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.
In writing a recent article for Alley Insider, Michael asked us if there are any stealth viral video campaigns floating around out there that he could force out of the closet. After consulting our database (which houses over 25,000 content creators) and clicking around, we think (but aren’t certain) that this video, which conspicuously features Stella Artois (owned by mega-conglomerate InBev), is a total shill (not that that’s a bad thing):
Michael Learmonth of Silicon Alley Insider has a great post on “Special Delivery,” a popular MySpace-sponsored hidden camera show that is a huge success on MySpace (in part thanks to promotion there), and a total flop on YouTube, where the show also has a channel. This attests to a common refrain we say a lot around here (because it’s true): since each video sharing site has different demographics and promotional opportunities, distribution to multiple sites not only increases viewership, but also helps in finding an audience and starting to build a community around content.
