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YouTube's Most Popular Category

(30 posts)

Started 1 year ago by HotForWords
Latest reply from Greatest Potential

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HotForWords
Key Master

I have an updated thread here

YouTube is developing a category called Most Popular that, through some sort of algorithm, displays videos that it deems "Most Popular". This actually DOES NOT appear to take into account videos that are the most watched for the day, but rather it looks at other variables to determine what videos it will show.

It doesn't show only highly rated videos, nor does it show videos with a lot of comments... it has some totally undecipherable algorithm that determines what videos to show.

A lot of people use YouTube to stay current with what is going on in the world, in fact YouTube passed Yahoo as the second most popular SEARCH ENGINE!

So, people go to YouTube to see what is popular for the day, what is relevant, or just what is hot for the day. With this new Most Popular algorithm, it was showing videos that were weeks and months old. It was showing videos that had 1,000 views and bad ratings. It was basically showing a whole hodgepodge of videos that really did not seem relevant.

Most Popular still exists, and will probably be coming back as the default video tab item. You can see it in action here.

Can anybody figure out the algorithm they are using?

Posted 1 year ago #
Capman911
Member

Marina I found this on my search through the internet. I don't know if it will help you or not.
http://www.hybridsem.com/blog/2008/02/15/youtube-marketing-algorithm-2-on-global-countdown-on-search-engine-journal/

or this link

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/guide-to-video-marketing-on-youtube/6381/

Posted 1 year ago #
CheVolay
Member

Judging by what my three pre-teen nieces tell me, I do not know how to use YouTube, when I observe what they watch I can't help but think these kids are the future viewers of YouTube, the future marketing targets.

I suspect the majority of YouTube viewers are teenagers.

If I ever do anything creative on YT it will be with these three little Asian girls. Of course that's is from a capitalist point of view, I may want to create videos just for the artistic endeavor.

Posted 1 year ago #
HotForWords
Key Master

Capman.. this algorithm is actually new. So I don't think those articles are relevant.

Thanks though!

Posted 1 year ago #
stōkesjrj1 Lubbock, Tx
Member

testy

Posted 1 year ago #
James
Member

Thing is on the UK its almost all X factor and a whole page of Diana Vickers who is crap. I think YouTube just sets it to find anything popular IN THE PRESS! Thats just my thought. I think it definatley has something to do with the papz

Posted 1 year ago #
koalabear
Member

YouTube Developer's Guide says this about the data API protocol.

Most popular

URL: http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/standardfeeds/most_popular
Description: This feed contains the most popular YouTube videos, selected using an algorithm that combines many different signals to determine overall popularity.

But I can't find any details about the magic algorithm.
It is not obvious from the statistics how it calculates the rankings.
I will keep looking ...

Posted 1 year ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

I was checking out that URL^link and there's some mention of a "Common Feed List" Sounds sort of grainy to me. Where's the algorithm that charts consistency level of vlogging? I'd say hotforwords has the edge there since she cranks out on average about a video a day on YT

Posted 1 year ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Marina, yesterday shortly after you saw your birthday surprise, I had visited YouTube's Popular pages. I saw two of your videos there. I think one was on page 3 and one was on page 2. Don't hold me to this, but I think one of your videos was "Twitter", and the other popular one was either "Origami" or "Animated". Sorry, I didn't get screen shots as I was headed out the door. You might be able to verify this by visiting those videos and looking at the YT "Insight" stats.

I am pursuing what goes into the makeup of the Popular category, but at a slow pace.
I have an interest in writing a blog about the Popular Category, but I need a lot more information than what I currently have. More to come later...

Posted 1 year ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Marina, just a few minutes ago (Dec 11, 2008 10 AM PST), I saw that you had many videos on
the You Tube Popular top 100. Here is what I saw, with screen shots.

Most Popular Today:
___page 3, Origami

Most Popular This Week:
___page 1, Model, HotForWords in HD (Raccoon), Twitter
___page 3, Would You Hire Me (Resume)

Most Popular This Month:
___page 3, Rockin' Live (Music).
Also, BarelyPolitical has a video on that page featuring you on the thumbnail.

Posted 1 year ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Sorry about the 2nd link (This Week) up above.
Somehow I messed up deleting the wrong duplicate.

