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Social Media By the Numbers: YouTube
by Tom Tsinas.
Whether it’s watching someones misfortune, individual rants, old music videos, my favorite teams past sporting glories, lost TV episodes or political debates, I just can’t seem to get enough of YouTube. It’s become a personal entertainment option and, from an SEO standpoint, as videos are beginning to rank, I enjoy the challenge of defining my clients video content strategies.
This week I’m exploring YouTube, by the numbers:
* YouTube was created in mid February 2005 by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, three former PayPal employees.
* The domain name “YouTube.com” was activated on February 15, 2005
* The site was previewed in May 2005, six months before YouTube made its official debut.
* In November 2005, venture firm Sequoia Capital invested an initial $3.5 million.
* In February 2006, NBC asked for the removal of its copyrighted content from YouTube.
* March 2006, YouTube set a 10-minute maximum limit on video run time.
* In April 2006, Sequoia put an additional $8 million into the company.
* By June 2006, YouTube was one of the fastest growing websites on the Web and was ranked the 5th most popular website on Alexa, far out pacing MySpace’s rate of growth.
* Former receptionist Brooke Brodack was signed by NBC’s Carson Daly for an 18-month development contract in June 2006 and is credited as being among the first individuals to transition into mainstream media through YouTube.
* A July 2006 survey showed 100 million video clips are viewed daily on YouTube with an additional 65,000 new videos uploaded every 24 hours.
* In August 2006, YouTube announced its goal, within 18 months, to offer every music video ever made, while remaining free of charge.
* YouTube averages nearly 20 million visitors per month where 44% are female, 56% male, and the 12- to 17-year-old age group is dominant.
* In September 2006, Warner Music and YouTube signed a deal, in which the website will be allowed to host every Warner music video while sharing a portion of the advertisement income.
Universal Music Group, and Sony BMG Music Entertainment came on board the next month.
* PC World Magazine named YouTube 9th of the Top 10 Best Products of 2006
* According to the website Hitwise.com, YouTube has up to 64% of the UK online video market.
* The following video, ‘Addicted to YouTube’ has been viewed 1,626,549 on….YouTube:
* In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google stock.
* YouTube hosts over six million videos, growing at about 20 percent every month.
* The videos take up 45 terabytes of storage — about 5,000 home computers’ worth.
* The total time spent watching YouTube videos since it started is 9,305 years…and counting.
* The content requires several million dollars’ worth of bandwidth a month to transmit.
* The popular words in video titles are “dance,” “love,” “music” “sex” and “girl”.
* The average age of a YouTuber is 27, with 20% being 35 or older, watch 39 videos per day made 7 comments and uploaded 3 videos for a total time spent on site of one hour and 18 minutes every day!
* 4% of YouTubers have a website link back to MySpace
* Top 10 CBS videos watched on YouTube, according to a November 17 CBS press release:
1. NCIS/Cat Fight (1,603,364)
2. Letterman/ Borat Meets David Letterman (1,057,180)
3. Early Show/ Borat Vs Harry Smith (969,391)
4. Letterman/ Bush is drinking again (698,806)
5. Letterman/ Message About February for Bush (524,697)
6. CBS Evening News/ Michael J Fox Talks to Katie Couric (465,563)
7. CSTV/USC Cheerleaders: The Song Girls (374,623)
8. CSTV/ A Field of Dreams for Judy Coffman (358,572)
9. Letterman/George W. Bush Fakin’ It (357,213)
10. Letterman/ Dave and Bill O’Reilly (352,747)
* Apple announced in June 2007 that YouTube would be available on iPhone at launch.
* Of the 1.8 billion videos streamed from Google online properties in July 2007, 1.7 billion of these came from YouTube. Google takes 21.5% of the market share for online video streams.
* According to Richard MacManus, the Top 10 YouTube Videos of all time are:
1. Evolution of Dance by comedian Judson Laipply. It was added to YouTube on April 06, 2006 and has since gone on to attract over 61 Million views.
2. Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend video, uploaded by RCARecords 5 months ago, has amassed 57 Million views.
3. My Chemical Romance’s Famous Last Words is third, with 38M views.
4. My Chemical Romance - Teenagers has 36M views
5. Guitar, is fourth with 29M views.
6. SNL - Digital Short - A Special Christmas Box with 28M views
7. Akon - “Don’t Matter” - has 28M views
8. Beyonce ft. Shakira - Beautiful Liar - 25M views
9. Tu?ba Özay ve 250.000ci GarantiArkadas. com Üyesi has 25M views
10. xxx - Hong Kong pop video not porn - has 24M views
* YouTube has been blocked in several countries since its inception. These countries include: Brazil,Morocco. Certain video pages have been banned as of October 1, 2007 in Thailand, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.
* It is estimated that YouTube could be generating $440 million in annual revenue. IDC predicts that video revenue will jump to $1.7 billion by 2010.
* October 11, Google announced that a YouTube layer will be available in the Featured Content folder of Google Earth (http://earth.google.com). Virtual explorers can now watch YouTube videos while they traverse the globe.
Avenue A | Razorfish surveyed 475 consumers across “all demographics” this past July and found that there is a high volume of online video usage.
* 67% regularly watch videos on YouTube.
* 95% have watched online videos in the last 3 months.
* 49% have uploaded online videos in the last 3 months
* 85% have watched online movie previews in last 3 months.
* 71% have watched a TV show online in the last 3 months
So much has changed in year. Most pundits questioned Google’s decision to buy YouTube, citing the company’s legal woes and video’s staying power. I don’t know about you, but I spend more time on YouTube than on network television. And judging from comSocre’s Video Metrix report, released this past July, where nearly 75% of US Internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video, I’m not alone.
As posted in Stats, Social Media, News, Google, Content on October 15, 2007.
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June 15th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
well you have really put every thing from start to end i liked it very much.Youtube is really one of the best videos providers
June 22nd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I totally agree, i read a similar thing over at www.whatsyourview.net who outlined the same argument
September 29th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Interesting post about youtube. I didn´t now it started so early as 2005, it´s impressive how fast they is growing.