Adele – Hello
Leading Countries Based on YouTube Audience Size as of April 2022
Here is the list of the most subscribed and popular YouTube channels so far.
T Series is a YouTube channel that is concentrated on music. T-series is the most viewed and most subscribed YouTube Channel. It has 232 million subscribers and over 209 billion views.
Cocomelon – Nursery Rhymes
Cocomelon is an American YouTube channel. They are known for their 3D videos of traditional nursery rhymes as well as their rhymes for children. The channel has 150 million subscribers.
SET India
SET India is an Indian-based YouTube channel. They post videos in Hindi. The channel concentrates on entertainment. SET India has 149 million subscribers.
MrBeast
MrBeast is the YouTube channel of Jimmy Donaldson. He is an American YouTuber, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. His genre includes comedy, entertainment, and gaming. His YouTube channel has 125 million subscribers.
Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg (PewDiePie)
PewDiePie is a Swedish YouTuber. His channel has 111 million subscribers. It is an entertainment channel mostly known for its gaming and comedies.
Kids Diana Show
Kids Diana Show is a YouTube channel that focuses on kids. The Ukrainian-based YouTube channel has 106 million subscribers.
Like Nastya
Like Nastya is a YouTube channel hosted by a Russian YouTuber. It is the single most viewed channel owned by a YouTuber. The YouTube channel posts videos on entertainment for children, and has 103 million subscribers.
WWE
WWE is an American-based YouTube channel. It comes under the category of sports and the channel posts videos on wrestling. WWE has 92.4million subscribers.
Vlad and Niki is a YouTube channel that features two brothers. It is the English Channel that concentrates on the entertainment sector. The YouTube channel has 91.9 million subscribers.
Zee Music Company
Zee Music Company is an Indian YouTube channel. It comes under the subsidiary of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. The channel posts Hindi videos and has 91 million subscribers.
Blackpink
Blackpink is a YouTube channel formed by YG entertainment. It is a South Korean YouTube channel with a girl group. They concentrate on the music sector and their YouTube channel has 83.6 million subscribers.
Goldmines telefilms
Goldmines telefilms is an Indian film company that specializes in dubbing movies. Goldmines telefilms have 80.3 million subscribers on its YouTube channel.
5-Minute Crafts
5-Minute Crafts is a YouTube channel which is owned by The Soul Publishing. They concentrate on DIY, life hacks, how-to videos, etc. The YouTube channel has 78.2 million subscribers.
Sony SAB is an Entertainment channel. This Indian has over 75.3 million subscribers. The contents of this channel are in Hindi.
BangtanTV
BangtanTV is a South Korean Music channel with over 72.6 million subscribers. The primary language of this channel is Korean.
Justin Bieber
Justin Bieber is one of the most popular Singers. He is a Canadian singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. His YouTube channel has 70.7 million subscribers.
Hybe Labels
Hybe Labels is a South Korean YouTube channel which is owned by Hybe Corporation. They have a collection of videos on music and the most famous music video of Hybe labels is Dynamite with over 1.6 billion views. The YouTube channel has 69.3 million subscribers.
Canal KondZilla
Canal KondZilla is the largest YouTube channel in Brazil and Latin America. He is a Brazilian YouTuber who is a screenwriter and director. His YouTube channel has 66.3 million subscribers.
Zee TV
Zee TV is a YouTube channel which is owned by the Essel Group in India. They post entertainment-based videos in Hindi. The YouTube channel has 65million subscribers.
Pinkfong is a South Korean educational channel. It has over 63.6 million subscribers. The primary language of this channel is English.
Dude Perfect
Dude Perfect is an American YouTube channel. They are mostly concentrated on sports and comedy. Their YouTube channel contains sports-related videos. The YouTube channel has 58.5 million subscribers.
Movieclips
Movieclips is an American YouTube channel. They offer trailers and streaming videos of movie clips from various Hollywood film companies. The YouTube channel has 58.4 million subscribers.
Marshmello
Marshmello is the official name of Christopher Comstock. He is an American electronic music producer and DJ. His YouTube channel has 56.1 million subscribers.
Conclusion
The above list of the top YouTube channels around the globe is based on the subscriber number in 2022. You can find some of the best and most popular content in the list.
FAQs
Which is the most subscribed YouTube channel?
