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February 19, 2022

⚡ Welcome to The Weekly Authority, the Android Authority newsletter that breaks down the top Android and tech news from the week. The 182nd edition here, with Pixel 7 leaks, another Galaxy Unpacked, and an S22 Ultra review.

📚 I’m off to a crime fiction festival in the frozen North of Scotland next week, leaving you in Nick and Tristan’s capable hands for the next couple of weekends while I geek out over books, but there’s still time to play Horizon Forbidden West first!

Popular news this week

Google:

Samsung:

OnePlus:

Microsoft:

Motorola:

Apple:

Space:

Elsewhere:

Movies/TV:

Gaming:

  • Amazon’s Lost Ark (originally released in Korea in 2019) hit western markets last week and has set a new concurrent player record on Steam, with over 1.3 million players online less than 48 hours after launch.
  • Horizon Forbidden West landed on Friday but reviews were in earlier in the week, with Kotaku calling it “a stellar open-world RPG” while IGN said, “A triumphant combination of enthralling combat, top-tier creature and character design, and a captivating open world, Horizon Forbidden West is an absolute blast and fantastic showcase for the power of the PS5.”
  • Upcoming psychological horror game Martha Is Dead has been censored for PlayStation: Publisher Wired Productions released a statement on Twitter saying it “had to modify the experience on the PlayStation 4 and 5 versions, with some elements no longer playable,” though it’s not clear what content was modified, and the game won’t be censored for Xbox or PC — we should find out more when the game lands on February 24.
  • And Intel delays its first Arc desktop gaming GPUs until spring.
  • Some players lost their Wordle streaks with the game’s controversial move to The New York Times, but they’ve returned for some. Also this week: The feared NYT Wordle divergence has begun, with some people on the NYT version and some playing the original version, both with different words.
  • And Capcom’s teasing an event with a countdown on its site, so we should find out what’s happening on Sunday, if not before: Could it be Streetfighter 6?
  • Cyberpunk 2077 gets next-gen console patch and free 5-hour trial (only for next-gen consoles) for those who haven’t taken a chance on the game yet, 14 months later.
  • Finally, Elden Ring spoilers are appearing online ahead of the game’s release next week.

Reviews

Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra camera modile angle
Eric Zeman / Android Authority

Features

Weekly Wonder

YouTube Premium Inside App Logo
Eric Zeman / Android Authority

This week (February 14) in 2005, YouTube was launched. Somehow it feels longer ago? We dive into some of the history of the world’s most popular online video platform, then take a look at just how big YouTube is today.

A brief YouTube history

First, some historical-ish YouTube facts:

  • The YouTube domain name was activated on February 14, 2005.
  • YouTube was founded by three guys who worked for PayPal: Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim.
  • YouTube’s first HQ was in San Mateo, California, above a pizza joint and Japanese restaurant.
  • The service was originally called “Tune In, Hook Up,” and was designed as an online video dating service. Catchy!
  • The first-ever YouTube video was uploaded on April 23, 2005. “Me at the zoo” shows 25-year-old co-founder Jawed Karim at San Diego Zoo and has more than 221 million views to date.
  • The service grew from around 30,000 viewers a day to over 25 million videos uploaded and around 20,000 uploads a day by March 2006.
  • On October 9, 2006, the site was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion in stock, Google’s second-largest acquisition at that time.

YouTube today

Today YouTube gets over 30 million visitors per day, with the average number of mobile YouTube video views around 1,000,000,000 per day.

  • Almost 5 billion videos are watched on the site every day.
  • And around 3.25 billion hours total hours of video are watched on YouTube each month.
  • YouTube is available in 76 different languages and has launched local versions in over 88 countries.
  • YouTube reaches more 18 to 34 and 18 to 49-year-olds than any cable network in the US.
  • And the number of hours we’re spending watching videos on YouTube is ever-increasing, up 60% year-on-year.

Fun financials

Let’s finish up with some financials behind the world’s biggest online video platform.

  • It costs $6,350,000,000 annually to run YouTube.
  • And Google generates $4,000,000,000 in annual revenue from YouTube.

What about YouTubers?

  • As of 2022, there are over 51 million YouTube channels, up 36% from 2021.
  • And as of January 2022, there are around 29,000 YouTube channels out there that have over one million subscribers.
  • The world’s richest YouTube star in 2021 was ten-year-old Ryan Kaji (Ryan’s World), whose 31.8 million subscribers have netted him $29.5 million.
  • MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson) was close behind, earning around $24 million with his humorous stunts videos.

And VisualCapitalist has this colorful infographic showing who the most popular YouTuber is in every country — you can see the full version here.

 

Tech Calendar

  • February 24: Motorola’s next flagship global launch (Moto Edge X30?)
  • February 24 @ 6AM ET: OPPO Find X5 Pro launch
  • February 25: Samsung Galaxy S22 on sale
  • February 25: Steam Deck hits markets for pre-orders
  • February 25: Elden Ring launches for PS4/PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC
  • February 27 @ 1PM ET: Galaxy Unpacked (next-gen Galaxy Book)
  • February 28-March 3: Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022 in Barcelona
  • March 4: Gran Turismo 7 lands for PS4/PS5
  • March 8 (TBC): Apple Spring event?

Tech Tweet of the Week

“Why can’t I just screenshot an NFT?”
This isn’t a thread about how the blockchain works. It’s about art, and the mind-bendy way we value it in the first place.
Ep 3 of Huge If True (feat: @alexisohanian and Sothebys’ David Galperin):🧵 https://t.co/RCSrRfO9Nq pic.twitter.com/j0zeTK9UUN
— Cleo Abram (@cleoabram) February 15, 2022

See you in a fortnight!

Paula Beaton, Copy Editor

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