It has been more than 10 years, that the first ever YouTube video was uploaded by Jawed Karim!

Updated On March 18, 2024 | Published By: raheen munnie | In Career

Jawed Karim, an internet entrepreneur was the one who uploaded the first-ever video on YouTube.
The video was shot by Yakov Lapitsky of Jawed Karim’s visit to the zoo.

It is very surprising to know that YouTube was initially used about 12 years before. The video was uploaded in the year 2005.

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First-ever YouTube Video

The very first video which was uploaded on YouTube was about a visit to the zoo. Jawed Karim uploaded the video who was also one of the co-founders of YouTube.

The video was uploaded on the 23rd of April in the year 2005. Jawed Karim uploaded the masterpiece of mundanity on YouTube which was his newly launched video portal.

The video was captioned ‘Me at the Zoo’. Zawed Karim talks about the San Diego Zoo. In the clip he said:

“Cool thing about these guys is that they have really, really really long, um, trunks. And that’s cool. And that’s pretty much all there is to say.”

The video clip was not much but only about Zawed Karim talking about the elephants for 18 seconds in the Zoo he visited. Zawed Karim was standing in front of the elephants.

The elephants were visible in the video. It doesn’t include any dramatic chipmunks, zero nastyass honey badgers. It is not even a trailer for the new ‘Star Wars’ film and doesn’t show a celebrity causing a ruckus.

About 12 years later, YouTube is the best place where anyone can post a video about anything. When a video is posted on YouTube, a #TBT link to the clip on Facebook, it started to go viral all over again and Me at the zoo has had more than 20 million views.

Jawed Karim with Steve Chan and Chad Hurley

YouTube was co-founded by Jawed Karim, Steve Chan, and Chad Hurley. During that time, three of them worked at PayPal.

Jawed Karim and Steve Chan first met each other while they were studying computer science in college. Before working in Paypal, Jawed Karim had previously studied at the University of Illinois, Department of Computer Science.

Jawed Karim, said that he was inspired by YouTube from searching (in vain) for a clip of Janet Jackson’s 2004 Super Bowl ‘wardrobe malfunction.’

Steve Chan and Chad Hurley said that the idea originated as a video-based online dating service. In less than two years after Karim uploaded the first video 9 a recording of himself at the San Diego.

Less than two years after Karim uploaded the first video 9 a recording of himself at the San Diego Zoo, “Me at the Zoo.”

The video now exceeds 16.6 million plays. It was bought by Google in late 2006 for a whopping $1.65 billion.

jawed-karim-steve-chan-and-chad-hurley — Source: Social Songbird (Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley)

After YouTube was eventually launched, Jawed Karim decided not to be an employee of Paypal. He rather wanted to be an informal adviser.

It was because he wanted to be more focused on his studies. This resulted in him taking a much lower share in the company compared to Chan Hurley and Steve Chen.

Also read Princess Andre makes a comment about her parents’ divorce on her YouTube video!

YouTube: a worthy investment

Since YouTube has been founded, it has been no less than crucial in the last decade of music, as an industry as well as an experience. YouTube has been more significant than radio plays.

In the year 2013, Billboard announced that they were officially factoring YouTube data into chart rankings.

“The Billboard charts, especially the Hot 100, have always served to reflect the most popular songs in the country, based on the ways fans are consuming music.”

According to Billboard director, Silvio Pietroluongo:

“There is no denying the impact that YouTube has today on music and popular culture. The inclusion of this type of interactive data to the formulas of the Hot 100, Streaming Songs, and our many genre song charts is a perfect and natural complement to our varied data sources, assuring that the Billboard charts are the most accurate gauge of song popularity.”

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