YouTube launched in 2005 as a video sharing platform, and was acquired by Google (now Alphabet) in 2006. It has built an entire community of creators that run channels dedicated to topics like gaming, tech reviews, and beauty. It also houses news videos and entertainment such as music videos, movie trailers, and clips from late-night TV shows.
YouTube’s rapid growth has not been without problems. YouTubers typically make money from ads that run in front of their videos, but if they break the platform’s rules, their channels and videos can be demonetized. Executives and moderators have worked to combat harassment, misinformation, terrorist propaganda, hate content, and other abuse.
The Verge runs two YouTube channels, The Verge and Verge Science.
The company was founded on today’s date, back in 2005, by three former PayPal employees: Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. On April 23rd Karim uploaded “Me at the Zoo” which is considered to be the first YouTube video. It’s just 19 seconds long.
“We’ve reached a short term extension as we work toward a deal with Paramount to keep their content on YouTube TV. YouTube TV subscribers continue to have access to Paramount channels, including CBS, and any recordings that are in their Library. We appreciate your patience as we continued to negotiate on your behalf. We also value Paramount’s partnership and willingness to work towards an agreement.”
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Unless YouTube and Paramount come to a last-minute agreement on a new contract, “after February 13, 2025, all Paramount content, including CBS and CBS Sports, will be unavailable on YouTube TV,” according to a YouTube blog post. “If we can’t reach an agreement and their content is unavailable for an extended period of time, we’ll offer subscribers an $8 credit,” YouTube adds.
Paramount has a website about the potential changes, too.
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As lawmakers continue to pressure online platforms about child safety, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said on Tuesday that the company is working on a machine learning-powered tool that will “help provide the best and most age-appropriate experiences and protections” for users later this year. Meta rolled out a similar feature that uses AI to scan for “signals” that someone might be lying about their age.
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Six months ago, YouTube demonetized game streamer Guy Beahm, aka Dr Disrespect, after he confirmed reports about why his Twitch channel was banned in 2020. In a now-deleted post, he wrote:
Were there twitch whisper messages with an individual minor back in 2017? The answer is yes.
Now, on the same day the game studio he co-founded before it cut ties with him last summer announced it’s shutting down, Kotaku reports that Beahm informed his viewers YouTube re-enabled monetization. The 10,000 ‘Founders Access’ NFT passes Beahm and Midnight Studios sold for their game Deadrop weren’t mentioned.
An analysis from Bloomberg shows how streamers and podcasters including Joe Rogan, Logan Paul, Lex Fridman, and Theo Von espoused similar conservative messaging leading up to the election, potentially priming their predominantly male viewers to vote for Trump.
Across over 600 videos with more than 1 million views each, Bloomberg found:
In two-thirds of the videos, broadcasters discussed voting, immigration, people identifying as transgender, institutional medicine, war or the economy... Voting was the most frequently mentioned political topic among the highly viewed videos, with mentions appearing in 37% of the episodes that Bloomberg reviewed.
Android Authority got the AI chatbot talking using an early version of the Google app. It also found ways to interact with Gemini Live about uploaded files and PDFs.
They’re “oftentimes netting thousands of dollars per deal,” Bloomberg reports. OpenAI and Google are apparently among the companies paying for the video footage.
These days, podcasts are going video, and there are a number of visual trends we’ve noticed — some good, some not so much. We’ll show you.
I’m not one of the people who watches YouTube or TikTok videos while some endless runner game scrolls by, but if you are, this YouTube Playables feature is for you.
On desktop and Android (iOS is still audio-only for now), you can now have the miniplayer visible while you play one of the games from YouTube’s library, as shown here with The Vergecast’s holiday episode.
The Game Awards 2024 YouTube stream is live and poppin’ with over 300,000 viewers less than a half hour before showtime. Watch it below, or, if you prefer a more up-to-date stream, watch it on Twitch.