Here is the link for YouTube's Popular - This Week.
Marina has three videos on page 1 and one video on page 3.
That's 4 HotForWords videos dominating "This Week". Thumbs up
The image shows both page1 and page3
http://i34.tinypic.com/n50zy9.jpg

I just noticed something weird. Page 1 Most Popular - This Week videos have no rating stars, but Page 3 does. I wonder if I got the screen shot this morning during a change over?

Posted 1 year ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

An update for the YT Most Popular "Today" page (Dec 11 2008 - 7:08 PM PST)
Marina's video (Origami) on the Today page is on page 3 and
jumped up 2 positions from 30th position to 28th position in appx. 9 hours.

Posted 1 year ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Ooooops, made an error in the above post.
The page 3 stats should have read:
"The Origami video... jumped up 2 positions from 50th position to 48th position..."
That video is now at 45th position, moving up 3 spots.

The Sarcasm video hit the Popular - Today list.
It is now on page 5 at position #65.

Posted 1 year ago #
pedanticKarl
Member

Marina, as you said above,
"Most Popular... will probably be coming back as the default video tab item."

If that is true, and I think it might also come back, and since you are very
interested in the "Popular" algorithm, and, since I am always up for a good
challenge, I'm going to see if I can build an analytical engine to reverse
engineer the algorithm.

As of now, I've just been casually looking at the Popular category, but I
think I may want to take a rigorous analytical stab at it, especially
since YT is the 2nd most popular search engine. It'll be slow going initially,
but hope it can produce some results.

Posted 1 year ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

How does Madonna do it all these years I'm mystified

Posted 1 year ago #
Captain Jack
Moderator

The algorithm of 'Most Popular' (MP) is very complicated but not imposable to figure out. It uses a lot of weighted factors in determining how a video is rank. The key word here is "Viral". I took a snap shot of 2 pages of MP. Page 1 and page 3 and googled all the videos . What I discovered that the number of hits google produced for each video. I saw a definite pattern appearing before my eyes. Though I did find a few anomalies in the pattern but I think they were put there to break up the pattern. Some sort of random video to take me off the trail. That's what I would do! I applied my theory to Philip's videos and I was able to predict the order of his videos. I found Philip's videos a very big help in discovering the pattern. Marina's wasn't so good. Which was interesting in itself. Featured videos had a large part to play in theory. The number of views was a factor but many people keep over looking this for they don't perfectly match up. Well they do but we are looking at the wrong view counts. I also discovered country codes have a factor on what videos appear.

Which all of this brings me to a dilemma. Knowledge has value. There are many pieces to this algorithm. Every piece has value. Alone they are worthless but combined they can be worth thousands. That's why my comment is generalization and not detailed. Also once my algorithm leaks out to YT then it becomes worthless as they change the algorithm.

Posted 1 year ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

That's some fascinating writing CaptainJack. I recall someone mentioning viral videos in the video that hotforwords did on Miley Cyrus. Though I would say Billy Ray Cyrus practically has the market down on viraling his celebrity kids to the point of spreading them out so thin that they are nearly transparent I have more respect for Marina than to call her or her videos viral. There has to be some way around this vague subgenre known as most popular category.

Posted 1 year ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

There's a video where a woman admits she can't sing yet as she is attempting to sing she manages to stand on a table and fall off a table and it gets over a million views and it's like hitting a high note without even breaking wind.

Posted 1 year ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

That's the reason why I'm not that interested in attempting to jump from one running freight car to another just so I can slip and fall and land on a steer for someone to photo on their flip phone or whatever and then be laughed at on YT. I've already been humilated enough in one lifetime why would keep at it unless I was a full blown masochist?

Posted 1 year ago #
HotForWords
Key Master

CaptainJack, if Featured videos plays a big part in the Most Popular algorithm, then that means the algorithm is NOT most popular, but videos chosen by YouTube to be featured. If that is the case, then that means that YouTube is moving to become an edited site with videos chosen by members of YouTube as the "Most Popular". I certainly hope that is not the case.

pedantickarl, thanks for pointing out my appearance on the Most Popular. I noticed that as well, but my appearances appear to be fleeting at best.. in other words I am there and then 5 minutes later, I am gone.

It seems to me that there is nothing wrong with just going with most viewed, cleared out every 48 hours as the current system stands. Why the need to change it?

Posted 1 year ago #
thoughtonfire
Member

It's a move by the Corporate Giants who control the media to keep the internet under reasonable censorship and content curriculum desired to be on the front pages.

I just browsed the Most Popular front page and I don't see why anybody would ever watch those videos anyways.