With over 232 million subscribers, T-Series is the most-subscribed channel so far.
Which is the most-viewed YouTube video?
With over 12 billion views, Baby Shark Dance is the most-viewed YouTube video, followed by Despacito (8.05 Bn views).
Who is the highest-paid YouTube star?
Jimmy Donaldson, better known as MrBeast is the highest-paid YouTube star in 2022.
Who is India’s No 1 YouTuber?
As per this report, Ajey Nagar, a popular comedy content creator, and gamer popularly known as CarryMinati is the top individual YouTuber from India.
Which are the most-subscribed Youtube channels?
Here is the list of the top 10 most-subscribed Youtube channels:
We all like the tricks and features of anything. With tricks, all the things become simpler. Many people today spend most of their time on YouTube. Almost all people use YouTube for various purposes but most people don’t know about YouTube tricks, hack, and features behind the video, people just seeing the video and passes to the next video. Another category of people who want how to make use of YouTube become worried and they lack knowledge behind YouTube hacks and tricks.
Here we will discuss YouTube hacks, features that will be very useful in day to day watching videos.
You may not know that there is a multitude of keyboard shortcuts available on YouTube, some of which provide functions that are otherwise not accessible on the platform.
Key
Functions
Spacebar
Play or pause a video
k
Play or pause a video in player
m
Mute or unmute a video
Left and right arrow
Jump backward or forward 5 seconds
j
Jump backward 10 seconds
l
Jump forward 10 seconds
,
When video is paused, skip to next frame
Up and down arrow
Increase and decrease volume
>
Speed up video playback rate
<
Slow down video playback rate
1—9
Jump to the 10% to 90% of the video mark
0
Go to the beginning of the video
/
Go to the search box
f
Activate full screen
c
Activate closed captions
2. See the Transcript of Video
Video transcription is the process of translating your video’s audio into text. YouTube automatically creates transcripts for every video created on its platform.
Here’s how to do it:
Click on the More button below the video and select Transcript from the menu.
Video Transcript
3. Create Links that Start at Specific Times
Linking to a specific time in a YouTube video is a great trick for when you just want to show a specific segment of a video—especially if the video is long and the segment that you want to share comes several minutes after it starts playing.
Click Share directly beneath the video.
In the pop-up box, check the box next to Start at.
Set Specific Time
Enter the time you want the video to start. The correct time may already be listed if you pressed the share button at the exact moment you want the video to start.
4. Create a GIF from YouTube Video
You want to turn your favorite part into a funny GIF to share with friends. Or maybe you just want a new GIF. GIFs get a lot of action on social media.
How to create a GIF from a YouTube video:
Open the video.
Add the word “gif” before YouTube in the URL. It should read: www.gifyoutube.com/[VideoID]
Customize your GIF.
5. Translate Video Titles and Descriptions
YouTube is expanding its translation tools to cover the video titles and descriptions as well. With the feature now available, it will probably prove to be mutually beneficial for all parties involved. The ability to have their content be made accessible to a wider range of audiences.
Here’s how to add the translations to your YouTube videos:
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
From the left menu, select Subtitles.
Select a video.
If you haven’t selected the language for a video, you’ll be asked to choose the language. Click Confirm.
Select Add language and choose the language you’d like to translate to.
Under Title & description, select Add.
Enter the translated title and description. Press Publish.
Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of images or videos that originally got their name from being about the size of a human thumbnail. They’re easier to scan and organize than their full-size. Thumbnails help YouTube decide how to rank your video.
Copy the Video ID ( after this part of youtube. com/watch?v=).
Paste the VideoID here (https://img.youtube.com/vi/youtube-video-id/maxresdefault.jpg).
Put the full link into your browser.
Save the image.
7. Share Auto-Subscribe Link
When your YouTube channel is used for monetization, it is crucial to add as many subscribers as possible to generate revenue and to promote channel visibility, as well as awareness and recognition. YouTube has provided a simple and updated way for you to increase the number of subscribers to your channel with a URL modifier.
This subscription link provides a way for your audience to subscribe to your channel with no effort involved by simply clicking on the link.
