HotForWords
Key Master
Warren, when you click the Videos tab it now defaults to Most Popular. 99.9999% of people never click beyond that. It means that YouTube doesn't like Most Viewed anymore and are doing away with it. The problem is that even though my channel was one of the most watched channels of all time, I don't exist in the Most Popular category. My videos will never be seen by anyone other than my subscribers now.
So I need to figure out what is going on with Most Popular.
originalistrick
Member
Marina,
What are other folks you know who have YT sites thinking about this situation?
And how in the world can the YT people think that an algorithm that has such a potentially adverse effect on your ratings, and presumably many other heretofore successful sites, be in any way beneficial to YT? Am I really this ignorant? I mean, even if they didn't give a damn about you, from a strictly business perspective, wouldn't this change be 100% counterproductive for them?
Always.
Chemikal
Member
I'm not giving the answer below, however I am listing a bunch of info.
So here are YouTube's FEEDS, directly from their NEW(v2) Application Programming Interface (API) :
Video related feeds
Videos
Complaints
Ratings
Related
Responses
Comments
Standard feeds
Most Recent
Most Viewed
Top Rated
Most Discussed
Top Favorites
Most Linked
Recently Featured
Most Responded
Watch On Mobile
User related feeds
Users
Favorites
Contacts
Inbox
Playlists
Subscriptions
Uploads
All categories have attributed some variables, another important one would be:
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.
From LA Times:
In December, when YouTube first introduced the "most popular" tab, a spokesman said that "most popular incorporates more signals about video related to freshness and activity beyond just a view count." Though they didn't mention anything about it on their official blog.
Also YouTube revealed: "Think of it as a Most viewed for interesting content. It is a mixture of views, audience attention (how long the viewer watches) and ratings. Why promote content that people aren't enjoying even after they watch it? Unlike Most Viewed, if someone watches for 10 seconds ... and leaves, [Popular] will not reward the video."
So what weighs heavily in the "Popular" section of YouTube?
The answer is, NOTHING in particular.
But since there is no official explanation of the algorithm, we can not know for sure. Only deliberate mindlessly and mindfully on this subject, until they finally tell us.
I wish you the best of luck, but remember, there is little you can do yourself to change anything. Because we know you are doing your best and put in a lot of work in your videos, so don't sweat it if people don't find you right away on the Popular tab.
YT has become a veritable search engine, because everyone knows it's an endless river of information. Google owns it, so imagine the traffic it gets from google.com alone, after returning videos as results to what people search for everyday. New viewers are sure to come, just probably not from the same source you expect.
Capman911
Member
I know I am stupid or kinda slow, but every time I click on the YT videos I come up with the most viewed then popular videos. I must be missing what everyone is talking about. This is what I see when I click on YT. http://www.youtube.com/browse So if most viewed is still there then why can't we just click on most viewed? I probably want check back here for an answer so if some one finds out let me know on one of the videos.
Chemikal
Member
Here's some good news.
Most viewed, is still on top, and that puts you on top!
My time is GMT+2
pedanticKarl
Member
Marina,
What do you think of the "David After Dentist" videos? I think there was one original video that made it to the top and then other people ripped off the video and starting posting it which was picked up by the Popular pages. To me it looks like that at least some of the videos are posted by the same user under sock puppet accounts.
One user (anishchopra6921) created his account just a few days ago, has none of his own videos and only has this stolen "David ... Dentist" video and his 22 subscribers are suspect, yet he has 145,493 views and is at the top of page4 of the Popular pages.
People leaving channels comments are beating up on him regarding stealing that video. Ex: "nice job OF STEALING the video douchebag get you're own videos loser"
Marina, have you thought about creating another account (or using HFW) to test some theories about the Popular pages. I had thought about it (and still thinking).
For example, make your own video with me in the back seat of your car where my head is just flopping in the breeze side to side and drooling and you talk to me like my mommy. It should hit page1. Well, maybe don't use me, but maybe Gorby (dogs are a shoo in), or James.
Marina, at this point I agree with your assessment regarding the Popular pages. You said on the Pot page; "I know they think it’s an improvement in the site, but I don’t see it yet." I agree, having had my nose deep into the data, I am appalled at the Popular pages outcome so far. More to come later this week.
pedanticKarl
Member
Marina,
Here are two items of interest about the Popular pages that you may or may not already know.
1. Views Threshold
On the Most Viewed pages, the views threshold is appx. 17k - 36k views when a video lands on that board.
On the Popular pages, the views threshold is probably 1,000 views as the video with the lowest views so far is 1,048 views by AssociatedPress, video title, "Obama Hits the Road to Promote Stimulus". Right now (Feb 9 5:36 AM), that video has 1,604 views and is on Popular pages #2.
