Youtube's Love Connections

Speaking at South by Southwest (SXSW) conference about Youtube and his journey thereon, co-founder Steve Chen said that Youtube was initially conceptualized as a video dating platform. “We always thought there was something with video there, but what would be the actual practical application? We thought dating would be the obvious choice.”

The video sharing website is presently online users’ first preference for music, cooking, beauty and prank videos. Last year Jawed Karim, another YouTube co-founder also talked about YouTube’s love interests, “We even had a slogan for it: Tune in, Hook up.”

It was only after women refused to upload videos talking about their dream partner to YouTube, despite being offered $20, Chen, Karim and co-founder Chad Hurley thought of adopting a different strategy. And from dating videos, they opened Youtube for any and every video.

YouTube’s first official video was Me At The Zoo that shows co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. Eighteen seconds of elephants and the rest, as they say, is history.

Youtube was acquired by Google Inc. in 2006 for $1.65bn.

Chen has come a long way since then. He is presently enjoying another aspect of sensory life: food. He has launched a live video startup called Nom, which will live stream professional and amateur chefs cooking in their kitchens while chatting to viewers.