Follow these steps to create a link that opens with an automatic subscribe prompt:
Find your channel ID or Custom URL. From your channel page (https://www.youtube.com/user/[Channel ID])
Copy and paste or type in the modifier ?sub_confirmation=1 at the end of your channel name to look like this: (https://www.youtube.com/user/[Channel ID]?sub_confirmation=1)
Now use this as a link for your audience to automatically subscribe to your YouTube channel in video descriptions, emails, social media, websites, and blogs
8. Add Cards to Videos
Cards can make your video more engaging and cross-promote other content. In YouTube, the audience’s engagement is extremely valuable. For that, YouTube itself provides some features that increase the engagement level between your channel and viewer. YouTube Cards add more visual components with underlying objectives to you.
You can add five different types of YouTube cards to your videos:
Video or playlist: Promote your video content.
Channel: Promote another channel.
Donation: Feature a nonprofit or cause of your choice and encourage donations.
Poll: Encourage viewers to engage in a multiple-choice poll.
Link: Link to an approved website off of YouTube.
How to add cards to your YouTube videos:
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
Select Videos from the left menu.
Click the video you’d like to edit.
Click the Cards box.
Select Add card. Then, select Create.
Customize your card and click Create card.
Adjust the time for the card to appear below the video
Add YouTube Cards
9. Create Closed Captions to Improve Accessibility and SEO
Closed captions or subtitles make your content available to a larger audience. That includes viewers that are deaf or hard of hearing, or people watching the video with sound off. As a bonus, this also improves the search engine optimization ranking for your video.
You can either create subtitles or closed captions on YouTube, or upload a transcript file. Latter will be useful, you can save the file as you go and store it as a backup in case the video gets deleted by mistake.
Two ways of adding captions to videos can improve your search engine rankings.
Improving search engine visibility
Improving audience engagement
How to create subtitles or closed captions:
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
From the left menu, select Subtitles.
Click the video that you’d like to edit.
Click Add Language and select your language.
Under subtitles, click Add.
Enter your captions as the video plays.
How to upload a transcript:
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
From the left menu, select Videos.
Click on the title or thumbnail of a video.
Select More options.
Select Upload subtitles/cc.
Choose between With timing or Without timing. Select Continue.
YouTube Premieres lets you and your viewers watch and experience a new video together. Whereas if you premiere your post, your viewers will get a heads up of what new content is coming and when it will be available making them more likely to come back and tune in. So the premiere live streams the video initially, but after its runtime, it becomes a regular YouTube video.
Premieres are a mix between a live stream and a traditional YouTube video. You prerecord them, but then play those recordings live, with live chat and donations like standard live streams.
How to premiere a video on YouTube:
Visit youtube.com/upload.
Select your video to upload and fill in the video details.
On the Preview & Publish tab, select Set as a Premiere.
Choose between Start immediately and Schedule for a later date.
Select Done to complete the upload process.
When the premiere starts:
A countdown will show during the first 2 minutes of the premiere.
When the countdown is over, viewers watch the video together in real-time.
Viewers can’t scrub forward, but they can scrub backwards during the stream.
The concurrent viewers count shows the number of viewers watching.
You can continue to interact with your audience in comments and live chat (if eligible).
11. Keep Viewers Watching with Playlists
A playlist is a collection of videos. Playlists can include videos from your channels or others. Playlists are usually used to organize videos with similar content. Playlists allow viewers to have what YouTube describes as a “lean-back” experience. Watch-time is an important ranking factor on YouTube. This means YouTube increases the rankings of videos that retain viewers for a long time. Playlists auto-play to the next video. As a result, viewers tend to watch more videos per sitting. Therefore, playlists improve search rankings by increasing YouTube watch-time.
Use YouTube Analytics to determine how your playlists are doing. Go to Traffic sources and YouTube Playlists. It is one of the best YouTube hacks for views. You can track the number of views, minutes watched, and average view duration. The goal is to change your playlist strategies if the results are disappointing. Playlists are a great way to retain viewers to your channel.
How to create a playlist:
Find a video you want in the playlist.
Under the video, click Save.
Click Create a new playlist.
Enter a playlist name.
Click Create.
If you’re looking to grow your presence on YouTube, playlists can be a collaborative tool, too.
How to add collaborators to a playlist:
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
Select Playlists.
Click Edit next to the appropriate playlist.
Below the playlist’s title, click More.
Select Collaborate.
Slide on Collaborators can add videos to this playlist.
Turn on Allow new collaborators.
Copy the playlist link and share it with the people you want to collaborate with.
