Hello there,
This post is a work in progress as I get more chances to delve into the information. For now, here is the story with my spreadable media so far. Continue reading “Spreadable Media – The Analysis”
Category: Spreadable Media Project
Spreadable Media – Blog 3
A quick note here,
We were chatting in class about the Father Jack Supercut video. Myself, my tutor and a classmate were talking about how we all lose interest in it about half way through, this was a complaint I had about the video when I made it so I made an attempt at keeping hooks in the video by putting the odd bit of Father Jack material that wasn’t related to his catchphrases.
Something I noticed very early on after I posted the video was that the total watched minutes doesn’t equal the amount of views multiplied by the full video time. As it turns out, at the time of writing, people watch on average for about 1.6 minutes.
A Father Jack supercut will only appeal to a certain group of people, if the viewers arent really fans or are watching it for a second time they would not be bothered in watching it all.
Worth keeping in mind if anyone is making a video that is not restricted by its content. What I mean by restricted is that my design brief for this video was to have all the fecks etc. that Jack says, this could only result in a video longer that 3 minutes. If your video does not have this type of brief it is worth thinking of this “bore” factor. The ability to re-upload a video in the same “space” as the current video would be nice in YouTube. Soundcloud allows you to replace the audio you had up with an improved version without losing the view count, link or stats. If YouTube allowed this I could make a more interesting edit by taking more time to order the clips to keep a constant hook on my audiences cheeks.
EDIT:
And as if by magic, I stumble across the retention graph on YouTube.
I was .2 of a minute off with my maths.
Spreadable Media – Analysis and Further Ideas
This video is the first part of my spreadable media project for my Social Technologies module. This post is going to take a small look at the analytics which have been compiled so far.
As of now (4pm December 3rd) the video has had 223 views since late on the 29th of November. This is not a long enough period to have any significant analytics done on the views. At the moment they simply show a peak on the day of posting of 129 compared to the 42 and 23 on the two days after. This shows that the initial social media spread around my networks worked fairly well considering the number of connections on Facebook and Twitter that I have.
The original name of the video was “Father Jack Supercut”. I felt afterwards that not many people would know what a supercut is however the name change happened perhaps too early to have an effect on the view counts as I changed it during the downslope of the social media spread. That said, it is a positive name change.
In terms of the map of my views, Ireland is number one with 91 views and the UK is second with 75. This is to be expected however some interesting spreads go as far as Turkey, Germany, Sweden and Austria. Given the small view counts of one or two a piece I would imagine it was spread by Irish and British viewers to an Irish or British friend in these countries, I would like to see some very significant numbers to consider Father Ted being popular among locals.
Spreadable Media – Real Butter vs. Spread Straight from the Fridge
A stark contrast is my most popular video on my personal YouTube channel which is a small edit of Stoner Rock Kings “Kyuss” where I copied the start of an old version of their songs into the main section of their newer version. This has amassed 22,000 views since 2008 with consistent views of about 20 to 50 per day. For some reason I made it private in 2011.
You can see above that there is an “average” spike of sorts around 2010 when Kyuss announced that they were reuniting for a tour. The 2009 spike could be related if rumours were popping along about it.
Below, happy to see Ireland on the list there however my reason for mentioning this is that I feel that this video shows how popular Kyuss is worldwide. This is different to Father Ted as this would only spread to the Irish and British in general so as a widely spreadable project this Kyuss example is a great one. Over time far beyond the scope of this module it would be interesting to see how the two videos compare.
My third most popular video of 16,000 views is an interesting one. We already know that Kyuss is somewhat popular from above. The below stats are for two drum covers which I did for one of their songs. You can clearly see when I uploaded the updated version which is the second of the following images. There was a substantial decrease in average views, probably due to it not being a very good demo of how to play the songs.
My final analytical example is my drum cover of No One Knows by Queen’s of the Stone Age. Much more popular band and many aspiring drummers, including me, wanting to show off.
I know for fact when I uploaded the video in 2007 I didnt know too much on how to play it, it was more of a “what am I doing wrong” video. The downward trend (see image below) coincides with better drummers uploading their versions. The video reached about 18,000 views before I took it down.
The current drum videos I have up are much less popular songs but are plodding along.
Will I find that Father Ted is the real Irish Kerrygold butter which is difficult to spread or will it be more like a Can’t Believe its Not Butter and slide along the internet toast like this poor fellow on ice.
Further Idea
I have had a second idea relating to my drum covers. These are videos which I started doing when I was asked how to play a couple of songs, then I did some more and more. What I have decided to do is take two songs which I must admit I tagged badly, take note of their current views and then take note of how they spread from now on.
The two videos are below, both from the same band but one would be more popular as the other. To bring back my blog motto, lets see what happens for the craic.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWGTWYKKDBU]93 views as of today. More popular and well known song by the band
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnVPHpxItsY] 602 views as of today. Less popular song (arguable) but more popular from drummers wondering how it is played.
They have actually been publish on the same day according to YouTube so I shall tend to my tags and descriptions and see what happens.
Spreadable Media: The New Term for Something Great?
Spreadable media is something which I have taken a long time to get my head around. The concept is simple, someone makes a feature and this spreads from person to person. The term “viral” was used for this however spreadable mediaists seem to dislike the term because of its medical connotations.
Big companies have been trying very hard to make spreadable or viral content. Viral looks like a special buzzword around the marketing departments of the world. Their attempts usually don’t work. Trying too hard to make something spreadable usually is doomed to failure from the outset.
One thing that has struck me is the subconscious check list that humans go through when looking at videos and other features which are easily spreadable.
What I have found out is that when I look at a live music video for example or if I receive a video and such such from someone and I want to post it on Facebook or twitter I ask myself:
– why did my friend send me this video?
– who do I know who would like this video?
– are there specific people who would like it?
What I have learned is that when a video goes viral or if its spreadable people are actual watching it and wondering why it’s been sent to them. Perhaps there is a lyric that my friend thought I’d like, I best listen to see if that is the case. Maybe someone likes cute dogs getting stuck in pillows.
When I want to spread it I need to make sure it appeals to others using the questions above. This is what advertisers and marketers don’t always get. The advert is always a difficult thing to do well, people have to like it but now the added difficulty of engineering it to become spreadable is an art in itself. That or it’s a fluke.
That said I don’t think spreadable media is something that has a different make up to a genuinely well made thing. Maybe spreadable media is simply something that has been associated with shocked beavers and people dunking a basketball from 6 miles away. Some of the best songs, speeches, events can be viewed millions and I wonder how many in a view count is actually generated from an emailed link for example.
Is spreadable media just a term for good content? If so, it’s even harder to generate.