Google announced it was planning to shut down YouTube, the world’s most popular video-sharing website, till 2023, according to the Voice of Russia.
In April Fools’ prank video the company declared the site had been in an eight-year contest to find the best video and now the company’s specialists needed a decade to review all the videos and select the winner.
“Tonight at midnight, youtube.com will no longer be accepting entries. After eight amazing years, it is finally time to review everything that has been uploaded to our site and begin the process of selecting a winner,” said the video clip.
The winner will get a $500 stipend a clip-on MP3 player and his video will become the sole video to be featured on YouTube when the website re-launches in 2023, the prank video adds.
At the moment the YouTube audience is estimated at 1 billion people.
Launched in 2005 as a start-up, the You Tube is now described as “one of the most influential forces in today’s media landscape.”
In 2006 Google bought You Tube for $1.76 billion, then the web-site’s audience was estimated at 50 million people per month.
H.M