Vidmeter, a video stats clearinghouse that covers online services like YouTube, found that only 9% of YouTube’s videos were removed for copyright violations and those videos accounted for 6% of total views. Viacom’s videos — Comedy Central stuff included — made up 2% of those videos. Most of the removed Viacom videos were music videos from MTV, not Jon Stewart’s hilarity.
Disney’s most popular removed video? “USC Cheerleader extreme wedgie.”
So what does that tell us about online video? It’s mostly homegrown, it’s mostly short, and its mostly viral. Broadcasters can cry wolf all they want, but they are definitely noticing that as folks head for the small screen their business model is rapidly waning. Who wants to wait 6 months for the next episode of “Lost” (This week, Jack and Ben play a rousing game of checkers… and Ben tell Jack one tiny detail about J.J. Abram’s lurching LSD fever dream) when they can watch “USC Cheerleader extreme wedgie.” This is partially why I never wanted to do a pod- or videocast for CG or any of the other sites I’ve worked for: no one has the time or the patience to sit through an hour of mumbling to get one nugget of information.
Vidmeter: Viacom Videos Were Only 2% of YouTube Views [InternetOutsider]
You are simply repeating conclusions drawn elsewhere — and these conclusions are flat-out wrong. The very premise — basing your numbers on the number of removed videos — is flawed because YouTube is not removing all videos. You’re assuming anything not removed is legit. In fact, this is far from true (as any look at the site will show.)
I don’t know why this report isbeing parroted so much in the blogosphere, and it’s frightenign to see. If you want to parrot, read YouTube without Bootlegs … Where’s the Business???
There is none.
- Jason
Jason:
Did you read the report? They discuss the issue of only tracking removed videos in at least 2 places. On top of that, the abstract states the goal is to provide an estimate of the topic, which the methodology does well.
Morevover, I would bet that Viacom has voraciously requested the removal of every remotely popular clip of theirs, so their 72 removed videos are probably all Viacom videos out of the top 6,000.
It’s an awesome piece of data John, thanks for sharing.