Life Cycle of a YouTube Video
For my mini project I wanted to discover what factors are most important in making a video popular and what curves fit a view count graph. I selected three topics (sledding, card tricks and minecraft modes) because I believed they would have little outside interference. Using a site called WebNumbr, I recorded the view counts every hour for eight days on approximately ten videos in each category. At the end of the eight day period I collected additional data to try to determine the most important factor in a video’s popularity. From the data I collected, the number of subscribers is the most important factor. If a user has a lot of subscribers their new videos will usually fit a logarithmic curve and quickly gain many views. If a user doesn’t have a lot of subscribers the most important factor was view counts of the user’s other videos. With just one popular video, the view count of a user’s other videos will also likely increase. Tags could also help boost a view count, but couldn’t seem to cause viral behavior. Likes and dislikes didn’t have much of an impact on the life cycle of the video. For slides and an excel spreadsheet of data click here. For view count data, go to webnumbr.com and search MinecraftMod, cardTrick, or sledding.