Now, for the first time ever, discover the story of YouTube: how it started, how it works, and how it came to control our culture.
It has entertained us with cat videos, flash mobs, gaming streams and Charlie Bit My Finger.
It has educated us with makeup tutorials, DIYs and delicious recipes.
It has changed us with advertising, extremism and political propaganda.
Since its foundation in 2005, YouTube has existed on a pendulum. Its emergence established a valuable space for unique and important voices to share themselves and their views, and made global stars out of everyday people such as PewDiePie, Shane Dawson and Ryan Higa. It invented the attention economy we all live in today, forever changing how people are entertained, informed and paid online.
At the same time, countless extremists have found a home on YouTube, using it to spread misinformation and propaganda - sometimes with real-world life-and-death consequences. The site is massively profitable for its parent company, Google (Alphabet), which has aggressively grown it into a ruthless advertising conglomerate with little regard for its impact beyond the bottom line.
In Like Comment Subscribe, Bloomberg tech journalist Mark Bergen delivers the definitive, page-turning account of YouTube. Exploring the stories of the people behind the platform, he tells the story of a technical marvel that upended traditional media, created stars of everyday people, and ultimately changed the world through untamed freedom of speech.
-----------------------------------------------------
"The intricately-reported, elegantly-crafted story of the website that came out of nowhere, to change everything." - Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and Amazon Unbound
Review
The intricately-reported, elegantly-crafted story of a website that came out of nowhere and changed everything. -- Brad Stone, author of The Everything Store and Amazon Unbound
Mark Bergen has delivered the definitive look at how YouTube came to be and how the service has forever changed our society. Via meticulous reporting and enthralling story-telling, Like, Comment, Subscribe takes the reader on a journey as a small, whimsical idea morphs into something that alters our collective culture in the most profound of ways-for better and for worse. -- Ashlee Vance, author of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
An absorbing, alarming and essential modern histroy of Silicon Valley's supersized platform age. YouTube has redefined celebrity, upended entertainment and politics, and unleashed the best and worst of humanity online. Mark Bergen's deeply reported page-turner takes us on the company's journey from scrappy startup to internet juggernaut, revealing the dark consequences of the pursuit of growth at any cost. -- Margaret O'Mara, author of The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
A vivid, rollicking ride through the fluorescent-lit halls of one of the most powerful companies in the world as it struggles to steward one of the most anarchic yet culture-defining inventions of our time. Bergen has a novelist's eye, a poet's ear and a business journalist's deadpan command of the heart of the matter. So engrossing I missed my train stop. -- Keach Hagey, author of The King of Content
About the Author
Mark Bergen is an award-winning tech journalist at Bloomberg News. One of the world's foremost experts on everything to do with Google and YouTube, he has been covering the company for over half a decade. His work has been printed in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Reuters and the New Yorker, while he also regularly appears on CNBC, Bloomberg TV/Radio, NPR and several other media outlets.
+91 9818282497