12. Blur Objects or Faces in Videos
You don’t need expensive editing software to blur moving objects or faces in your YouTube video. The blur tool comes in handy when someone in your video decides that they want to stay anonymous. To reduce the risk of identity theft and violation, the platform has created a tool for blurring objects and faces in creators’ videos. The tool is free to use and easy to find in the YouTube Studio.
If you want to blur anything other than a face, your best option is to use YouTube’s custom blur tool. This feature allows you to place circular or rectangular blurs over different objects in a video.
Custom blur:
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
Select Videos.
Click the video you’d like to edit.
Select Editor.
Click Add Blur.
Next to Custom blurring click Edit.
Hover over the video and click Pause.
Click and drag the box to adjust the blur.
Click Done.
Click Save.
Here’s how to blur faces:
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
Select Videos.
Click the video you’d like to edit.
Select Editor.
Click Get Started.
Click Add Blur.
Next to Blur faces click Edit.
Once processing is complete, click the thumbnails of the faces you’d like to blur.
Click Save.
Click Save again.
How to Blur Faces and Objects
13. Add Custom Subscribe Button to Videos
You can encourage viewers to subscribe to your channel by adding a branding watermark to your videos. This kind of branding watermark is often called a custom subscribe button. When you add a subscribe button on your YouTube videos, viewers can directly subscribe to your channel if they hover over the subscribe button when using YouTube on a computer.
How to do it:
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
Select Settings.
Select Channel and then Branding.
Select Choose image. Upload the image you’d like to use as your branding watermark.
Select the display time for the branding watermark. You can choose the entire video, a custom time, of the last 15 seconds of the video.
Save changes.
14. Pin Comment to Top of Feed
Being able to determine the first comment your viewers see is a great way to prompt viewers to check out related videos on your channel. This is a very easy way to promote related content you want your viewers to watch, prompt them to subscribe to your channel or link them to your website.
Here’s how to pin a comment:
Go to your Community tab.
Select the comment you want to pin.
Click More and then, Pin.
Pin a comment
15. Download Royalty-Free Sound Effects and Music
The music library includes songs in just about every genre and mood. Among the sound effects, you’ll find everything from laugh tracks to an old engine sputter.
How to do it:
Sign in to YouTube Studio.
From the left menu, select Audio library.
Choose Free music or Sound effects from the upper tabs.
Preview tracks by clicking the Play icon.
Click the arrow to download the track you’ve chosen.
When it comes to making and posting videos online, YouTube and Vimeo are the two most popular platforms in the market. That’s why the question is often asked about YouTube vs Vimeo, which one is better? They are both amazing video sharing platforms with their respective advantages and disadvantages.
By 2019, video content is predicted to command about 80% of all web traffic. The businesses have to start thinking about how video fits into the long-term marketing strategy and attracting more and more audience, taking it seriously will help the business grow.
Before diving into making videos, it’s important to figure out where one is going to host them. YouTube is the largest video hosting platform on the web, but it might not be the best choice for every business.
YouTube has a monopoly over the video-sharing industry and only recently has other services such as Facebook, Instagram and Netflix have risen to pose as a threat. With over 300 hours worth of video being uploaded to the site every minute, YouTube might look virtually indefatigable in the video-sharing space. YouTube also gets over 1.9 billion monthly active users to its site, making it one of the most visited websites in the world.
Compared to YouTube, Vimeo’s stats look tiny. But Vimeo has been around for longer than YouTube and managed to thrive amongst the heavy competition.
If one wants to directly upload the videos to a blog, it might be not feasible as some blog sites are not designed to stream videos.
Videos are large files and most hosting providers don’t offer servers optimized for video streaming. If multiple users access videos on the website at once, then this could crash the server.
On top of that, each user has a different type of internet connection. The high quality videos will take forever to load on slower internet connections.
On the other hand, video hosting platforms like YouTube and Vimeo are designed to serve videos. They have server technology and to offer a far superior video streaming experience.
YouTube vs Vimeo: Which one is better?
Detailed Comparison Between YouTube and Vimeo
Pricing
YouTube and Vimeo both are profit-making companies. Their pricing options are based on how they make money.
YouTube
YouTube is free. Because they make money by showing advertisements. The advertisements are displayed inside the video, in the sidebar, and inside the YouTube app. It offers a paid subscription called YouTube Red for viewers. This service allows us to get rid of advertisements as well as access YouTube original shows.
