One Million Visitors in 10 Days
September 24th, 2010 | 176,626 views | 62 Comments » | Tweet
The last ten days of my life have been sleepless, surreal, and an amazing adventure!
This is what’s new with YouTube Instant:
- YTinstant.com hit one million visitors on Monday — just 10 days since I launched it!
- 28,000 Facebook Likes, 20,000 Tweets, and 14,000 Stumbles!
- Press coverage in New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, NBC, and hundreds more.
The answers to the questions everyone have been asking me:
I plan to accept the YouTube job and continue to study at Stanford. (Read more)- I will finish my internship at Facebook. It’s been an awesome ride — I’m extremely honored and thankful. (Read more)
Update: I decided to pass on the job offer. YouTube was good to me, but I’m more of a startup/small company guy.
Thank you, everyone!
I just updated YouTube Instant with a bunch of requested features:
- Video Controls – Play, pause, and video scrubbing controls
- Autoplay – when one video finishes, the next plays automatically
- Keyboard Controls – Use arrows keys to go to next video, Enter to pause
- Shareable URLs – Example: http://ytinstant.com/#8-bit
And I’m not going to stop there. I’m currently working on adding awesome Facebook integration, on-the-fly playlist creation, and custom ajax-updating AdSense units.
I understand that my site’s killer features are speed and simplicity, so those will continue to be my number one goal while building the site.
Media Coverage
Frankly, I feel flattered and honored by all the attention that YouTube Instant has received. I’m so thankful for the thousands of positive comments I’ve read on all corners of the Internet — Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and blogs I’ve never even heard of before. I even got my own Wikipedia article!
There are also hundreds of articles that I can’t even read because they’re published in Italy, Spain, Germany, Chile, Peru, Puerto Rico, Columbia, Brazil, India, South Korea, Hungary, China, and Japan! YouTube Instant went global on a scale that I never could have predicted — only 40% of my traffic is from the United States!
Chinese Newspaper: Oriental Morning Post (click for full size)
Television Interview
NBC San Diego even wanted to do a TV interview with me over Skype. I couldn’t believe it! This was my first time being interviewed on TV!
Radio Interviews
I even did a couple interviews with some foreign TV and Radio stations. Here’s the bumper for one radio show in Chennai, India.
“Chennai Live” 104.8 FM Interview
Did I accept the YouTube job?
This is the question that everyone keeps asking me. The answer is, yes, I will accept!
I met with Chad Hurley (YouTube CEO) last week to discuss the job offer and what we can do with YouTube Instant. He and the engineers I spoke with were really excited about the possibilities.
I will continue my studies at Stanford University while working at YouTube. I can’t wait to start building some awesome stuff at YouTube!
Update: I decided to pass on the job offer. YouTube was good to me, but I’m more of a startup/small company guy.
Right now, however, I’m a software engineer intern at Facebook. I spent the summer working with an awesome group of engineers to build a new Facebook product. It was very exciting.
I am extremely honored and thankful for all the encouragement and support I received from everyone at Facebook. It is an awesome company, and it’s been an incredible adventure. I especially enjoyed the opportunity to work with Mark Zuckerberg. I look forward to working with them all again in the future.
Spinoffs
I’ve also seen about 20 different “Instant search” spinoffs for Google Images, Maps, Twitter, iTunes, Wikipedia, Amazon, and more. Thanks to everyone who gave me a shoutout on their site!
A few companies even sent me offers to buy YTinstant.com along with all my code! While it would certainly be nice to have free tuition for a few years, money is not why I built this.
I did it because I like to build cool stuff and see it improve people’s lives. I did it for the love of hacking. And most of all, I did it because it was fun.
The Real Challenge
Following the viral traffic wave, my server could barely handle all the traffic it was receiving! At one point, the server crashed when the Apache visitor log files filled up the whole hard disk! I’ve never had so much traffic to my websites before!
My Network Traffic - Last 30 Days
After the swarm of viral traffic, the real challenge will be to sustain the YouTube Instant’s traffic without the help of a frontpage CNN.com story. Without a doubt, this will be difficult — but not impossible. The good news is that I’ve got a lot of ideas about how to do this.
These are exciting times!
[...] computer science student Feross Aboukhadijeh is celebrating two milestones this week, his YouTube Instant site hitting 1,000,000 million vistors in ten days as well as a new job, having [...]
[...] Instant Creator Accepts Job At YouTube Stanford computer science student Feross Aboukhadijeh is celebrating two milestones this week, his YouTube Instant site hitting one million vistors in ten days as well as a new job, having [...]
