20th anniversary: YouTube celebrates its path to becoming a global creative platform
The first video on YouTube, "Me at the Zoo", went online 20 years ago. Today, the platform has around 6.5 million users in Switzerland - and a growing number of internationally successful creators.
On April 23, 2005, the first video was published on YouTube, a 19-second recording at the San Diego Zoo. Today - exactly two decades later - YouTube has grown into a global video platform with billions of users, making it a significant part of the digital cultural and creative industries. In Switzerland, around 6.5 million people use YouTube every month.
The platform has developed continuously - from a place for simple amateur videos to an ecosystem in which content is created at a professional production level. Many creators now work with their own studios and use YouTube not only for entertainment, but also for the distribution of educational and informational content. The spectrum ranges from tutorials and reports to series formats that are comparable to traditional TV productions.
According to Google, YouTube has paid out over 70 billion US dollars to creators worldwide in the past three years. Around three million content producers are currently benefiting from this monetization opportunity - over 500,000 of them have been active for more than ten years.
A dynamic YouTube community has also established itself in Switzerland. More than twenty creators from Switzerland now have over one million subscribers each. At the top of the list Kris8anwhose fashion and beauty content appeals to an international fan base of 7.32 million people. Nicocapone and Swissbeatbox are also among the most subscribed Swiss channels.
In March, YouTube hosted a press event in Zurich as part of its anniversary celebrations. With his camera, m&k editor Beat Hürlimann captured the impressions of the event on site.
