YouTube celebrates 20 years with new features, cool tricks, and some truly mind-blowing stats

We’ve come a long way since that day at the zoo.

20 years ago today, YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim uploaded the first video to YouTube. Less than 20 seconds long, it showed Karim standing in front of elephants and explaining that they have really long trunks.

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Two decades later, the video sharing platform is a different place.

Since then, users have uploaded more than 20 trillion videos to the site, YouTube says, including YouTube Music. Doing some quick math, that works out to about 2,500 videos for every single person on the planet. Around 20 million videos are uploaded daily, and there are 100 million comments and 3.5 billion likes on the average day. 

New features on the way

YouTube isn’t just showing off, though. The company is rolling out a few new features to celebrate, both on traditional YouTube and on YouTube TV. 

• YouTube TV will soon let users build their own multiviews. The feature will start with “select non-sports content” and expand over the coming months.
• YouTube is getting the ability for more creators to add voice replies to comments.
• YouTube Ask, a feature for Premium subscribers, is rolling out the option for you to stream a personalized radio station based on a description of the type of music you’re in the mood for.
• Premium subscribers are also getting 4x speed playback alongside 2x, 2.5x, and 3x playback.
• This summer, YouTube is launching a new TV viewing experience with improved navigation, better playback, quality tweaks, and streamlined access to comments, channel info, and subscribing.

Hidden tips you might have missed

YouTube also offered a quick reminder of some neat tricks you might be missing. 

Aside from long pressing anywhere on a video to watch it at double speed and locking your app screen to avoid interruptions, did you know you can set a sleep timer to watch while you fall asleep? 

Not that you’d ever watch while working, but you can utilize keyboard shortcuts if you’re on a desktop, including hitting the left and right arrows to fast-forward or rewind by 5 seconds, tapping the spacebar to play or pause a video, and using > or < to change the video playback rate.

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Worried about what your kids might come across? Use YouTube Kids’ “Approve content yourself” mode to hand-select the content you want your child to access.

Hum or sing a song stuck in your head to Song Search, and you can add it to your playlist for later.

You’ll also see a few Easter eggs to celebrate, such as a special tribute video, a limited-time logo, a special slider bar on certain videos, and more. 

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