At the time your video appeared on the Popular pages, your views were 56,000 and 83,000 views.
2. Continuity and Progression
On the Most Viewed pages, once a video lands on the board, one can roughly predict the progression in position and continuity of a video. The video stays on the board for 2 days at which point the video is at some predictable position based on views per some unit of time.
The Popular pages have no continuity. It appears that all videos disappear off of the board for some period time, and then re-appear. I don't know what makes a video re-appear, other than meeting that secret threshold.
My challenge is to determine what the minimum threshold is for getting on the Popular page. If 1,000 views is one criteria, of course you meet that easily in the first hour of any video you release. Now, on to discover the other criteria.
The other challenge is to find out that once a video lands on the board, what is the criteria for landing on a certain position and what makes a video disappear and then re-appear. Doing lots of data crunching. 
Greatest Potential
Member
I usually browse through the most viewed section and popular before I chart off into other territories on YT and I've noticed some similarities in which these videos share. Often it's a comedy skit take on some current event in the news like the Phelps incident or Christian Bale outburst. These videos slide into their designated slots like daily milk and newspaper delivered to your front door and then the empty milk bottles and newspapers are put back out for recycle. Sometimes it's just someone painting lipstick and pasting googly eyes on their hand then making their fingers talk. When HotForWords keeps pumping out videos each and every day she's on her game. I can claim with confidence that I've got some sense of how the video run goes because I put myself on the line and traverse the YT daily, leave comments there, take the heat, dish some out myself, then go about scraping gum off my shoes so I don't track it on the carpet. To be brutally honest it hasn't always been a picnic for me to just want to enjoy what YT has to offer.
pedanticKarl
Member
Hey greatestpotential, I liked your comments above.
One of the stats that I will be capturing into my database soon (amongst many) will be the video's category (i.e. Entertainment, Sports, Music, Comedy, etc) to see which group appears more often.
I was surprised at your honest expression in your last sentence, and I am curious what you mean by;
"... it hasn't always been a picnic ... to enjoy ... YT ... ".
I know that you are a very prolific commenter on the HotForWords videos on YT and you have been for a long time, even before you joined us over here. Your comments amuse me and I remember some time ago, you must have left a ton of comments in a row, and Marina said something to the effect, what's with all the comments. I got a kick out of that. Anyway, I like reading your comments.
leonard
Member
pendanticKarl: How important is "daddy google" the ad brat and mother of SEARCH. Search becomes the standard for "pop Culture". Marina knows all about the big little sound of the word search; I think. Anyway, old buddies...I believe the magical math, lies in semantics of search and you all said it "current events"...my 2 shakes of salt worth
pedanticKarl
Member
Marina, a note on Honor's spamming:
Before and during the SuperBowl, I was tracking the "Most Viewed" list and noticed some video leaders that looked like they were spamming the board. One of those was a user by the name of "s9164914214" amongst others.
That user was also dominating the Popular board by being in 15th position by my metrics, and that user's account is now suspended.
In the last week, the dominating users on the Popular board, according to my metrics are as follows. Definition of dominating: Seen most often and widely at any given time on the Popular board.
1. singh02king03ppv - sports (Italian)
2. machinima
3. AssociatedPress
4. NBA
5. failblog
6. MondoMedia
7. laurisgar (Spanish)
8. thechrismoylesshow
9. WebGuyTV
10. sakumakumasan7562pa6 (Japansese)
...
29. sxephil
...
39. communitychannel
40. 50CentMusic
41. WHATTHEBUCKSHOW
...
86. VenetianPrincess
...
92. panacea81 (Makeup Tutorials - UK)
93. hotforwords
What do the first 10 users have in common? They upload multiple videos. As many as 3-5 or more videos can be seen on the Popular board at any one time.
This is only an observation report and nothing is to be inferred from it.
These observations are of interest and a means to correlate other data.
As a side note, three HFW videos (Pot, GTW Reproductive, Grammys) all had very similar characteristics on the Popular board such as being exposed for about 3-4 hours at one time, then disappearing, and being positioned in the 90-100 range.
Captain Jack
Member
Well PK it seems the secret algorithm has been exposed. It's very obvious what one has to do to keep at the top of the most popular list. As I see it, this change will kill the independent on man/woman show. Your right about the number of uploaded videos. If one were to upload 2 or 3 videos a day then would float to the top of the list. This is best geared for major production studios. You notice in the past that most of the MP videos were of commercial companies that can put out many videos a day. This is a major step towards THEMTUBE than OurTube.
