YouTube, the video-sharing phenomenon that has taken the web by storm in recent years, is celebrating its fifth anniversary by announcing that it now gets over two billion views each day.
The site, first launched in February 2005, was bought by Google for $1.65 billion in November 2006 and continues to see massive year-on-year growth. YouTube's most recent figures suggest the site's audience has effectively doubled over the past eight months, with users now said to be uploading 24 hours of video every minute.
However, despite YouTube's incredible growth - it now receives nearly double the prime-time audience of all three major U.S. television networks combined - the site's profitability continues to be scrutinised.
Google continues to choose not to disclose YouTube's financial performance, but perhaps suggesting that profitability is now within reach, the YouTube team celebrated its five-year run by stating "we’re just getting started".
Whether or not Google's $1.65 billion investment will pay off in the long run remains a question mark, but there's no denying the impact YouTube has had on popular culture. Over the course of half a decade, the site has grown from a source of amateur home videos to a broadcast medium for presidents and royalty.
