Mentors surround me. I’m so very fortunate to have an extensive range of people I can go to for guidance on everything from home repair to relationship issues. If I can’t meet with these mentors in person, contacting them by phone, Facetime, email, or text often works just as well.

And I have another source I tap into regularly—YouTube. Thank you to all the posters who have helped me replace a garage door keypad and light sconces, adjust the temperature on the shower nozzle, bake special treats including the Mediterranean cookie called maamoul, offer suggestions on quilting, and solve issues with my sewing machine. I’ve learned by viewing your videos repeatedly.

YouTube is an incredible media platform with an abundance of content. Viewers can find everything from short personal videos to full-length documentaries. There’s no concern for lack of content as 300 hours of video are uploaded every minute.

YouTube was founded by PayPal employees Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim in 2005 from an office over a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. Their first video upload was “Me at the Zoo” by Jawed Karim.

Google purchased YouTube in 2006 for 165 billion in stock. With more than a billion users, Google estimated YouTube’s value to have grown to $86.22 billion by 2016. Nearly 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day.

Most content draws no income for the poster, although some people have made considerable money. Six-year-old Ryan ToysReview earned $11,000,000 in 2017. But gaining that kind of profit isn’t easy. Viewers must click or watch an ad for more than 30 seconds to result in payment.

Six out of ten people currently prefer online video platforms to live TV, and it is believed that this trend will continue to grow. The majority of YouTube viewers are male, and 80% live outside of the United States. Viewer can navigate programing in any of 76 languages, which covers 95% of the Internet population. YouTube also offers versions in more than 88 countries.

(Mentoring Heroes. 52 Fabulous Women’s Paths to Success and the Mentors who Empowered Them is available from Amazon.com and my website.

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