YouTube Now a True Leviathan of Video, Cracks a Billion Views a Day

We don’t usually cover traffic milestones here at ClickZ, but this one deserves a mention.

Three years to the day after Google bought YouTube, the video giant is routinely serving more than a billion video views per day. In fact, it’s so happy at about the accomplishment that it’s updated its logo. There’s more over at the official YouTube blog.

Meanwhile, new insight has emerged into what motivated Google in that fateful acquisition. In a deposition related to the copyright suit filed by Viacom, reviewed by CNET, Eric Schmidt reportedly told the court he estimated YouTube’s real value at only about $600 to $700 million. The actual price paid, $1.65 billion, suggests just how keenly the company wanted to keep the property out of the hands of its rivals.

Of course, the real question on everyone’s mind now is when YouTube will cross that fateful two billion video mark. Why? Well, YouTube is already the undisputed king of empty-calorie content snacking. All the better when it’s logo can reflect that with the updated tagline, “billions and billions served.”