YouTube hits two billion views a day

YouTube has exceeded two billions views a day as it celebrates the fifth anniversary since first launching in beta in 2005.

YouTube
YouTube has launched a new video channel called 'YouTube 5 Year Channel' to mark its fifth birthday.

The Google-owned video site, released the statistic to commemorate the occasion and has also launched a new channel called: “YouTube 5 Year Channel” which brings together a group of clips from people around the world talking about how the video-sharing service has affected their lives. The videos, collectively called the ‘My YouTube Story’, were filmed by the documentary maker Stephen Higgins. YouTube users can also upload their own video stories to the channel too. The new channel is also home to an interactive timeline containing some of the site’s key moments.

Five years ago the first beta version of YouTube went live and 18 months later it was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion (£883m) in 2006.

Last October, on its third anniversary of being acquired by the search giant, the site hit one billion views a day.

The site is in the process of trying to reposition itself as the home of professional content online – having signed major broadcast deals with the likes of Channel 4 and Five last year.

In a rare interview with the press, Chad Hurley, YouTube’s co-founder and chief executive, outlined his vision exclusively to The Telegraph last month: “"People think about the world of TV and the world of online video as being different ways to distribute video. But what happens when every TV is connected to wi-fi with a browser? What does that mean for your distribution opportunities? What happens when those worlds collide and it is just one thing? Instead there is just one world, the world of video, and people everywhere are putting ads against everything and there isn't a difference. There won't be a difference in the future."

Hurley said last week that YouTube was increasingly focusing on showing users what their friends had watched on the site – as a way of improving the user’s navigation experience.

YouTube has famously yet to turn a profit, with Google executives having remained tight-lipped about its financial performance during each of their quarterly results’ calls. Its largest costs have been high bandwidth and storage fees. However, analysts think the site, which has become more popular with advertisers since securing increasing amounts of quality content, could break even for the first time this year.

Last week, YouTube launched a ‘private video’ service, which allows users to publish and share videos with friends on the site without them appearing in public search.