Posted 1 year ago #
James
Member

I think that most popular has something to do with the most searched current events on google and google video.

Posted 1 year ago #
Captain Jack
Moderator

I could be wrong in this (I'll have to take another snap shot again) but page one of MP page was all videos that made featured list. I just check now and I seen they changed this. Now it's not. Must have been a bug that they fixed. So now I have to take that out of my notes. Thanks Marina for pointing this out.

@James, That's a possibility. I don't think it is Google search page but YouTube's search box. I was searching via google, the videos itself and not search terms. Your on the right track. And something to support that is why did TY add a search box to all their embedded videos when it clearly is on their website? The search must be very important! I think google is starting to influence YT a bit more on getting them to work harder in that area.

@thoughtonfire, Yes they have to control what videos make it to the top. If they didn't porn would over take the site.
Yes that's the problem with corporate control is they pick videos that would boost revenue. Just look at network TV's control. Why do the really good shows get canceled and later on they make a movie? Firefly came out with a movie called Serenity because of it's following. Question is why was it canceled if it had such a following? It's all about advertisers needs. For example I'm a big company and I want to by air time for my commercial of our new wonder bra. I want it to be shown on the Tyra Banks show which the majority viewer is female. Not some Sci-Fi show that the majority is male viewers. You see where this is going? YT would be smart to follow the same model. YT of yesterday will be nothing like YT of the future and yet the videos will be mostly the same.

Posted 1 year ago #
Captain Jack
Moderator

The show "NARUTO SHIPPUDEN 88" has many spots on YT MP 'Today' page. At this time Saturday 15:37 PST the video takes up 7 spots on page one. What's interesting is that they all are on different accounts. Why is this? Could this be a cheat? Most videos are the same other than subtitles have been added.

The video "Steve Cunningham vs Tomasz" takes up 2-4 videos for today. With one raking #7. All four videos are from the same account "Realnessmess0o0". Of those 4 videos are of different lengths of video.
I don't know a thing about boxing. I would venture to guess this was a very good fight and those who missed it are looking to YT to watch the highlights. I see why this video would be come viral very quickly.

The KFC Bath video is on page 5. I don't see the freeway dog hero anymore.

Uggh. this is addictive I need to get back to work...

Posted 1 year ago #
koalabear
Member

Some of the videos on Most Popular may be what's popular in
the last 10 or so minutes:-

Spot #9 on Page 1 of Most Popular

================================================
Ashegheh
3 days ago 3,472 views
TomboysTv
================================================

Has only 3,472 views after 3 days.

================================================
Ten minutes later, this video has completely disappeared
from the Most Popular pages....

Posted 1 year ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

Who needs disposable videos? Permanency is the ticket! James Dean has lasting popularity and for my money I'd say that's popular as in iconic

Posted 1 year ago #
Captain Jack
Moderator

@Koalabear, you found the anomaly that I mention before. I think YT puts those in there randomly to confuse us from plotting the algorithm. If you pull out those anomalies then the picture looks much clearer.

Posted 1 year ago #
Captain Jack
Moderator

How are videos ranked in the Google Video search results?

Our intent is to represent the video content of the internet fairly and accurately. We don't give special ranking preference to videos hosted by YouTube or Google Video, nor do we manipulate search results in any way. We believe strongly in allowing the democracy of the Web to determine the inclusion and ranking of videos in our search results.
After determining the content of the video using our spidering technology, Google then combines sophisticated text-matching techniques to find videos that are both important and relevant to your search. Our technology examines dozens of aspects of the video’s content (including number of hits and rating) to determine if it's a good match for your query.
Please be assured that we’re continually working to improve our algorithms to provide the most relevant results for your query.

What is "Movers & Shakers"?

The "Movers & Shakers" list displays videos that have suddenly risen in popularity. It differs from the "Top 100" in that it is not based on the number of page views a video receives, but the rate at which the page views are increasing day-to-day.

Videos appearing in "Movers & Shakers" and the "Top 100" are selected automatically by our ranking algorithm. Please note that Google Video does not manually select which videos are displayed on these lists.

Posted 1 year ago #
Captain Jack
Moderator

I notice something about the 'Movers & Shakers". It sounds very much like "Most Popular".

Posted 1 year ago #
Greatest Potential
Member

"Most Popular" category and now "Movers and Shakers". What's next? "Miscellaneous Shapeshifters"

Posted 1 year ago #

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