[...] computer science student Feross Aboukhadijeh is celebrating two milestones this week, his YouTube Instant site hitting 1,000,000 million vistors in ten days as well as a new job, having [...]
[...] iFaiq on 24/09/2010 Stanford computer science student Feross Aboukhadijeh is celebrating two milestones this week, his YouTube Instant site hitting one million vistors in ten days as well as a new job, having [...]
[...] on September 24, 2010 by jennell2jenson Stanford computer science student Feross Aboukhadijeh is celebrating two milestones this week, his YouTube Instant site hitting one million vistors in ten days as well as a new job, having [...]
[...] que lo invitó a sumarse al equipo del sitio de videos.El estudiante de la universidad de Stanford hoy anunció en su sitio, en respuesta a “la pregunta que todos me hacen”, que se juntó a charlar con Hurley [...]
[...] del 24/09/2010: Aboukhadijeh è stato assunto e lavorerà per YouTube mentre continuerà a studiare a Stanford. Settimana successiva [...]
[...] estudiante de la universidad de Stanford hoy anunció en su sitio, en respuesta a “la pregunta que todos me hacen”, que se juntó a charlar con Hurley hace unos [...]
[...] estudiante de la universidad de Stanford hoy anunció en su sitio, en respuesta a “la pregunta que todos … Continua leyendo desde la [...]
[...] estudiante de la universidad de Stanford hoy anunció en su sitio, en respuesta a “la pregunta que todos … Continua leyendo desde la [...]
[...] estudiante de la universidad de Stanford hoy anunció en su sitio, en respuesta a “la pregunta que todos me hacen”, que se juntó a charlar con Hurley hace unos [...]
[...] Aboukhadijeh has announced on his blog that he’ll accept the YouTube job offer and at the same time continue his studies at Stanford. He [...]
[...] más: Feross.org Feross Aboukhadijeh, youtube, youtube instant Dirección para [...]
Hi Feross,
It would be great, if, for our understanding, you could shed some light on the viral phenomenon that happened. As far as I have read, the only thing that you did was to post a note on your facebook wall. Then, how exactly things picked up? Did your friends repost it? How did it get to the newspapers? Which was the first paper to write about it? Who posted it on hacker (ycombinator) news? Do you know that person, or is he several degrees of separation away from you?
YTInstant was not new (since it was inspired by Google Instant). Then why did it get so much attention. And if it got that much attention, why did several other instant services following yours did not get attention? I personally find google maps instant quite interesting.
Answers to such questions might help us to understand how the viral phenomenon happens.
Thanks,
Vivek
Another question.
How much of the success of the virality do you think is related to you being at Stanford (i.e. being in a good network)? If you were a student, say at some slighly lesser known school, say, NCSU (just for example), could you have achieved similar success?
Thanks again!
Vivek
obviously because he is working in facebook and they helped him to “post it out there”.
[...] de YouTube Instant le cambió la vida en tan solo 10 días, y en el mismo artículo menciona que aceptará el trabajo en YouTube, terminará sus prácticas en Facebook, y continuará con sus estudios en [...]
[...] находятся в США. Больше подробностей вы можете узнать здесь. Автор: Василий Иванов Комментариев [...]
[...] Feross anunció además que ha hecho algunas mejoras a su versión de YouTube, como controles para volver a ver videos, “autoplay” para iniciar un video automáticamente una vez que el que estabas viendo terminó, controles desde el teclado y URLs recortadas para compartir links. También está planeando una integración con Facebook, según indicó en su blog. [...]
[...] Link | Feross [...]
[...] Today, Aboukhadijeh took the job. [...]
[...] that he could do in an hour, but gaining a lot more , and everything to do something for fun, as an account: Many companies offered me comprare YTinstant.com with my code! Although it would certainly be [...]
[...] Feross anunció además que ha hecho algunas mejoras a su versión de YouTube, como controles para volver a ver videos, “autoplay” para iniciar un video automáticamente una vez que el que estabas viendo terminó, controles desde el teclado y URLs recortadas para compartir links. También está planeando una integración con Facebook, según indicó en su blog. [...]
The one thing that benefited me from this post was that I got to know that a budget oriented VPS solution can be tweaked to handle this much spike. Its good news for linode sales. There was always a dilemma on which to choose for small business solutions : slicehost or linode.
Hello Feross, I am quite new to coding but would like to code you an ANDROID application could you give me permission (and some help would be great).
Thanks in advance.
sa moara familia mea de nu iti dau muie cu cacat cand te prind de ciuf fmm
[...] en principio, Ferros Aboukhadijeh decidió realizar una pasantía en Facebook, hoy publicó en su web que, finalmente, aceptó la propuesta de [...]
