Which of these video broadcasting giants is better?

YouTube paved the way for internet video sites.

© YOUTUBE

VIDEO STREAMING can be split up into several different sectors: Most TV channels have an additional website for catch-up TV; there are subscription sites, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+, that charge a monthly fee to watch on-demand films and TV series: and then there are websites, such as YouTube and Twitch, that host unique content in the form of video clips or live streaming videos. These sites have helped the internet take over from traditional television as an entertainment medium. So, in this issue’s head-to-head, we’re going to focus on these two giants.

Now one of the main players in the online video industry, YouTube had humble beginnings. In 2005, Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim had the idea of a platform where people could share ‘home videos’. These three ex-PayPal employees made this idea a reality and named it YouTube. Back then, the concept of an online space where people could find and watch unique content was revolutionary,

The first video on the site, called ‘Me at the zoo’, was uploaded by Jawed Karim on April 23rd, 2005 and was used to test the site. In May that year, the website launched as a beta and was soon racking up 30,000 visitors a day. By today’s standards, that’s tiny but back then, this was big news for a startup website. That figure soon rose exponentially, and by the time YouTube launched officially in December 2005, it was getting 2 million video views a day.