TubeMogul reports on the short shelf life of online videos (courtesy of ReelPopBlog). While it’s true that 25% of video’s views tend to occur within the first 4 days, this is a bit missleading. First, TubeMogul focused on videos exceeding 1,000 views and the website is used more by serious content creators looking for broad distribution. Second, this means that 75% of the videos occur over an extended period beyond four days.I can usually tell within 4 days if I have a hit or a flop, but many of my 650 videos have a “slow boil.” My most popular videos continue to garner views in aggregate, and that exceeds the count of the most recent videos.In a similar model, a blog tends to start with a dozen readers. Then that eventually grows to hundreds and thousands. The delusional blogger begins to believe that his daily posts are read by hundreds. In fact, those visits are aggregated views to the creator’s entire legacy of work. The long, long tail.If I stopped creating videos, it wouldn’t be long (6-12 months) before I was forgotten nearly entirely. But for a period, my old videos would continue to get views as people stumble into them via related videos and random searches.I try to keep a rhythm of creating daily — or every few days — because that fuels viewer interest in my old work and also gives the viewer a reason to subscribe. It also helps keep me from getting constipated. I was constipated yesterday for real. Man did my farts stink.
31 thoughts on “Video View Count: Short Shelf Life vs. Long Tail”
Comments are closed.
A little too much information there at the end. Your end. Six to twelve months, eh? That seems optimistic. Whatever happened to Ian Crossland? Does Renetto still post videos? Whatever happened to Loco Mama or Little Loco? Pfffft. Gone with the wind. But you know all about the winds of change. Is that enough flatulence puns for you?
Nalts, I wouldn’t forget you even if you stopped making videos for a whole year! I would be mad at you! You’d be in my daily pissy thoughts as I wrecklessly checked the “Nalts” page for the most recent video and when there isn’t one I’d think about how much I’d want to beat you up in essence never forgetting you. ;o) Don’t test me Mister!
Speaking of new videos…it seems harder to tell if you made a new one or not on YT. You sometimes show up under my subscribed videos and sometimes not. I get a ton of “nalts” tagged videos that I didn’t get before too. Your latest video doesn’t show up on your main page for a loooooong time as well…I have to click “videos” to find it there. I don’t like YT’s new front page…it’s stupid!
Oh, come on Nalts. Did we really have to know that your farts stunk? If anything stinks, it’s Renetto! POW! Renetto-0, Reubnick-5
I really gotta stop insulting Renetto in every way possible…
My farts don’t stink. Not enough roughage in my diet.
I still re-watch some of your older videos, Nalts, especially when you haven’t posted in a few days. My particular favorites are “Mall Pranks”, and “Crawling through Airport” .Farting in Public” is probably your most famous, but I’m not big on fart jokes; 8-year old boy humor, to me.
On that note:TMI, Nalts. Don’t need to know about you gastro-intestinal problems.
BTW, MDJ, have you not been following the latest dust-up over Loco Mama and her man boobs? Apparently, a video was pulled (but others have re-posted it) and Loco Mama was put on probation. Check out Zipster’s channel for details.
there’s nothing in the world that beats a post on a blog more than capturing the history of someone’s bowel regiment, especially when it comes constipation. Which reminds me, what’s YouTube trying to pull now?
So I’m looking at my sub list and what do I see, but itschiscroker, okay I think, what’s he up to today? So I click on over and of course within moments I’m averting my eyes to other things, cause I’m drinking coffee and he’s playing with gooey red mouth makeup – Still listening, a few moments later I check back to see if he’s done with the visuals, but he’s not and my eyes capture a glimpse of a new brown color he’s added to the mix, but I’m still listening and understand the point he’s trying to make. So I slide the browser bar down, again to avert my eyes, and when I do this what do I see? hmmm… 210 views. Okay, I think, the video must have just been posted. So, he’s still talking away and probably dribbling makeup that looks like poo down his chin and so I slide the browser bar down further to the comments and what do I see?! 1028 comments.
210 views and 1028 comments?
YouTube, double you tee ef?!
