YouTube is celebrating the end of the year with a selection of impressive stats revealing that the video sharing service recorded an unparalleled one trillion video playbacks during the past 12 months.

Making the announcement via its official blog the Google owned online service has revealed that 2011 has seen record demand heaped upon the video packed website with the 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) video views equating to 140 playbacks per person in the world.

One hundred years into the future, when our great-grandkids look back to what was capturing the world’s imagination on YouTube in 2011, what will they make of us?” said Kevin Allocca, YouTube’s Trends Manager. “Will they still be delighted by babbling babies? Will they still be “so excited” about the weekend?  And will they be any closer to understanding the mystery of the space-traveling toaster pastry cat?”

Best YouTube Videos

As well as outing the impressive figures YouTube has revealed the year’s most popular videos with Rebecca Black’s Friday leading the way for videos not affiliated to major record labels.

Black’s truly awful come cult classic song was followed in the year’s most watched list by the Ultimate Dog Tease in second and Jack Sparrow (feat. Michael Bolton) in third. Talking Twin Babies and Nyan Cat completed the top five.

What was your top YouTube video of 2011? Let us know and post a link in the comments box below to share the joy of one of the wonders of the web.