However, as a content creator one will be able to upload as many videos as he likes for free. Initially, YouTube won’t allow uploading videos longer than 15 minutes. However, the limit is increased by verifying the account.
Vimeo
Vimeo’s business model is quite different than YouTube. They make their money by selling a video hosting services, so publishers and businesses can offer their users an ad free viewing experience. It offers a range of pricing plans starting with the free plan, which is limited to 500 MB of storage per week and 25GB per year.
Users can join Vimeo Plus, Pro, or Business plans. Each one of them offers different upload limits and features. A Free plan is quite limited in terms of storage and features. Users can start with Vimeo Plus, it costs $7 per month and will provide with 5 GB of storage per week.
YouTube vs Vimeo
User base & SEO
YouTube
YouTube is the most visited site in the US and is among the top three worldwide. YouTube has a massive user base and currently has over 1.9 billion monthly active users. Also, YouTube being a Google product means that the users have access to the SEO tools and analytics that Google has to offer for free.
Vimeo
Vimeo currently is the third most popular video site on the internet, just under YouTube and Netflix. Vimeo has only 170 million monthly active users. It is a fraction of YouTube’s monthly active users, but it has 90 million registered users under its various subscription plans. This is not shabby considering the number of monthly users using the platform.
Vimeo also provides its members with precise analytics, SEO tools, and insights stats on views, comments, likes, shares, total plays, and geographical data. But it is only the paid plans that receive to access them.
Branding & Community
YouTube
YouTube is more of a place where anyone can upload their videos and be able to share it with the rest of the world. YouTube can take down videos even without notice in case it violates their changing policies. YouTube also doesn’t focus much on what content is being uploaded – as long as it does not violate any of YouTube’s policies, it is allowed to be uploaded to YouTube.
This is reflected in YouTube’s community and ecosystem as well. You’ll be hard-pressed to find comments that don’t verge on being either too fanboyish or too hateful. That is not to say you won’t be able to get useful or constructive feedback – a diverse group of people use YouTube and for various reasons, which makes obtaining it that much harder.
Vimeo
Vimeo has established itself as the place to be if you’re wanting to share your art with the rest of the like-minded community. Users tend to prefer Vimeo in case they are looking for some high-quality content. This also might be because the fee for accounts with larger upload caps acts as a filter, stopping just about anyone from posting on Vimeo.
This makes Vimeo’s community quite the perfect place to obtain constructive criticism and gets noticed in the professional community. Many companies and brands also tend to prefer uploading their videos on Vimeo first and then to YouTube because of the stability the former offers.
Wrap up
Nothing can stop anyone from using both the sites, depending on the aims for each video. Probably a better idea would be to create a free account with both Vimeo and YouTube and experience both the platforms and see which best suits the aims of your business.
History of something now established is really interesting to read about. One of the interesting topics is History of YouTube,a video-sharing website on the internet. There are tons of intriguing data and stats to be learned about YouTube. It has been 15 years since its inception and it is still going viral and is popular.
YouTube was originally founded in 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all former employees of Paypal. Hurley studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Chen and Karim together studied computer science at the University of Illinois. It was developed as a platform for anyone to post videos of their choice, option of sharing them was also provided. The primary goal was that users could use the site to upload, share, and view content without restriction.
The original concept was to develop a dating website called Tune In, Hook Up, which allowed users to post videos of themselves for others to view and decide whether or not to go on a date with them. However, no one was willing to participate in it and it eventually failed.
But the idea of uploading a video was up and when the group had discussed about how difficult it was to find a video online of Janet Jackson’s infamous wardrobe malfunction, during the 2004 Superbowl Halftime show, a concept began to form.
Knowing that a video-sharing platform wasn’t into picture yet, the team jumped into the market and the name of “Tune In Hook Up” was changed to “YouTube”. An internet phenomenon was born that year.
On April 23rd 2005, the first ever YouTube video was posted. It was an 18 second clip of one of the founder Jawed Karim standing in front of elephants at the zoo, it was entitled as Me at the zoo.
Later, in September 2005, a Nike promo video of Brazilian football star, Ronaldinho showing of his ball juggling skills became the first YouTube video to get around a million views. From that event, YouTube exploded and the finances began rolling in.