New Software?
beyond the above comment…
I think the slow boil is interesting – I want tons of hits and comments soon as I upload a video and am thoroughly disappointed when I only get a few; it’s when I’m really excited about a video the most. When some time has passed I really don’t care as much about it because I’m on to something new. When I look back at the numbers a few months later I’m a bit surprised at how many views have accumulated. Looking at tubemongrel I see that the number of views tend to come in waves and I do pick up a few more subscribers; which I hope will run to watch the next new video I post that I’m thoroughly excited about, but that never happens. It’s a vicious circle I haven’t come to grips with yet.
Yes, Marilyn, I have been following YouTube’s efforts towards becoming more family friendly for the advertisers by purging transvestite man boob material off their site (aka Zipster08 aka Loco Mama). But sukatra here is actually the expert on that. She’s in the Zipster Fan Club Room hosted by Nutcheese over at stickam. Every night.
I think Zipster is the head of the Zipster Fan Club. Nutcheese’s room is just his forum.
If you read this Terry, you know I’m kidding!! You know me – I always kid! I kid because I love.
By the way, jischinger, what is your youtube name? When I put jischinger in the search for channel function, I got this goofy kid named Fred.
Nalts, you don’t know me and my comment here has no particular relevance to this post, but i wanted to just say i read your blog quite often and find it to be very entertaining and (bonus!) informative.
please keep it up, thank you.
JD Justice
So, sukatra, you’re in NutCheese’s room every night? And I thought I had no life. What time does Hank go to bed? I assume you’re not ignoring your maternal duties whilst chatting with Zip and NutCheese. Does Loco Mama ever make an appearance? Is it true that he records some of his videos while in Stickam?
I poo every morning like clockwork.
Every thing seams to get back to the toilet. I thought the main discussion was how the viewer is viewing your vids, I wouldn’t know. Nobody watches my crappy videos anyway. It must be because they are crappy. I think it’s because I don’t use boobs for my center shot and I don’t hurt my self in my videos. I’m at work right now and I shouldn’t be doing this so I got to make like a hockey player and get the puck outa here.
It’s the potty generation, onemon. Put more potty in your videos and watch your views go up! For your edification, here’s a year old look at the potty question (rated PG):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-a464Wc8jo
Marilyn – maternal instincts?? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!! I don’t have them.
These guys were kind enough to chart my long tail:
http://www.viralvideochart.com/youtube/be_careful_what_you_ask_for?id=HOwvL-6NNLA
It’s like Wham. No one is legitimately interested in their work anymore BECAUSE THEY STOPPED MAKING ALBUMS.
THERE IS LITERALLY NO OTHER EXPLANATION.
I come here saddened greatly as I mourn the passing of one of the world’s greatest comedians and commentators on life. George Carlin will be sorely missed. His voice was unlike any other’s out there.
Oh God marilyn. Don’t make me make a dead guy joke.
Not for George Carlin, sukatra. Anyone but him. He was my hero.
sukatra: Fred is my Twin! [not braggin or anything but]
RIP Carlin – Marilyn in tribute to Carlin will you say the 7 words as loud as you can?
fyi npr has a nice recap, old interviews with terry gross. hope this link works – [click name] or search google video, George Carlin Life is Worth Losing
“Viral sharing of this video: This video hasn’t been popular in the last year and still isn’t”
Isn’t that the standard description line for a video posted by marquis?
It’s called consistency Matt.
hey, look what You Tube sent me! I wonder if I win anything?
ooooooooo and Kevin’s got commercials now! ooooooooooooo
TV PSA: It’s 7:27 in the morning. Do \YOU know where you kids are?
Me: Unfortunately, yes.
Okay this is really weird. After I posted my last comment, I had a screen pop up that said “you have exceeded your comment limit.” Then it had a little box ifor me to copy the letters that are all wavy and stuff, just like on youtube. But it wouldn’t let me type in the letters. Since when does your blog have that kind of functionality?.
Oh yeah, and the word it wanted me to type in? Pricks.
sukatra, it’s matching software from google that works on picking out words you commonly type in to the search engine so you can type them in faster
Laughing inwardly, Matt.