YouTube cofounder: "video idea"

Nov 05, 2021

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From: Jawed Karim
Sent: Sunday, February 13, 2005 11:10 PM
To: Chad Hurley; Steve Chen
Subject: video idea

Codename: "Video"

I don't want to spell out the idea on the insecure email channel. Even if you say the phrase "Video H or N" in public, people will know what you mean, so let's just call it Video. Don't say it in combination with the H or N site :)

I just talked to both of you on the phone. I'm 100% convinced that this can be HUGE if executed right. It's the kind of thing that will be picked up by MTV and Maxim right away.

Timing is perfect because video digital cameras are exploding right now. Our site should be video-only to emphasize the unique aspect of our site.

Issues:

- Want to convert uploaded AVI's to Flash movies, so it displays nicely everywhere (don't want to launch MS MediaPlayer etc). AVI's also have some compatibility issues sometimes.

- Bandwidth costs will be high, but bandwidth is getting very cheap, so might be OK. (Cheap at high volume)

- H or N can add our idea in about 10 days, so we must come out with all guns blazing and have matchmaking functionality already built in, so we can immediately be a useful site, and not just a new fad.

- BIGGEST ISSUE BY FAR: web server scalability. We will face the same issues as H or N did the first month. They moved hosting centers, rewrote system, used MySQL mirrors, etc. They also wrote an architecture tutorial :) Y'all should read this now: http://www.webtechniques.com/archives/2001/05/hong/

Meet tomorrow night after 8PM at Chad's!

Jawed

[This document is from Viacom v. YouTube (2010).]

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