Growth in YouTube Revenue
Growth of YouTube and events when it became popular
Currently, it has over 2 billion monthly users who watch hundreds or thousands of hours of video content in a flow. How did YouTube become such huge independent platform over the passage of time?
Initially, the site opened on a limited/small scale basis in May 2005, it managed to attract around 30,000 visitors per day. YouTube was officially launched on December 15, 2005 and it was serving more than 2 million video views each day, proving its overall huge growth. By January 2006 that number rose to more than 25 million views. The number of videos at the site crossed around 25 million in March 2006, with more than 20,000 new videos uploaded on a daily basis. In early 2006, YouTube was serving more than 100 million videos per day, and the number of videos being uploaded to the site showed no sign of slowing down.
It has since grown to become one of the most successful video distribution sites in the world. Today, many YouTubers make a decent living by selling ad space before or on videos they create and upload onto the site.
Some unprecedented events took place in the way of its growth. The unforeseen growth in views/visitors at YouTube created its own set of problems. The company started buying more computer equipment and more connections to the Internet. YouTube was forced to allocate more financial resources for potential litigation, as many media companies discovered that some of the videos uploaded on YouTube contained copyrighted issues. With limited success in commercializing its Web site or containing its growing costs, YouTube began looking for a buyer.
Hence, after 18 months, the company was bought by the Internet God itself, Googlefor $1.65 billion in stock. YouTube went from amateur video sharing application to the powerhouse of the video content, giving birth to the pioneers like The Smosh Brothers and PewDiePie.
Through years of refinement, Google began to embed targeted advertising directly into the video clips that its users watched and also promoting the featured content. This was later replaced by playing paid ads before a video began.
The company has also recently added the two-ads feature, which shows two ads at once to boost up potential revenue from the content. But this is not the only revenue source for the platform. YouTube also pulls in money through its subscriber based model, now called YouTube Premium (previously: YouTube Red), Music Premium service and paid TV service.
This service offers users exclusive benefits, like removing ads, and charges subscribers a regular subscription fee.
Compensation make creators satisfies and increase their loyalty to the platform as it facilitates a healthy amount of competition by providing newer, smaller-scale creators something to strive for
YouTube currently offer three awards as a token of Recognition for their creators for reaching certain milestones- a Silver Play Button (1 lakh Subscribers), a Gold Play Button (1 million Subscribers) and a Diamond Play Button (10 million Subscribers).
YouTube has wide and content variety on its platform which keeps the viewers by the edge of their seat and explore more.
Maintaining close connection with the audience has given a greatest push to viewers to reply on this platform.
History of YouTube
Some interesting facts about YouTube
Me at the zoo is still searchable on YouTube, it now has over 30,000,000 views and 450,000 likes.
YouTube was founded on Valentine’s Day in 2005.
The “You” represents that the content is created by user and not generated by the site and “Tube” is an older original term for television.
It is now present in more than 75 countries and available in 61 languages, with hundreds of hours of video content uploaded every minute!
YouTube has a fun Easter egg that will let you change the color of the progress bar if you type “awesome” on the window, for that the video has to be paused.
YouTube had pranked its millions of users every April Fools Day in the past, the first was a video on the site’s homepage which was actually a Rickroll.
Considering the YouTube’s size, dominance, wide acceptance of content creators and market occupations, it is unlikely to fade away any time soon. It has set a milestone in the digital industry.
Some artists and musicians don’t believe in earning money through their arts. On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have individuals who have monetized their creative skills. Music streaming is one such domain which allows artists to earn income. If you want to know how music streaming services enable artists to make money, then this post is for you.
The global music streaming market experienced its fourth consecutive year of growth in 2018, generating over $19 billion in revenue. Music streaming now accounts for almost half of that revenue with 255 million paid users worldwide.
A complete transformation in the streaming music industry began with the launch of Spotify, the music streaming Stockholm based startup. Spotify came into being on October 7, 2008, at a when music streaming was considered as the consumers’ wildest dreams and only accounted for 1% of the global music sales.
By 2013, Spotify had almost 30 million active users along with almost 8 million premium subscribers.
The digital music industry now rests in the hands of Apple Music and Spotify, and has become a mega contributor to the revenue generated in the music industry. This research was conducted by the Wall Street Journal.
