When Google purchased YouTube back in November 2006, did anyone expect that in a mere five years, the site would become the third most visited on the Internet? Though video-sharing sites are now a dime a dozen, looking back, Google had to have known what video was going to become, and given today’s stats, the $1.65 billion purchase price almost seems like a steal.
Though Google still hasn’t managed to draw revenue you’d expect to see from one of the site’s biggest websites, its usage growth doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all. It’s being reported by the company this month that the site has just surpassed 4 billion views per day. That means that on average, half of the entire planet watches at least one video per day.
This isn’t a surprise, however, as back May of 2011, the company celebrated reaching 3 billion per day. And with the site becoming more and more synonymous with video on the Web, it doesn’t look like this trend will slow down anytime soon.
On the topic of YouTube being synonymous with video-sharing, I was thinking about this the other day. YouTube has become so popular, that it’s simply considered a standard now. If I am on a website and see an embedded video, I automatically assume it’s YouTube-based. I’m sure I’m not alone!