YouTube turns six: 3 billion views per day

It's YouTube's sixth birthday, and if you thought online video wouldn't take off – what, really? – then prepare for the avalanche of stats. The site now sees more than 3bn views per day, with a fresh 48hrs worth of footage added every minute.

That's an upload increase of 100-percent over the past 12 months, and a viewing increase of 50-percent in the same period. In fact, it's the equivalent of nearly half the world's population watching a YouTube video each day, the site points out.

YouTube's first video was uploaded on April 23, 2005 – and is still there now – while the site was initially opened to beta testers in May 2005. October 2006 saw the site acquired by Google for $1.65bn in stock.