Category Archives: Online

Business, Online

Hollywood buys up Youtube content

YouTube: Hollywood’s Hit Factory for Teen Entertainment – Businessweek.

As mentioned on my blogs, Youtube is an advertisers dream for reaching young audiences. Big business – namely traditional Hollywood production companies – are buying up Youtube content, talent and “multi-channel networks”.

As Youtube becomes a traditional commercial programming adventure – the “big stars” have turned into mini production companies with producers, directors, stunt coordinators, writers, composes – will Youtube still appeal to the youth demographic?

As Youtube turns into something different than what it is today, will other content producers – the individuals and small groups that were producing video content for fun – leave for other online video platforms?

My own viewership has dropped off dramatically. There may be many reasons for that unrelated to Youtube changes. But Youtube viewership is changing – and content is increasingly created by production teams rather than the stereotyped kid in his bedroom. Even if it still is a teen in a bedroom, chances are increasing that there’s a business manager, producer and other staff involved now days.

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Advertising, Business, Online

Youtube viewership skews very young

I reviewed the stats for my own Youtube channel and discovered that 77% of all viewers are between the ages of 13 and 44 and about 60% are between the ages of 13 and 34.

Youtube does not present statistics on those under age 13 (think this is due to Federal laws to protect children) but there are third party reports that suggest the very young also view a lot of Youtube videos. Would be reasonable to add another 10% to 15% in that age group, meaning 90% + or – are below the age of 44.

But merely counting viewers by age does not give us the full story. I suspect that younger viewers also watch more minutes than do older viewers.  If we had access to that data, we would probably see that nearly all of our channel views come from a young viewership.

This age skew is why some topics get large viewership, notably:

  • Video gaming videos
  • Hair, makeup and fashion videos are targeted at “tween” and teen girls – and older. Surprisingly, 25% of “Generation Y” and “X” have dyed their hair a non-natural color at some point. This is a bigger audience category than one might think.
  • Music videos (which usually target a young audience)
  • “Adventure” videos – often doing crazy stuff or even well organized crazy stuff, score highly too. Remember that the younger demographic has a bias towards breaking the rules and trying new and crazy stuff.
  • Some physical activity interest area videos (mountain biking, dancing, skate boarding)

Those topics appeal to the younger viewers that make up the bulk of Youtube viewers. If you want to attract a big channel audience, you will probably want to target topics that interest young viewers.

This demographic is also very important for advertisers – brand identification starts young. Buying habits start young. And many young people spend a lot of money. Youtube is an advertiser’s dream audience.

More Youtube demographics over on my other blog.

Update: No surprise – Youtube “stars” are better recognized/more famous among teens than are “A-list” movie stars and celebrities.

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Online

How does the Flickr “Explore” feature select photos?

Flickr’s Explore feature provides users with a quick look at photos that have been selected by Flickr for presentation to a wider audience. Many photographers would like to see their photos selected, obviously, to obtain a wider audience for their work.

How does Explore select photos? The specific details are not disclosed to avoid “gaming” the selection process. But there are hints in a 2006 U.S. Patent filing by Yahoo:

These rankings may be based at least in part on the quantity of user-entered metadata concerning the media object, the number of users who have assigned metadata to the media object, access patterns related to the media object, and/or a lapse of time related to the media object.

via United States Patent Application: 0060242139.

It appears to do with a “scoring” process that evaluates the “tags” assigned to a photo (e.g. “County Fair”, “Cow”), their relevance to the image, an “access pattern” (presumably an association between the searched for keywords that led to viewing the photo, and the tags assigned by the uploader), the number of click thrus and views of the photo, and the relationship of the viewer to the photographer (e.g. “friend”, stranger). There are likely other factors that go into this process (8 years after the patent was filed).

3D, Advertising, Business, Online

Youtube seeks higher quality content to charge premium ad rates

I will have more to say about Youtube and the business case another time:

The talks underscore Google Inc’s desire to complete YouTube’s transition from a repository for grainy home videos to a site sporting the more polished content crucial to securing higher-priced advertising.

via Exclusive: YouTube weighs funding efforts to boost premium content – sources | Reuters.

Not surprisingly, its all about the ad revenue now. Those that deliver ad

YouTube Censored
YouTube Censored (Photo credit: dannysullivan)

opportunities for Youtube will achieve prominence and the rest  (most everyone else!) may find themselves disappearing in search results and recommended lists.

Youtube previously announced it had modified search results and recommendations based on its “big data” analysis, to drive more minutes of viewing. Consequently, these changes are not secret.

This may have repercussions for those us interested in 3D. 3D has not – yet – delivered significant online audiences for Youtube (except for one person). Youtube has been an early proponent of 3D by offering a reasonable 3D delivery platform but how long will that last?

(I produce short 3D videos as a hobby, not as a profession. But like any hobby producer, I am gratified that people wish to watch what I create. But if they can’t find the videos, then they will not be watching either.)

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Online, Videos

For niche video content producers, Youtube is a dying platform

Youtube is a dying platform for niche video content producers.

Youtube: Video 1 received 196 views in 3 weeks.
Flickr: Video 1 received 2,648 views in about 2 weeks.

Youtube: Video 2 received 116 views.
Flickr: Video 2 received 787 views

Youtube: Video 3 posted Jul 6, 22 views.
Flickr: Video 3 posted last night, 29 views already.

Hmmm… Youtube has done to its content search algorithm what Facebook has done to their newsfeed – and both are going to lose their content producers!

The same type of videos I posted a year and longer ago to Youtube would receive hundreds to many thousands of views.  But in 2014, similar videos are lucky to get even 100 views.

We know Youtube has changed their search algorithms, their recommended and “Watch” lists and how they prioritize who gets listed. From the perspective of niche video content producers, it is clear we are better off posting our content elsewhere. Or switch to producing video game mashups and cat videos!

Just guessing but Youtube seems to have become a platform for a group of established Youtube stars, up and coming music acts and “cover” singers, and viral videos.

The other possibility is fundamental changes in viewership – the audience now wants very high quality content (think Devin Graham or Corridor Digital), the audience now wants “channels” that focus on specific topics (there are some hints that this is happening), the audience wants “personalities” (strong hints that this has happened). The type of content people were looking for a year or three ago has changed – mountain bike racing, big events, air shows, etc – has all faded.

But that explanation fails to explain why the same video is watched 8 to 15 times more often on Flickr than on Youtube.

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