Youtube Company Profile Essay example

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HistoryThe History of Youtube originated from 2 events in 2004: Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl and the devastating Tsunami in the Indian Ocean (Dickey, 2013). The difficulties involved in searching those footages had made Karim, a former PayPal employee to create a video sharing site. “I thought it was a good idea”, said Karim, when proposing the idea with two other founders, Hurkey and Chen. (Dickey, 2013) Hence, in February 14, 2005, the internet domain name “Youtube.com” was activated (Hopkins, 2006). In November 2005, a 3.5 million investment from Sequoia Capital has made possible for Youtube to increase bandwidth and improve servers (Woolley, 2006). Youtube officially launched out of beta on 15th December 2005 (Woolley, 2006).Since went live, Youtube's popularity is growing at an astronomical rate. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, in the first 2 quarters of 2006, traffic to the site has grown nearly threefold, 297% and the page viewed has increased 515%, making it the fastest-growing site online (O'mmalley, 2006).Google acquired Youtube for $1.65 Billion in stock in October 2006 (MacManus, 2006). Indeed, what a big bet on the future of Internet! Google CEO, Eric Schmidt affirmed his risk positively, quoting “This is the next step in the evolution of the internet. It (video's) a natural next step” (MacManus, 2006).Youtube entered a national political stage in 2007, teaming up with CNN to host the presidential debate for the 2008 election cycle (Dickey, 2013). 7 out of 16 Presidential candidates announced their campaigns via Youtube and this was the first time in Presidential Debate history where user-generated videos questions were featured that drove the debate.(Dickey, 2013).Company Structure Initially, the company was built based on the three founders' skills, strengths and weaknesses. Hurley was in charge of designing the site's logo and interface while Chen and Karim managed the technical duties (Hopkins, 2006).Because Karim intended to resume his studies, he opted out of the management and agreed to take a smaller ownership stake, leaving behind Hurley who became the CEO and Chen as the Chief Technology Officer. (Hopkins, 2006).After Google's acquisitions of Youtube in 2006, Youtube retained its distinct identity and all its employees remained with the company. (Muchinson, Shim, Supan, 2006). Hurley trusted the collaboration with Google would enable Youtube to benefit from its global reach and technology leadership. "I’m confident that with this partnership we’ll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving media worldwide.", said Hurley, who also believed such action shall bring about a more comprehensive entertainment experience to the users besides creating new opportunities to partners. (Muchinson, Shim, Supan, 2006)The CEO of Google, Eric Smith, also remarked:“Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers” (Muchinson, Shim, Supan, 2006)Certainly, Youtube which embodied Google's technology, has become a media company which operated in a structure exactly to what Google's mission of organising the world’s information and making it universally accessible and useful.MarketTime Magazine wrote: “You can watch videos on the site without downloading any software or even registering. Youtube is to video browsing what WalMart is to shopping. Youtube is a new kind of medium... Your grandmother could use it” (Cloud, 2006). Indeed, the markets in which Youtube operates derived from those who access its site through the world wide web. That being mentioned, it must be understood that Youtube's focus is not merely to serve as a media platform for videos watching-Youtube's essential focus is to market itself in various