YouTube started as an online video-dating website

YouTube started as an online video-dating website. The site's domain name was registered on Valentine's Day. After five days with no videos uploaded, they opened it up to all videos.

“The whole thing didn’t make any sense. We were so desperate for some actual dating videos, whatever that even means, that we turned to the website any desperate person would turn to, Craigslist.” said Steve Chen, co-founder of Youtube.

Despite offering to pay women $20 to upload videos of themselves to YouTube, nobody came forward, forcing Chen, Karim and co-founder Chad Hurley to adopt a different strategy.

“OK, forget the dating aspect, let’s just open it up to any video,” said Chen at SXSW.