YouTube Trends Report #4

by asi

Ronaldinio scores, Tribute to Valentin Elizalde and one angry Warren

Its been a while since the last YouTube trends report and so many things have happened. YT was sold to Google, mid-elections in the USA, OK GO, Dove Evolution (did I forgot something?) and admittedly, in that crazy pace we’re getting used to of the new digital darlings, it feels like YT has matured beyond the buzz. We got used to LG15 as a new form of entertainment, for 15 min of glory of the like of gerriatric1927 or the laughing baby, loads of interactive movie trailers, cable TV learnt to stop fighting and start utilising YT and big viral-commercial hits like SOaP and Borat. The abundance of content on YouTube provides one of the best examples to what Jenkins (peace be upon him – he is the man!) dubbed convergence culture.

Because of these reasons I wanted to explore some other functions on YT like most linked, most subscribed channels, most favourite etc, yet, I’m waiting (for more than 2 weeks now!) to someone over at YT to reply to my request for some information/clarifications. [Its not the first time I send YT some questions via their 'contact us' page but to no avail, so if someone from YT is reading this - please start answering your users or take this 'contact us' page off!]

Since in previous reports I covered the most viewed videos of All-Times, This Month and This Week, I thought to naturally conclude this series with the most viewd videos TODAY. As I previously blogged, YouTube is a living and breathing zeitgeist beast mirroring everything that matters to people in the world – news, entertainment, technology, sport, commercials etc. and looking at the most viewed videos of the day give you a nice overview on what happen in the world and in YouTube world right now (in the past 24 hours) – that is the most topical report to date.

Unsurprisingly, the weekend’s football clearly dominates the chart.  There are 40 (!) videos of football goals from yesterday’s matches of which Ronaldinio’s magnificant goal is featured on 27 different videos, 10 of them at the first 20 while I am writing this report. (Come to think of it, its just like any other big news scoop that has the power to sell on many different newspapers and TV stations) 

Tracking and analysing the most viewed today chart is a bitch! Changes happen as I analyse/write this report (especially at the bottom) – new videos are getting in and some are getting out and thats playing cat and mouse with the chart…while with previous reports I had a couple of days to scan, watch, analyse, write and link, 25% of this chart has changed while I had dinner…

OK enough with the weeping, as usual, lets start with some numbers. As of Monday 27th at 6pm GMT, the most viewed video on YT has been watched 902,435 times. Closing the chart at #100 Berlusconi’s dismay video has been viewed 9732 times. Concerning the incredibly long tail of YT, it almost feels like its not a big deal to get just under 10K views to make it to the charts but don’t let this confuse you 10K views in 24 hours is not a simple figure to reach).

To those of you who don’t remember, in the last report we’ve agreed on three overall categories: 1)user generated, 2)user distributed and 3) commercial. While it is not that significant for the current report, it seems like we will have to add some new or at least some sub categories like commercial politics and grassroots entrepreneurs. As YT matured new forms of entertainment and news are slowely becoming mainstream.   

User Disributed Content (64%)

  • As mentioned above, looking at most viewed TODAY on Monday means  a lot of football.
  • The second biggest category of UDC is what I call Asian TV. There are 15 obscure (to me) comics, ‘telenovelas‘ (there are 6 different videos from this channel – anyone knows whats it all about?) and reality shows.
  • The rest (4) are music and European politics.

User Generated Content (33%)

Commercial (3%)

Not too many today but interesting new sub-category – a contestant in realityTV (X-Factor) has her own YT channel where she uploads her own clips from the show. Its still rudimentary and might be insignificant but it is still an innovative grassroots practice of convergence culture. Others were music videos and another experiment in marketing communications.