The popular Spanish video Despacito is at the top position on streaming sites, quite literally. It has recently overtaken Wiz Khalifa’s See You Again to become the most watched video on YouTube, amassing close to 3 billion views.
The feat is all the more impressive seeing as Despacito attained its view count in 7 months, much less than the 26 months it took See You Again to get to that record. That video on the other hand is currently at 2.9 billion views. We’re now truly past the days where Psy’s Gangnam Style used to sit at the top of the most-watched video list on YouTube; it was among the first videos that crossed the 2 billion mark and had forced YouTube to switch to using the programming data type long int to store its view count since it could only display a maximum of around 2.1 billion views until then.
The fact that a Spanish video sits atop the list highlights YouTube’s impressive global appeal. YouTube recently reached 1.5 billion monthly active users and has undergone a site redesign for speedier loading. It recently added thumbnail previews along with some other changes that were announced in Google’s I/O event.