For our latest study here at TubeMogul, we took a sample of 200,000 videos deployed by us and compared average views across video sites and categories.
The results? In comparing sites, the data is unequivocal: YouTube consistently gets more average views per video than any other site, regardless of category. Since YouTube pits the largest catalogue of content against the largest audience, this result was far from certain (and surprising to us). It’s worth noting that while YouTube dominates the averages, a video producer could still almost double their audience by distributing to additional video sites.
Breaking down average views by category also yielded some interesting results. “Autos,” for instance, is the category with the most average views per video. Also, MySpace only ranks fourth in the music category, behind YouTube, Yahoo! and Veoh. MORE HERE.
About a month ago, we launched a “Top 40″ list of the users getting the most views from videos deployed by us (an admittedly biased list, but an interesting one). We will be releasing an updated list shortly, but it’s worth pondering: what is the key to their success? Great content, for one. An additional insight came after we released our recent research on “Online Video’s Short Shelf Life.” A blogger savvily pointed out that most successful content creators already understood that online video fans have a short attention span, and thus put out a high quantity of videos.
Curious if that was actually the case, I tested it using our Top 40 list, and found it to be largely true. In the month of June, Chris Pirillo (#2 on our list), deployed 803 videos. Similarly, mojosupreme (#6) put out about 691. Further on down the list, Vlaze media (#35), put out a decidedly humbler 74 videos, and Sony (#40) deployed 32–and so on.
The data shows the brilliance of this. Since average online video viewership tends to peak on day three, putting out videos often allows producers to constantly ride the highest point of the wave. While individual videos rise and fall fast, a given producer can always have a steady audience.
I feel vain posting this, but here is an interview I gave this morning with Talking Head TV that I promised I would post on our blog. Some questions, like “what makes a video go viral?” or “what is the kiss of death?” are questions that we get asked a lot and don’t fully know the answers to (if we did, we’d be very wealthy!). However, I talk about our new study, “Online Video’s Short Shelf Life,” which looks at macro-trends (most videos don’t randomly go viral, it turns out), which was recently featured in Mashable!, Alley Insider, GIGaom and elsewhere. One additional insight from the study that we hadn’t thought of is pointed out by HyveUp: intuitively recognizing video’s short shelf life, many of the most-viewed content creators “do not hesitate to launch 3 to 5 videos a day.” Indeed.
We recently categorized all of our users (which now number over 25,000). The categorization was undertaken at the request of several specialty video sites that we deploy videos to that have strict editorial standards (Howcast only wants how-to videos, Crackle professionally-produced content, YouTube everything under the sun, etc.). While the tiering was qualitative, it yielded some interesting quantitative insights:
Tier One (i.e. CBS Interactive, NextNewNetworks): 47% of all views; 3% of all users
Tier Two (i.e. popular vloggers, filmmakers, less-knowns but popular): 23% of all views; 20% of all users
Tier Three (i.e. promotional material–movie trailers, corporate-seeded viral videos): 13% of all views; 7% of all users
Tier Four (i.e. unknowns, family videos): 18% of all views; 70% of all users
Since this data is about TubeMogul users, there’s a clear selection bias here in favor of savvier content creators (i.e. networks, marketers), who are probably more likely to know about TubeMogul than the casual video uploader. In any case, interesting (we hope).
Today, we released a study clarifying what counts as a “view” across video sharing sites. This study was initially published last June to great fanfare, so we re-executed it under current conditions, this time testing 14 sites to see if views are counted for refreshes, watching more than half a video, watching a video to completion and watching embedded videos. To our surprise, what was once a disparate dissonance across sites is now close to standardizing. All but three video sites we tested log “views” once the player starts, no matter how much of a video is viewed. YouTube and Yahoo!, which formerly had stricter, IP address-based constraints, lessened their standards, now counting everything once a video starts playing. Blip and MetaCafe are lone holdouts to an IP address-based standard.
Our politubing research is picking up momentum with press from The Washington Independent, Mashable, TechPresident and more. With all this love, I can’t help but feel for John McCain, whose video views are the lowest of the major presidential candidates, often lower than even Ron Paul, who is essentially out of the race (see chart). This is in addition to McCain’s other problems online, including, as Thougthful Conservative notes, “McCainSpace” logins returning error pages and not posting a blog for over a week. Perhaps McCain’s poor showing online helps explain his fundraising woes in an era of online donation. Sigh. Tomorrow marks the 35-year anniversary of McCain’s release as a heroic Vietnam POW.
Our latest industry analysis, in which we outline a correlation between online video views and campaign contributions for the presidential candidates, is hot off the proverbial presses! Check it out here.
We’ve learned a great deal listening to our users, so we recently took a poll to hear in your words what differentiates the video sharing sites we serve. We compiled your comments in a “Zagat’s” like format and added what you told us about different monetization opportunities.
We hope this table paints a picture of the video sites as they are today. Since this is based on your feedback, this is a living document that we will update based on your comments (see Table Updates to Video Sharing Site Characteristics). Please share your thoughts, bookmark the page and check back for updates!
