Ahh Youtube, one of the most innovative websites to ever hit the internet, has changed the face of video based media forever. This website, created in February of 2005, has given the common people the power of mass media, by allowing them to upload videos from their home computer. Inventors Chad Hurley, and Steve Chen got the idea after struggling to share videos from a dinner party with their co-workers. From a fledgling 4-5 videos, the internet super site now boasts 6.1 million videos, and has grown from 58,000 views per month last year to 20 million today. Youtube has grown to be the internet's top 5 most viewed website, and theres no wonder why. Videos can range from guitar tutorials, vlogs (video blogs), and amazing things caught on tape, as well as clips of older TV shows, and everything in between. Big time networks such as ABC, NBC, and CBS are also taking advantage of youtube's massive audience by posting their own videos, and even bonus content that cant be seen on TV. Even President Barack Obama has his own page where he broadcasts videos of important topics, and issues. Technology based buisnesses have recently suffered a decline in productivity due to their employees spending to much time on watching videos. Youtube has also been studied very closely by sociologists, psychologists, and even mathmaticians over many phenomenons. The most commonly studied subject is "herding", where experts make theories on the reasons for why some videos become heavily viewed, and others not at all. Riley Crane, a mathmatician at the University of California has found that only 10% of all videos on youtube are viewed 100 or more times a day. Of this 10% he seperates the videos into 3 catagories, "junk", viral, and quality. The junk category indicates successful videos that have no significance, or interesting aspects at all, a good example would be the lonelygirl series. Viral videos is defined by anything that is passed on either through other websites or email. The quality group is alot like viral videos, but instead of a gradual increase of views, there is a sudden spike of interest.
More of this theory can be explained at YouTube Usage Decoded.
Heres a list of YouTube's most viewed videos ever
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Beebo, look up llamas with hats on you tube. We have been watching it and laughing, quoting, and thinking it is rather funny! check it out, you'll get it!
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how YouTube grew from four videos to 6 million! It's definitely revolutionary to our generation. I go on YouTube quite a bit and even have a couple videos on there myself! I can find pretty much any kind of video on YouTube. I recognized Charlie bit my finger on the most viewed list. That one is definitely popular. One thing I found kind of interesting was that technology based businesses are losing profit due to their employees watching too many videos. Sometimes I get lost in a YouTube world and have a hard time coming out of it.
ReplyDeleteGood post!
YouTube has become pretty popular. I don't use it too often, but every time I'm looking for something, I find some strange videos. I didn't know that Obama posts videos about issues. It's kind of like FDR's Fireside Chats. Things have changed quite a bit since then though. It's good that he wants to tell us these things himself so we get the facts right.
ReplyDeleteI would have to say that YouTube is a very easy way to spend your free time or even the time when you should be paying attention in class. I often catch myself going onto YouTube during class and watching pointless videos that keep me entertained. My favorite ones are videos of professional sports players in their high school days, Allen Iverson playing high school football is the best one in my opinion. Others that i like are things that are really stupid or really funny, either way I usually get a good laugh out of it.
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