• Since films were silent back then, we’re guessing you won’t mind the Air soundtrack that comes with and fits the tone of the whole thing pretty well. One think we’ll note about the cityscape here: Nearly all the buildings you see here no longer exist. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake flattened them. Either way, it’s a pretty awesome clip. source

• 9.5M the size of a 1960 quake, which is the largest earthquake ever recorded in world history
• eight number of earthquakes the country has had above an 8.0 magnitude before 1800 source

• What Google was for search, YouTube is for video. Five years ago, the little-video-site-that-could registered its domain. And despite some early changes, it hit the popular consciousness fully-formed and just about perfect at what it did. And as huge fans of the site, we’d like to offer a little history on YouTube.

Early 2005: The (somewhat-disputed) roots

• The company storyline YouTube started after a group of friends (who were former PayPal employees) were at a dinner party and realized there wasn’t an easy way to share video. So they made it themselves. The rest is history.
• The other storyline YouTube came about as an attempt to make a video version of HotOrNot (yikes), but the model eventually (and fortunately) evolved into something a lot less like Chatroulette. The rest is history.
• Why two storylines? The masterminds behind the site reportedly realized a good origin story was the best way to push the idea to angel investors. Whether or not that’s true, it totally worked. The rest is history. source

May 2005: The first video

• The guy in this video, Jawed Karim, worked with founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen to start the service. While he didn’t have a huge role over time, he’s immortalized in the site’s first video. The lesson to learn from this? Bring more to the table than “Elephants have long trunks.”

Early 2006: Three reasons why Youtube got huge

• embeds YouTube made Flash embed codes a downright essential part of sharing video online. It was the spark that brought blogging to its logical next step.
• ease YouTube wasn’t first to the game. Vimeo had been around since 2004. But YouTube made it so easy, anyone could upload. Which helped it blow up quick.
• ethics At first, one could argue that YouTube’s ethics were light, which meant copyrighted stuff got on the site easily. But it also helped it build an audience overnight.

Mid-2006: The Google buyout

• $1.65 billion to hitch its wagon on the next big thing

• » At the time: It seemed questionable to many whether or not Google’s purchase was the right way to go. It was Google’s biggest purchase ever up to that point, and even if the site was heads and shoulders above Google Video, the fact it had no revenue model was risky.
• » Today: It’s pretty clear that Google was the right company to buy YouTube. Their support brought a lot of innovation, bandwidth, clout and opportunities to monetize. And it helped Google itself learn how to diversify its model. Even though it’s super-expensive to run due to the high bandwidth costs (and Google has yet to recoup its investment), it’s something of a crown jewel.

2006-2007: Three iconic early videos

• 
  “Charlie Bit Me” It has 160 million views, and counting. It’s the most-viewed video in the site’s history, and quite possibly the cutest thing we’ve ever seen. Besides this.
• “The Bus Uncle”This odd little bit of arguing in Cantonese was one of the earliest clips to gather a huge audience and draw massive media coverage in Hong Kong (of all places).
• “Guitar” Pachelbel’s Canon, as famous of a piece of music as it is, probably never got 69 million views before this South Korean kid got his grubby hands all over it.

2007: Growing pains

• $1 billion the size of the lawsuit Viacom hit the site with in April of that year; it’s still pending to this day (and we still miss Daily Show clips on YouTube)
• 10% the amount of traffic YouTube takes up over the ENTIRE Internet in 2007; it’s more than the Web’s entire bandwidth size in 2000

2008-2009: Growing gains

• 25% share of Google searches from YouTube source

• » Lots of videos: By October of 2009, YouTube was shoving through 1 billion views a day, a point which suggests the site’s gone beyond mere fad and is simply a part of everyday life.
• » Lots of bandwidth: YouTube’s bandwidth costs, depending on who you ask, are astronomical, but Wired notes that Google has so much clout (thanks to all the fiber optic cable they own) that bandwidth may in fact be a non-issue.

2008-2009: The mainstream takes notice

• 
  “Pork And Beans” Over time, the mainstream media got really good at manipulating the medium, and Weezer’s viral-encompassing clip was the best example. YouTube > MTV.
• “JK Wedding Dance” As great as this clip was (and it sure helped Chris Brown’s sagging career), the way it was used as a financial vehicle for the record companies was most interesting.
• 
  Boyle-mania The second-best-selling album of 2009 was sung by a middle-aged virgin with a heavenly voice. How? Simple. YouTube made Susan Boyle into a new kind of superstar.

2010: YouTube’s next step

• The Internet evolves at break-neck speed. We launch products quickly and constantly iterate to stay one step ahead of it. Our goal? To set the standard in online video delivery.
• YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley • In a message noting the company’s fifth anniversary. YouTube is big enough that it can set the standards for online video, and their next step will be by pushing HTML5 and high-definition video into the woodwork, along with growing the library of content to include more traditional types of video to complement its user-submitted offerings. A good start for a big player. source

• 4.7% the low point of mortgage rates, hit in the 1940s thanks to post-WWII government intervention
• 5+% the place it’s been most of the time since the 1950s – at one point, it was near 17%, which is insane
• 4.8% the current rate, caused by massive government intervention; too bad banks don’t want to refinance source

• You’re stupid and I hate you. I haven’t even met you, don’t even know where you are or what else you do, and I hate you. … This has to have been one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done, and it’s your fault.
• Geocities archivist Jason Scott • On his frustration with Yahoo over their closing of the iconic site. He notes the company’s shortsightedness in taking a historic service and throwing it out the window – and worse, not helping Scott’s Archive Team with the process. The message, in our view is epic and vitriolic. As it should be. Our favorite part: “So now in two days you’re going to shut this place down, this collection of genealogy and pages by people who’ve died and collections of writing and art and music and you’re going to turn it into dust because Carol Bartz said Yahoo needed to save a few bucks.” Throw this guy $25 so he can keep doing what he’s doing. He deserves it. • source

• ‽ it’s an exclamation point and a question mark, brought together at last source

• 19
  years the amount of time the movie-data-centric site has been online – it predates the Web, even
• 57 million the number of visitors that go to the site every single freaking month, mostly failed actors source

• Microsoft founder Bill Gates looks like the thin-skinned kid invited to the really cool party, only to be made fun of the entire time. Well, David Bradely is right, y’know.