Today five years ago YouTube opened up its beta version to the world, today it has more than two billion video views per day.

Five years ago after months of testing and preparation, the first beta version of YouTube was opened up to the public. YouTube had one mission in mind and that was to give anyone a place to upload their videos, whether you were an aspiring filmmaker, a politician, a proud parent, or someone who just wanted to connect with something bigger, YouTube became the place where you could “broadcast yourself.”

YouTube has released the YouTube 5 Year channel today to celebrate their 5 year anniversary at www.youtube.com/fiveyear. There, you’ll find the “My YouTube Story” project which features people from around the world describing how YouTube has changed, or shaped, their lives.

YouTube is inviting users to share their videos of how YouTube has shaped/inspired them.

YouTube has also launched their YouTube South Africa site today, the South African version brings us content related to South Africa. The local YouTube site will enable users to find content that is relevant to them faster and easier.

This is all good and well, but when are we going to see local servers YouTube? Yes I know with Uncapped Internet now freely available in South Africa this should not be a problem, but speed wise I would still prefer a local server.

Congrats YouTube on your 5th anniversary and on launching the new local YouTube portal.

Check out the video of how YouTube became what it is today.