Youtubers Book Summary

Book Summary

15 min

Audio available

Brief Summary

YouTube has been one of the longest-running streaming platforms for creating original user content and, due to its global reach, it has made it possible for YouTubers to become famous and wealthy.

Despite a lack of regulations and oversight, the platform continues to attract subscribers. If you’re a creative artist and videographer, YouTube offers you a space to upload your own material. Even more importantly, it allows YouTubers to generate a good income from their work and even gain sponsorship. As a brand that is constantly evolving, YouTube is gaining strength and altering the way we see entertainment.

About the Author

Chris Stokel-Walker is a British journalist known for covering key stories and groundbreaking news about YouTube. His work has been featured in WIRED, The Economist, and Newsweek, among other publications. Stokel-Walker continues to work as a freelance writer. YouTubers is his third book.

Topics

Marketing & Sales

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Key Insights

YouTube is a platform that encourages people to create and upload their own video content. Some of the content has become so popular that its creators are now famous in their own right. Now a Google-owned enterprise, YouTube is a global platform that has created celebrities and social influencers.

YouTube is an example of how powerful social media platforms are in global entertainment. The platform illustrates how lucrative social media is, but also how dangerous it can be without proper regulation. As well as showing entertainment, its lack of policing has resulted in shocking material such as acts of violence being uploaded.

Whether or not this failure in regulation has damaged the future of the YouTube brand remains to be seen. For now, it continues to be a new avenue for creatives and one that is growing. Thanks to its large base of users, YouTube has altered the way we watch entertainment irrevocably.

What you’ll learn:

YouTube currently has more than 1 billion registered users.
The platform uses an algorithm to drive content.
Since the introduction of the recommend function it has increased viewing time on the platform significantly.
Content creators are known as YouTubers. Successful ones have been able to monetize their content through ad revenue and sponsorship.
The most successful YouTubers have become millionaires.
Despite its popularity and success, the platform has experienced many scandals over the years.
Recently some content creators have left the platform arguing that YouTube does not value their contributions adequately.
YouTube’s goal is to compete with streaming giants Netflix and Amazon through the production of original content.

Who this is for:

Business Owners
Media Professionals
Individuals who are interested in building their social media presence
Social Media influencers who want to increase their audience
Institutes and Organizations such as museums, and universities.

YouTube has grown significantly since Google bought the platform.

Before Google purchased YouTube, it had already attempted to develop a streaming platform. YouTube, however, had got there first. In the early 2000s, it was already working on ways to build its brand and accumulate users. If you were a video creator you could upload your content directly to the platform for anyone to view. A crucial step for burgeoning filmmakers and creative artists.

YouTube also allows you to upload copyrighted content. When it started, this also allowed it to reach other users who just wanted a place to watch videos. The platform was a place to watch content that infringed on copyright, original animations, and homemade videos. An added element was the fact that users could interact with each other, leaving comments on videos, and subscribing to channels on the platform.

When Google purchased YouTube in 2006, the price was $1.65 billion. After purchasing the platform, Google expanded YouTube’s reach on a global scale and implemented a new ad revenue program. Since Google has owned the platform, it’s value has increased to a value of $140 billion.

If you’re a content creator, the new ad revenue program on YouTube provides you with the opportunity to make a living. Due to the global expansion of the platform, you can upload content from almost...