A YouTube History for the Uninitiated or Utterly Confused
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...or the one where TLfU tries to make sense of the world, And fails...
- 14th February 2005 - YouTube launches as a, predominantly, music video-sharing platform.
- 9th October 2006 - Google announces the purchase of YouTube.
- Late 2006 to early 2009 - things go on as before, despite Google owning YouTube.
- 6th May 2009 - creating a new YouTube channel requires using a Google Account to create it "on". The YouTube channel is a "product" or "service" on its owner Google Account.
- May 6th 2009 to 10th January 2011 - Google "encourages" users to link their pre-May 6th 2009 "legacy YouTube accounts" to Google Accounts voluntarily (with a brief period of actually making it virtually impossible not to link). This linkage is termed an "upgrade" from legacy YouTube account to YouTube channel.
- 11th January 2011 - Google makes it a requirement to link any legacy YouTube accounts which are still not linked to Google Accounts if the user wants to use their YouTube account going forward.
- 2011 - Google introduces the "User ID" for all YouTube channels, to run alongside the /user/ custom URL or "YouTube username".
- December 2011 - All unclaimed/non-linked inactive (no content) legacy YouTube accounts are purged from the system.
- 2012 - Google moves YouTube channel creation to the Google Account page. and introduces the /channel/ URL as the default URL for all YouTube channels being created, requiring users to then go to YouTube to create a legacy /user/ URL if desired.
- January 2012 to early September 2012 - Google makes it a requirement for all new YouTube channels being created being created on "for the purpose" Gmail email-using Google Accounts. This was confusing as there is no clear messaging to let users know that they are creating a Gmail, not a YouTube channel in step 1.
- Early 2012 - All YouTube channels created going forward come with a Google+ Profile linkage by default. During this time it was possible to unlink from that auto-generated default Google+ Profile and choose not to use Google+.
- 2012 - Google+ adopts a fairly aggressive (Real) Name Policy and users who did not use their real first and last names were suspended, pending review.
- Late Spring 2013 - Google introduces Google+ Pages for YouTube channels. Any new YouTube channel created from that point onward was perma-linked to the "business or other name" Google+ Page. Any YouTube channel created prior to 2013 and not yet linked to a Google+ Page was not impacted.
- May 2013 - Google retires the ability to sign in with legacy YouTube "usernames" (the legacy custom URL) and require all users to use the Google Account email address username. During the first three months the Google Account's email address username is displayed if the correct legacy "YouTube username" and password are entered.
- Late 2013 - The YouTube commenting system is replaced with the Google+ commenting system and YouTube users who wish to comment at YouTube are required to link their non-linked YouTube channels to Google+ products of one or the other type.
- End of first week in January 2014 - Google makes it so that all new YouTube channels are perma-linked to either a personal Google+ Profile or a non-personal Google+ Page.
- Mid-January 2014 - Google makes it so that all already linked-to-Google+ YouTube channels are perma-linked to whichever Google+ product they were linked to at the time (the only ones not affected are YouTube channels which were NOT linked to anything Google+ at the time of the change).
- Middle of 2014 - Google+ lifts the need to use a "real (looking) name" for Google+ Profiles. This meant that users could use any name, within reason, for both Google+ Profiles and/or a Google+ Pages.
- Late 2014 - The old style ("legacy") custom URL (/user/) creation is retired altogether and wholly replaced with the custom /c/ URL offers by Google system.
- Late Spring 2015 - Google clamps down on Google Account security and users accessing their Google Accounts from abroad/elsewhere are locked out if they do not have recovery options or two-step verification enabled.
- Mid-March 2015 - the Account Transfer Tool is introduced to enable users to move their YouTube channel from one Google+ product's linkage to a different Google+ product's linkage, providing both were on the same Google account.
- 2015 - Google suspends the ability to set secret questions and answers for Google Account security.
- Late 2015 - Google begins separating Google+ and YouTube once more, starting with the separating of Google+ Profiles from their linked YouTube channels so that it is no longer evident publicly that the two are linked unless users choose for it to be evident. Read more here: https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/youtube-comments
- 2016 - Google+ Pages for YouTube are replaced with "Brand Accounts". These still retain the @pages ID though no longer Google+ products.
- 2016 to 2018 - various updates to the Google Account and YouTube product creation process take place.
- April 2019 - Google+ shuts down.
- 10th July 2019 - G Suite for Education revokes ability for G Suite for Education users to own/use Brand Accounts, deleting any wholly owned by G Suite for Education users. Some extensions until later in 2019 are granted upon application by academic staff.
- 2020 - Google ramps up security another few notches for Google Accounts.
- November 2022 - YouTube introduce the @handle to, essentially, replace the custom /c/ URL selection system going forward. All YouTube products are assigned one, no exceptions. Variations: for existing YouTube products their legacy URLs are still in place, but the newer, additional @handle is used in their place, meaning that all URLs will point to the same YouTube product but only the @handle URL will display. All new YouTube channels only have their unique /channel/ URL (still unseen) and the @handle, which is the URL that is displayed.
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