TED + YouTube: Releasing the power of video to shape ideas, 5 years on

TED has shared a wealth of innovative ideas with you over the years. We wish the TED team the happiest 5th anniversary and look forward to their continued contribution of inspiring content to YouTube and the world. We welcome Emily McManus as a guest to the YouTube blog today to discuss TED’s journey with us so far.

Today TED celebrates five years of spreading ideas online, and YouTube has been a key part of our mission from the start. In fact, TED and YouTube have grown up together as we've spent the past half-decade unlocking the power of video to set free convention-breaking ideas across the globe. On June 27, 2006 TED flipped the switch on a simple web page with six videos. Now five years later, TEDsters all over the world are using video to spread ideas feverishly across the Internet. We're excited to celebrate with the YouTube community a few amazing TEDTalks to mark our anniversary and pay tribute to the fascinating people who have inspired, intrigued and stirred our hearts and minds!

Together we’ve unlocked all kinds of ideas—from silly memes to paradigm shifts in human ingenuity to political change. Harnessing radical openness of the Internet, in fact, has been the topic of other TEDTalks including Clay Shirky, Sal Khan and Peter Gabriel. And we've found some of our most beloved speakers through YouTube—like Johnny Lee, the Wii-mote hacker, whose demo Chris spotted online early in 2008. A plane ticket later, Lee's demo of creating teaching tools with game controllers was on its way to ruling the web. If you haven’t seen it, check out TED's curator Chris Anderson in his own TEDTalk about "How web video powers global innovation." He starts by showing how YouTube-powered video is driving street dance to evolve globally at lightning speed.

With 70 million cumulative views, TEDTalks on YouTube is a killer platform for us, for ideas both big—Sam Richards, and and not-so-big—Terry Moore / How to tie your shoes. We treasure you for your smart insights, active commenting and dedicated subscribership to TED. Fan Ghazzawi9 calls us "weekly dosages of pure enlightenment and inspiration." (Thank you!)

Today's TEDTalk highlights another amazing YouTube power -- sharing ideas in more than one language. Emiliano Salinas' talk, which he delivered in Spanish, is instantly accessible to viewers around the world through YouTube's and TED's subtitle community.



Having reached the 5-year milestone, we look back in awe and look forward with excitement. Thanks, YouTubers, for helping us expand minds, open hearts and inspire others in ways we never expected.

Guest to The Official YouTube Blog Emily McManus, Editor of TED.com, on behalf of the worldwide TED team, recently watched “Google Chrome: It Gets Better."