The data included paid as well as streaming subscriptions; it also reported a jump in subscriptions for both apps by 31%, which equated to 62% of the industry’s total gross revenue. In 2019, Apple and Spotify reported an 18% shift in revenues valued at 5.4 billion dollars.
Although most of it came from music streaming, physical media sales also went up unexpectedly. Both vinyl and CDs saw a massive jump in sales in the past few years.
Still, this notable increase in physical media sales can’t compete with the music streaming force industry, an area backed by artists like Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, and Drake. Although these artists aren’t paid huge in music streaming, an appreciable segment of their customer base relies on music streaming.
Growth Of Streaming Apps
How Music Steaming Industry Earn Money
Physical music services, in the form of CDs and similar mediums, were the primary source of listening to music till early 2000s. With the advent of iPhone in 2007, the availability of high-speed internet, and a more digitally inclined crowd, these physical mediums started declining from 2008.
The launch of Spotify and other audio streaming services launched at nearly the same time got a major boost; people were exploring the wonders of audio streaming. And with the emergence of 4G, better smartphones, and everything transitioning to cloud, these streaming apps are now mainstream. The younger generation is now addicted to music streaming and can’t survive without it.
Artists make a lot of money. How? Almost 70% of their revenue comes from online subscribes as well as advertisements.
The allotment strategy adopted is pro-rata allotment in which a fixed percent is allocated to the artists out of the total streaming base (in the form of royalties). However, artists and musicians desire the payment to made on the basis of who the audience likes and listens to the most. Deezer, a music streaming app, is pushing for this change and pressurizing the big giants to do the same.
Inventions and innovations are the part and parcel of every industry. The growing competition is encouraging a huge transformation in the music industry. The newest innovations emphasize on understanding the listening habits of an individual and directing them towards tailored recommendations.
The new era is about competition between Netflix, Amazon Music, YouTube music, Spotify, and others. Spotify took a major step in acquiring Gimlet Media, taking the initial step towards original content. The acquisition is also a way to recover the lost revenue by enabling more music platforms for streaming coupled with hiked subscription rates.
The connection and intimate bonding with listeners has become stronger with the launch of live streaming. Music is now not just about pleasure and enjoyment, but a platform to make money. These streaming platforms continue to provide more avenues to musicians, a medium to be in front of appraisers and audience with some help from tech giants.
This post is dedicated to curating a business around music. It’s possible to make money as a musician. Nearly everyone has a passion for music but no one wants to put in the full-time hard work and efforts required. There are several music producers and musicians, but only a few are able to monetize their skills.
This post provides a generalized outlook on making money in today’s landscape as a musician. It should provide you some guidance in your journey towards making a successful career as a musician.
Like any other creative career, the initial days of a musician involve immense toil, sweat, and tears. You need to build a portfolio. It maybe singing, playing instruments, or both. It’s important to specialize in a genre or segment. Have a knack for writing awesome rap? Then strengthen yourself in it. Don’t inter-twine classical music with rap then. Same goes for musical instruments. You may know to play guitar, piano, and several other instruments. Ultimately, you’ll have to narrow down. However, if you are proficient in multiple instruments, then go ahead. People love musicians who can play multiple instruments like a pro.
At the start, don’t expect hundreds of thousands of people to go gaga over your songs and creations. Some of your early creations may go unnoticed, but you’ll strike gold with one of them.
And it’s about hustling in the beginning. A song you wrote will need several revisions. Late night practice, jamming sessions, and consistent efforts will eventually show results.
Gone are the days of CDs, cassettes, and all that jazz. Today, Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, and other digital platforms rule the roost. One’s entire music playlist resides in smartphones, laptops, etc. People pay for subscriptions to stream music on-demand.
Emerging musicians are utilizing YouTube to the fullest. The power of social media platforms allows them to reach a large mass. All in all, it’s a world dominated by the web, and Walkman, mp3 players, and iPods have become history.
And this is the future of the music industry. Eventually, no one’s going to have audio files in their devices. It will be about downloading or stream music as and when needed.
First and foremost, make a list of all platforms allow to publicize and promote your musical abilities. This includes, but is not restricted to, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and other social media websites.
Want some inspiration and success stories to get an idea? Google Shirley Setia. You don’t need to participate in national level singing events and musical shows to make name and claim some fame. At present, it’s about uploading your music videos on the internet, spread the word, and continuing to hustle in parallel.