[...] estudiante de la universidad de Stanford hoy anunció en su sitio, en respuesta a “la pregunta que todos me hacen”, que se juntó a charlar con Hurley [...]
ae amigo sucesso com o seu site, o seu trabalho foi ótimo, espero que as pessoas começem a dar valor, e tambem espero um dia poder trabalhar com pessoas igual a você que se dedicam.
AHHH FAZ UMA VERSÃO DO SEU SITE EM PORTUGÊS, AQUI NO BRASIL TAMBÉM UTILIZAMOS ELE
http://www.glugu.com
@pedro_glugu
Congratulations for you from Argentina!! YTInstant is amazing!! Greetings……
[...] con el, ofreciéndole un empleo en Youtube. Según nos cuenta el mismo Feross Aboukhadijeh en su pagina web, aceptara “obviamente” el puesto que le han ofrecido, pero antes terminara su carrera en [...]
[...] estudiante de la universidad de Stanford hoy anunció en su sitio, en respuesta a “la pregunta que todos me hacen”, que se juntó a charlar con Hurley hace unos [...]
What a good site!
Espectacular parce…
[...] Here’s a picture from my visit to YouTube HQ on Monday. Feross Aboukhadijeh & Chad Hurley at YouTube HQ Update: YouTube Instant received 1 million visitors in 10 days! [...]
[...] Update: YouTube Instant received 1 million visitors in 10 days! [...]
Congrats on another new technological advance, but I think the misconception is if someone posts their link or video on it, their link will go viral and get the same kind of exposure but what really attracted the million hits in 10 days is because it was a new extension of Youtube.
Just curious what makes YouTube instant more efficient then regular Youtube? Is it because when a person goes to Instant Youtube a different video in your files pops up and could be our url and video we set in almost like a Stumbleupon type of network?
Great job though, it’s great to hear of our youth out there doing so much to increase our networking capabilities. Kudos!!! ..
[...] di un ragazzo, per la precisione da uno studente della Stanford University, e ha raggiunto quota 1 milione di visite al giorno. [...]
Hi
I hail from Chennai and currently in US. Its really great to see a radio station from Chennai interviewing you.
All the best for your youtube job!
Arun
code(‘perl’)|| die;
Hi
I hail from Chennai and currently in US. Its really great to see a radio station from Chennai interviewing you.
All the best for your youtube job!
Arun
[...] only took Feross Aboukhadijeh 3 hours to create YouTube Instant with an added 2 hours to tweek and in 10 days received a million hits. Doesn’t hurt he [...]
Good job on this project. Added you on Facebook. Would like to meet you sometime to discuss some work.
Thanks.
You had a great idea and you were in the right place at the right time. And that’s not easy to do!
Congratulations for your new job, you have got what every computer engineering student dreams!
Greetings from Spain!
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[...] Ali Akbar This guy after creating YouTube Instant did get offered on twitter.http://www.feross.org/one-millio…Insert a dynamic date here BIU @ @ ReferenceEdit [...]
wow is a lot of visits XD
Great Post!
Hi Feross,
Inspired by your instant youtube ,i created a chrome extension called ‘ITube’. Please look into that and do send me your feedback
. Your Idea is Awsome.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kpmgggjpemijnaanhfpallaeeiibnabp
Your extension looks great. Nice job!
[...] been far too long. I haven’t updated my blog since September 24th when YouTube Instant hit one million visitors in 10 days. So much has happened since [...]
[...] One Million Visitors in 10 Days [...]
Vejamos algumas das maneiras pelas quais você pode ganhar dinheiro como um adolescente
[...] both realized after YouTube Instant went viral (1 million visitors in 10 days!) that it was very handy for discovering music videos, and that’s the basis [...]
[...] never could have predicted that such a simple hack would go on to get 1 million visitors in 10 days, garner worldwide media attention, and earn me a personal job offer from Chad Hurley (who was [...]
Right now it sounds like Expression Engine is the preferred blogging platform available right now. (from what I’ve read) Is that what you are using on your blog?
Genuine point in my opinion
How long will it take? – Too often we hear nightmare stories of deposits being made, and then 2 months down the line they still have no website in north wales! If you like wasting money on banter, don’t ask this question.
Nice job, very good article
Nice job Inspired by your instant youtube thank
Please let me know if you’re looking for a writer for your site. You have some really good posts and I believe I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d absolutely love to write some material for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine. Please send me an e-mail if interested. Cheers!
Nice Job …and thank you feross..
[...] keep asking me to share how I handled the viral traffic rush to YouTube Instant — 1 million visitors in 10 days — and which VPS hosting provider I [...]