I see other factors are involved in the algorithm like watching the video whole video. If someone watches the whole vid then it must be good, eh? I also see this new algorithm makes it possible for the new Youtuber to get on the top of the list that has been dominated by the top dogs of YT. Now a nobody can start from scratch and make it to the top of the list. This is why I have been working on a team of people to help out with my YT channel. My goal was to have 200 videos ready to post and keep a schedule of about 4 or 6 videos a day. In other words about a 45 minute show broken up in 4 to 8 minute segments. I know I can easily wipe out all the top YT producers in about 30 to 60 days. My only issue is with YT changing things on the fly. I amazed of the level of stupidity of the company. Scares me that if I were to invest large sums of capital that it would all be in vain. I would need a written contract that certain things would not change for at least a 6 months. Anything less would be a waste of time for a puny check from YT.
Greatest Potential
Member
Hi Karl,
I've been reading your comments, how you go about with tech aspects and number crunching and such, and I just have to say if anyone here can figure out this algorithm charting and popular video selection stuff and break it down to common terminology that can be understood to your average reader then it's got to be you. You are doing a good job!
I do tend to comment a lot on hotforwords videos because I think hotforwords videos are more interactive than most videos on YT and so I don't see much sense in just watching each video once and then leaving a single comment. Some folks have noticed when I make a lot of comments and have asked me "why so many comments?" I just tell these people I like to leave comments because I do and I like the active stream of comments I read from others. I like to participate here too, and do my best to be civil about it. It's like a fun place to hang out and have a good time. Gee, having a fun time, what a concept huh?
Oh, and my comment about such and such not being a picnic. I wanted to see if I could get away with fitting two clichés into a sentence without getting called out on it 
Captain Jack
Member
I think what you need PK to complete your assessment is complete access to the data. You would need data from top producers which they are not willing to give out. I believe that YT is betting on this not to happen for it would completely expose the algorithm they are using. Also if two producers where to get together and share the data they would have special knowledge of the algorithm and would have the ability to game the system.
Chemikal
Member
Also check out:
My Account ▼ /
Insight / Popularity
They are also monitoring where people are watching the video.
And I think that could be a factor in popularity.
pedanticKarl
Member
Here are some interesting findings regarding my study of the Popular category on YouTube. The study is from Feb 3, 2009 through Feb 13, 2009. (10 days)
1. Most dominating user regardless of video title: AssociatedPress
2. The most dominating video title: "50 cent?" by user: Pruane2Forever
3. Most number of video titles per user:
AssociatedPress: 110 video titles
HotForWords: 3 video titles
4. There appears to be a segregation of users which can be identified by the number
of views of a video when the video first appears on the Popular board.
Summary of Views versus type of video content when video lands on board:
- 1,000-5,000 views: News media: AssociatedPress, CBS, Channel4, RussiaToday, etc.
- 40k - 150k views: YouTubers: HotForWords, iJustine, sxephil, WhatTheBuck etc.
- Over 150K views: Commercial: Pepsi, Coke, SIswimsuit, Castrol, TelFloraFlowers
Clearly, the news media type content does not land on the board due to any kind of popularity indicator of any sort. In other words, when a news media video lands on the board, the comment count is very low, view count is very low and there is no indication of popularity which indicates that these news videos are being hand picked by YouTube.
It appears that there may be more than 100 popular videos for any given time frame and that the video are rotated and segregated by time slices. At this point, this appears to occur most often with YouTuber's videos.
For example, a video may:
- appear for as little as an hour and never be seen again.
- appear for one to several hours, then dissapear, then re-appear the next day.
My early indication of popularity appears to be that views is being used as a relative measure of popularity with respect to all other videos, amongst other metrics. That is a definition which is also used by YT on the Insight stats pages.
No HotForWords video has been seen on the Popular board since Feb 9, 9PM PT, despite the "Success" video meeting the test for popularity. iJustine's video (similar to the HFW "Success" video in metrics) appeared on the board for the first time since I started monitoring 10 days ago.
The question that is begged, if there are 200 videos all passing the popularity test, which 100 get to be placed on the Popular board? One way would be to sort them by some criteria and chose those. It appears YT may be choosing them randomly or picking videos by hand that will appear on the board.
I should have some graphs next week.
HotForWords
Key Master
Another metric that seems to come into play is if the video is embedded on other websites, the percentage of those clicks vs. total views on the video. You can see that by going into Stats on the video and scrolling down to the bottom. scriptgirl411 has her videos embedded on a website called aintitcool.com and a large amount of her views come from there, so she show up from time to time on Most Popular.
A video with 2000 views and 800 clicks coming from being embedded on another website will show up on Most Popular whereas a video with 40,000 views but only 800 clicks from embeds will not.
Hs4Mm
Member
.
Regarding Marina's statement: "My videos will never be seen by anyone other than my subscribers now." The issue is that YouTube's main page used to provide publicity for HFW videos; and now it doesn't. If one focuses on YouTube's main page then the options open to one would be either to get YouTube to revert to having "Most Viewed" as default or to find ways of getting HFW videos listed under the Most Popular category.