At the same time, stay as far as possible from plagiarism. People are quick to sniff out copy-and-paste tunes. And if you get caught once, it’s going to taint your image forever. So place originality above everything when composing any kind of item.
If you have some budget to spend, add in some marketing tactics as well. Paid advertisements on Facebook is one example. Purchase a good quality recording equipment to shoot videos of yourself. While a simple audio recorder built in your smartphone is enough for recording your song, you need to have a good camera for video based creations.
If you are uploading your singing or video on online platforms, don’t fill it with ads in the name of monetization. At start, viewers will disregard your attempts as spam videos and audio clips. Keep it as simple as possible. Take Ed Sheeran as an example; no, you don’t necessarily need to take it to the streets and showcase your skills. Leverage the power, influence, and reach of the internet. It’s the quickest way to display your music prowess to several people at the same time.
Also, think of yourself as a business. After all, you are building your identity in the process.
YouTube is basically a website on which people can watch and upload videos. But that is an understanding. You Tuber offers only this much to its users. YouTube has many features in streaming its videos. The website has a search bar through which you can access relevant videos among the billions available. This makes it so easy for users to find exactly what they are looking for. You can optimize your search using keywords. Users can enter captions for their videos which allow them to become more relevant to searches. Apart from this, users can also live stream. YouTube also has a community feature that allows a channel to host a community tab. On it, it can post videos, pictures and GIF for viewers.
YouTube logo
YouTube Red
It is a premium feature that YouTube have. It is like a subscription service that gives the user access to many otherwise accessible features. These include streaming video without advertising, content that is not normally accessible, and playback feature on offline and background mobile devices. You also have access to all services of Google play music
YouTube TV
In 2017, on 28 February, YouTube announced the launch of another service called YouTube TV. It is a live TV service with over 40 channels. However, this service is only available in selected US cities. It comes with a fee of $ 35 per month. It provides unlimited cloud DVR storage. It can record your favorite shows simultaneously. It is available on your phone, TV and computer.
How Does YouTube Earn Revenue ?
YouTube, as we saw in the first paragraph, is a video sharing website. Its products are its users. This is right. What YouTube is essentially selling is its users for various advertisers. They also have other sources of revenue.
YouTube revenue model
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Most videos on YouTube are completely free for users to watch, and it is for this reason that they get such a large number of visitors every day: over thirty million. The simple fact is that they get many people visiting their website on a daily basis, a large crowd of advertisers attracts them.
One method is through sponsored videos. The advertiser pays YouTube according to the views received after the advertisement is selected. The sponsored video is first displayed at the top of all videos and its address is based on the specific keywords that will be searched.
The second method through which it makes money through advertising is by embedded video. The advertisement that is run at the beginning of the video is embedded video. Here too, you get your salary based on watching YouTube.
The third method is advertisements displayed on the homepage of the website. On opening the homepage of the website, there are some blocks of advertisements which are shown along the sides.
These are also advertising schemes that YouTube offers to its customers. Here, advertising earns revenue through a mix of clicks and views
YouTube Premium Service
YouTube also earns through its premium services, such as YouTube Red and YouTube TV. The reason for this is the constant battle between ad pushers and ad blockers, and hence they have to depend on such services by charging a monthly fee. YouTube has also started a program that will pay channels on YouTube and charge subscribers monthly to gain access
YouTube Customer Segment:
People who use YouTube and derive value from it.
People who use the Internet extensively.
People who like to watch videos and actively subscribe to them.
Advertisers who want to connect with people using the Internet.
Developers who want to get their products and design there for people to see.
Considering all the sources of revenue and costs that the company incites to hosting videos, YouTube is still struggling to make significant profits. Users are making money from third parties by promoting products. YouTube needs to start dubbing in this area to meet the shortcomings in its profits. The CEO of YouTube still says that YouTube is at an investment level in its growth. YouTube is trying to figure out a complete model that will allow them to reap the beneficial benefits. But YouTube is the second most visited site in the world. This gives them an edge to begin with. They can capitalize on this fact on a large scale and become one of the most profitable businesses. Like the basic axis from a dating website to the common one, YouTube needs a more simple axis to make money making machines. That is YouTube for you.
Kimi Dutta
