YouTube, the video sharing website which is owned by Google has said that it now has one billion regular users.
Announcing the milestone on its blog, the site said a recent growth in smartphones had helped boost the numbers visiting the site every month.
YouTube’s popularity provides Google with a lucrative channel through which to sell advertising, alongside its core search business- although it is still making losses.
YouTube was launched in 2005 and bought by Google in 2006- who paid £1.16 billion for the site, which at the time then had an estimated 30-40 million users world wide.
With one billion monthly users, it poses a challenge to Facebook as the internet’s largest social network. Facebook reached a billion users in October last year.
“Nearly one out of every two people on the Internet visits YouTube,” the company said in its statement.
It was keen to stress the business potential of such a large audience.
“Tens of thousands of partners have created channels that have found and built businesses for passionate, engaged audiences. Advertisers have taken notice,” it said, saying that the top 100 brands listed by trade magazine Advertising Age were now running campaigns on YouTube.
The site was launched in California by three former PayPal employees.
The success of video underlines the visual sense that humans prefer for our information intake.
As such although videos present a challange from the perspective of search engine optimisation- it is worth the effort as the medium will only increase in popularity.