YouTube Marks 20th Birthday, Teases TV App Redesign & custom Multiviews

YouTube is celebrating its 20th birthday with a number of stats, while previewing new features that are coming this year. 

On April 23, 2005, “Me at the Zoo” became the first video uploaded to YouTube. The site has now seen over 20 trillion video uploads, which includes music (YTM turns 10 this year), Shorts, and podcasts. Meanwhile, as of last month, 20+ million videos are uploaded daily to YouTube. Other notable stats include:

• “In 2024, YouTube users averaged over 100 million comments on videos on a daily basis. And we discovered that last year creators hearted comments from an average of 10 million viewers every day.”
• “In fact, last year, on average, YouTube videos received over 3.5 billion likes from users per day.”
• “More than 300 music videos on YouTube are in the billion views club.”

Meanwhile, YouTube is using its birthday to preview some upcoming capabilities. The most immediate is the rollout of up to 4x playback speed on mobile for YouTube Premium subscribers.

YouTube TV will let users build their own Multiview “with select non-sports content, starting with a small group of popular channels and expanding in the coming months.” This ability to customize the side-by-side capability is rolling out “in the next few weeks.” 

YouTube is also teasing a “TV viewing upgrade this summer” that features: “Easier navigation, playback, quality tweaks, plus streamlined access to comments, channel info, and subscribing.”

Google shared what the new player looks like today. Controls, which are grouped into three areas, are placed underneath the seek bar. The channel, description, and Subscribe buttons are at the left, with a new centered last, play/pause, and next area. All other controls are at the right. The video name and other details are in the top-left corner, which is a lot like the fullscreen player on mobile.

Meanwhile, be on the lookout for Creators getting the ability to leave voice replies in comments “later this year.”

YouTube is also celebrating with a birthday logo, while select videos will feature a birthday-themed scrubber and animation when liking. You can also “type ‘bday’ anywhere on the watch page to spot a quick blast from the past.” In YouTube TV, there’s a 48-hour birthday-themed Zen channel.

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