But one need not restrict one's focus to YouTube's main page -- one could look for other approaches to getting new subscribers -- look for other means of publicity/marketing.
Here are a few approaches: Grass roots: Fans, by "word of mouth", posters, etc. spread the word among friends, colleagues, associates, libraries etc. One could call up radio stations/TV stations and suggest that they have a segment with HFW. One could cross-post a lesson -- example, post the success lesson as a video response to a video by Soulja boy himself, to YouTube/younghollywood and to http://www.younghollywood.com. Perhaps, some ROTC, Army or some such site would be interested in Sergent, and be willing to publicize a series of HFW lessons on military terms. Any interest in terminology associated with firefighting? Another approach is for Marina to prepare a 45 to 60 min lecture that she can deliver as a guest at high-schools or colleges -- she would pick up new subscribers at each guest lecture.
The preceding is not a comprehensive list. Perhaps one can have a separate forum topic for ideas for publicizing/marketing HFW.
There now is the question of how the various approaches to publicity compare with each other in terms of effort involved and possible new subscribers.
Just my 2 cents.
<b>--Hs4Mm</b>
.
leonard
Member
Popularity
This a game: A scamp had a scheme to have you dream; the scientific method, is a "schematic-semanticist" and self-determination according to "Master You Tube". How is capital form? Capital is a major word and Marina knows it better than most. {the head master must all share/extortion of the mind}freedom to advertise(pay the piper)or I will mind my own business...dance the growing pain blues!*!*!:-)They always tell me what they think I like. I love it all...
Captain Jack
Member
@Marina, What do you mean by clicks?
Second,
"A video with 2000 views and 800 clicks coming from being embedded on another website will show up on Most Popular whereas a video with 40,000 views but only 800 clicks from embeds will not."
Can you elaborate?
Captain Jack
Member
PK I'm excited to see your graph! Which brings me to a question. Are we the only ones on the entire planet working on this problem? Also if we figure out this algorithm, should we keep it a secret for it will be worth $$$? Once the secret it out then it will be worthless for YT would change the algorithm with a few clicks of that thing next to the keyboard with a long tail.
Greatest Potential
Member
CaptainJack! 800 clicks coming from behind??? 
Don't you think that's rather inappropriate talk?! Adults could be reading these pages 
oops. that's a "c" & an "l" there that got squeezed together and not a "d" 
nevermind
Greatest Potential
Member
Just out of curiousity, what style font is this again? I like it
Greatest Potential
Member
Yes, our skilled crack team of "secret algorithm" decoders are busy as bees until we pollinate via a solution and refine it down to a science.
Soon the world will be ours!
{insert: evil scientist cackling noises here}
Chemikal
Member
Hi Jack,
I can help you better understand, by pointing out Marina's case.
She embeds her videos on hotforwords.com, and if you click on the video on her site, you get redirected to youtube.com, with this link : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6byqN3riJXE&eurl=http://www.hotforwords.com/2009/02/15/sergeant/
You notice the extra credit in the URL? (eurl=http://www.hotforwords.com/2009/02/15/sergeant/)
The higher the ratio of clicks from outside, the higher the popularity rank, for a certain video. Though it's not certain... We're only trying to make sense of what YouTube regards as popular, and why Marina is not on top, as she should be!
Greatest Potential
Member
Popularity can be a gamble as Miley Cyrus has been finding out. Whatever you do, don't keep all your eggs in one basket. A giant bunny told me so.
Captain Jack
Member
GP your... ... humm .. what the hell are you talking about?
Font? Same as yours. Maybe something is wrong with your monitor. Here's a trick. Turn your monitor upside down and read text below... wait maybe above.
˙səɔuɐʇsıssɐ əɹoɯ ɟo əq uɐɔ ı ɟı ʍouʞ əɯ ʇəl ˙sʇuoɟ ɹnoʎ ɥʇıʍ ɯəlqoɹd ɹnoʎ pəxıɟ sɐɥ sıɥʇ ədoɥ ı 'ʞo
Greatest Potential
Member
I don't have to turn my monitor upside down to read that. I have eyes in the back of my head.
I typed this message with my toes
xuɐɥʇ 
Chemikal
Member
I like the good Captain's question, of keeping the cracked algorithm to ourselves, but it wouldn't be right.
Now, all chivalry aside, the hotforwords forums, are totally public.
If you search for "Youtube most popular", you get hotforwords.com/forums, so I bet a lot of youtubers could be keeping a close eye on our progress.
Greatest Potential
Member
Actually, if you just place a mirror in front of your monitor all the words will turn out right.
~won emit gnol a rof sdrawkcab gnitirw neeb ev'I!~
You must log in to post.
