In 2016, there is no question about YouTube’s set in the planet. The online streaming site is the go-to place to go for music videos, comedy sketches, make-up lessons, lovable pets, and just about every other video whim the world-wide-web provides. But before it had been therefore firmly entrenched in common culture, YouTube had a completely different aim: internet cougar dating apps.

According to co-founder Steve Chen, which lately spoke on 2016 South By Southwest seminar, YouTube was initially conceived as a way for singles to publish films of themselves writing about tomorrow partner they desire to satisfy.

“We usually thought there was some thing with movie there, exactly what will be the actual request?” Chen mentioned, in accordance with CNET. “We thought online dating is the evident choice.” Chen and his awesome co-founders, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, established a website with an easy slogan: Tune In, Hook Up. 5 days later, maybe not just one video clip were published.

In desperation, the team took things into their very own arms. “recognizing movies of everything would-be a lot better than no films, we populated our new dating site with video clips of 747s removing and landing,” Karim informed Motherboard. They got down adverts on Craigslist in Las Vegas and l . a . and provided to shell out females $20 to upload video clips of themselves towards the web site. Again, they came up short.

The co-founders determined to ditch the dating facet completely. Very early adopters started making use of YouTube to talk about video clips of most kinds – pets, vacations, activities, anything. YouTube took on a unique meaning, got a physical makeover, this time, it worked.

Although YouTube’s matchmaking aspect had been a bust, it’s an interesting origin story that features inspired handful of superstition within its founders. Chen mentioned that they licensed the domain name YouTube on March 14 – “merely three men on romantic days celebration that had absolutely nothing to perform,” he stated.

These days YouTube is actually hardly “nothing.” It absolutely was acquired by Google for a $1.65 billion in 2006. It’s launched the careers many performers, from Justin Bieber to Swedish gamer PewDiePie. The company is absolutely nothing lacking an empire.

Chen now has another project in the works. He had been at SxSW with Vijay Karunamurthy, an early technology manager at YouTube, to get their brand new startup, Nom. This service membership defines alone as “a residential district for food enthusiasts to produce, show and watch their favorite stories in real time.” The food-focused site, which lets cooks and foodies broadcast real time video clip regarding delicious activities, launched in March.