Evolving Video Search: Value of Human Categorization

I love it when I see odd patterns through varied stimuli, and here is the latest. I’ve done my best to relate these disperate thoughts, but I’m growing increasingly skeptical of my ability to communicate the connections I see. Still I’ll try, and it has implications on video discovery, how they’re classified, what can motivate viewers and creators, and ultimately what YouTube, the largest video site and 2nd largest search engine is (teaser: I believe it’s more of a network than the video search platform it seeks to be).

I am aware that almost nobody will read 1200-word treatise, so I must have created it for myself. If I had more time, I’d refine it and actually make a salient point… but let’s get started with today’s inquiry and lesson!

• I awakened at 4 a.m. curious to finish watching this kickass presentation by Deborah Prentice at a live meeting of The Institute for Advanced Studies. Notice her hypnotic repetition of the word “popular,” which creates a cognitive pull. The central theme is that changing human behaviors is easy but often counter-intuitive. Many of her examples were familiar to me via Dan Pink, like the fact that statements about social norms can validate negative behavior or influence positive behavior. Give someone a moderate fine for picking up their kids late at daycare, and you’ll see an increase in that behavior (the “fine” allows parents to purchase a cheap ” free pass” from the guilt of a moral transgression). Likewise providing cash prizes to reward a behavior (donating blood, achieving in school) can often remove someone’s intrinsic reward… having the opposite of the intended effect. Simply put, little things can make a big difference (thanks Malcolm Gladwell for popularizing that encouraging notion with the seminal book, Tipping Point).

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  Inspired by recently reading “Aspire” by Covey alumnus Kevin Hall, I’ve been curious about word etymology for terms we use daily. As a Johnson & Johnson colleague jokes, “words matter… because they mean things.” I’d go a step further and suggest that almost no word we use has truly universal meaning. What happens in your amygdala when I say ROCK is indisputably different than what happens to your best friend. I started this bullet with the word “inspired,” for instance. What did you hear? The word originates from Latin for “breath life” and even has some spiritual origins (infusing someone with God). For that matter, a “coach” didn’t originate to mean “someone who pushes you to achieve your highest potential,” but “someone who takes you from where you are to where you want to be” (origin: the region in Hungary, Kocs/kocsi, where stage coaches originated). “Life coach,” a more recent term, is probably truer to that definition than the coaches we remember from agonizing athletic moments. Simply put, since words have varied meaning, the “law of averages” suggests that even slightly MORE categorization words can increase precision.  

• While presenting at the Institute for Humor Studies, someone asked about who “classifies” a video’s topic… I explained that the creator did. Not the viewer. NOT the viewer. It made me pause because it’s actually quite arrogant to think I can classify my video better than a dozen viewers. Lesson: the category has an inherent bias by the creator: its intention might be radically different from the way it’s received, and we viewers should help decide if it’s actually “comedy” or “education.” Furthermore we need to get far more specific than these arbitrary and broad categorizations.
• Finally, Jan, a long-time member of the WVFF “back row” (the people brave enough to comment below, and tell me to stop being so damned long-winded and random like this post). Jan writes, “It’s a shame you tube doesn’t have something in the profile settings that allows users to list what your channel is about that connects directly to an index with a list of categories.”

Percentage of search aside, the quality of video search is simply not as “smart” as Google. So we have a vicious cycle or what Prentice might call a “negative feedback loop.” Video search (for me) is declining as a percentage of how my videos are “discovered” perhaps because search isn’t effective. And unless my videos are an anomale (and the rest of videos are indeed search driven) we might not see the emphasis on improving it. Certainly this will change as advertisers disproportionately reward video views driven by search: for instance, if I’m marketing a medication for “restless leg syndrome” I’m far more interested in targeting those people searching “restless leg syndrome medications” on YouTube than those watching Ray William Johnson. Even if viewing him my cause restless leg syndrome.