Video sharing website YouTube has celebrated its 5th birthday today by revealing that the site receives a truly staggering two billion views per day! That's enough to make UK broadband ISPs fear for their bandwidth and the BBC's iPlayer service quiver with jealousy.


Nobody should play down the importance of YouTube, not least in how it has helped to make having a broadband connection more attractive for everybody. Without the kind of content that such sites produce the Internet would be a far duller and less attractive place to visit. The social media revolution owes a lot of its success to free video sharing sites.


Sadly YouTube's most recent months have been marred more than ever by an overzealous copyright industry which, in the eyes of many, appears to have become increasingly detached from consumers. Some laws, such as the controversial UK Digital Economy Act 2010, may now even threaten its very survival. Thankfully YouTube has made big strides towards working with rights holders for everybody's benefit, though some of them remain unconvinced.

So a BIG Happy Birthday to YouTube, cheers for existing and your wealth of silly animal videos :laugh: .