Radnomness of Video Popularity

You’d like to think there was a system that helped good videos surface to the top and garbage go away. Despite the voting and comment functionality, popularity is no more democratic than it was in high school.

Proof: I have several videos where I’ve accidentally uploaded the same one twice. One will get great ratings, and the other won’t. One will get hundreds or thousands of views, and the other remains in the double digits. I am submitting to three sites regularly (Revver, YouTube and Google Video). Some of my videos die on one site, but gain popularity on another.

I think this has a lot to do with the luck of having someone with a big audience identify your content and share it with his/hers.

2 thoughts on “Radnomness of Video Popularity”

  1. I’ve noticed this, too. I thought it might be the time of upload or something, but could never quite nail down “prime time” for the various sites.

    I noticed one thing about Google Video, though. Some of my videos, the generically produced ones that would be suitable for website intros, seem to get viewed and downloaded week after week. My videos seem to have lives on Google long after the same expire everywhere else.

    I wonder if it has anything to do with Google Videos being downloadable to Video iPod and Sony PSP as well as Windows/Mac?

  2. Same here. I rarely “surf” Google video like I do at Revver or YouTube. But they do seem to live on and on and on. In fact, I went to the “reports” section and was dissappointed about the total views until I realized they were not historic- just yesterday.

    I was theorizing on this the other day. You may be right about multiple formats… I think it’s actually because Google Video is less crowded. The perfect site for an amateur is one with lots of viewers and not much to choose from…

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