She has become a mega star in the last year and if you thought Susan Boyle was huge check out Gaga’s social network.  Her Twitter and Facebook are both in the millions in terms of followers and fans.  There is no point in listing the current number on either of these networks because that figure’s growth is so large any attempt would be quickly become outdated with her next release.

What I will do, to give some perspective on Gaga’s online fame, is show you how she has elbowed her way to the top.

In a recent article I outlined how the landscape of the YouTube’s all time most viewed content has shifted with the introduction of Vevo.   Vevo has taken some key top players off the top of the YouTube chart and left room Gaga to climb to the top with her incredibly successful song Bad Romance.  In a few days time she will surpass Charlie bit my finger as she has closed the gap to be within 1 million views of the famed Brit.

Charlie Bit my finger  again- 178 018 293
Bad Romance – 176 812 357

Why is relevant?

Charlie bit my finger has been online for years whereas Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance has only been available for months. Kid clips individually just can not compete with the viral nature of music.

Cheers!

Note: the tactic of including “Vevo” in Lady Gaga’s channel name and allowing the label’s music to be played through the Vevo advertising system while still including it on the YouTube all time chart means the song is double listed unlike any other top performing song.  Avril’s “Girlfriend” does have the tag but is not listed on the YouTube all time most viewed chart.

Here are a collection of stats and quotes pulled from the white paper that have to do with the evolving media industry. The white paper also includes a brief reference to viral videos and essentially comments on their illusive behaviour.

It’s NOT a Revolution BUT an Evolution!

What we are witnessing isn’t competition between TV and the web; it’s the merging of interactive video and TV.

Major stumbling block for web video is the inability of the biggest TV advertisers to make a direct comparison between the effectiveness of TV and the effectiveness of an equivalent buy online

Media Companies…[are] ready to distribute on the web and offer web video to marketers but they’re not ready for that to replace what’s happening on TV

Viewers in the US spent an average of 12.2 hours watching online video (November)

The average length of the videos they watched more than doubled

Advertising

Internet advertising represents $699 million of the $24 billion U.S online ad business

TV is 66 billion dollar industry (US)

Where’s the Cred Online?

The two leading metrics companies differ substantially in their reporting – Comscore and Neilsen’s videocensus

Comscore – YT owns 40% of US video market
Neilsen – YT owns 60% of US video market

The “Cool” Demographic on Television is Melting

TV’s median age reached over 50 years in 2008

The Pirate Dilemma Still Exists in Full Force

20% of 18-24 years olds said it is acceptable to download tv shows free and without ads

Does YouTube have a Viable Business Model?

10 million [is the] monthly rate at which YouTube is now monetizing its homepage – has ability to pull in 400 K a day

YouTube has indicated that it is selling ads against more than 10% of its video streams in the US” – Up 6%

YouTube serves about 1.3 billion videos per day (worldwide)

YT estimated to turn a profit in 2010 if not already

*(reason of speculation is based on the their unknown operating cost)

YouTube and Pro Content

Hulu’s relationship with pro content providers (exclusive deals) make it difficult for YT to get access to pro content.

Hulu serves up over 900 million views a month in the US (November 2009)

Total video views in the US are over 30 billion (November 2009)

Online Video CPM’s in a Nut Shell

YouTube – $15
Espn – $22
Vevo – $25-35
Hulu – $35- plus
ABC.com- $45 – Plus
CBS March Madness ON-demand – $70
Wall street Journal video – $75-100

Cheers!

Well that depends on who is asking the question.  I can tell you that the strategic move of all their music video content from the main YouTube platform into another has shaken up the charts and reworked their business model.

First off, The avid user will now notice that the YouTube chart consisting of the most viewed music videos of all time has lost some of its leading content.   Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend was the most viewed music video of all time on YouTube and stayed on the top of the chart through 2009.  Now it no longer appears on YouTube…What happened when they flicked the switch?

Well YouTube’s All Time chart started to look like it did back in early 2009.  Original viral videos like Connie, Paul Potts and guitar made it back on to the first page as the music juggernauts transfered their music to Vevo.  It also gave music videos not associated to  Sony, Universal or EMI the chance to climb to the front page as well.  Miley Cyrus being one of those artists now has 3 songs on the front page.  Pitbull took his song and ran with it too.

So how have the songs like Girlfriend under Sony, Universal and EMI fared on Vevo.  Well, the magic of the Vevo platform being run by YouTube allowed for the songs to keep their view count and carry on their online legacy.  The Vevo All Time chart now looks very similar to the charts we put together when we were separating the content on YouTube’s chart, only now Lady Gaga has completely taken over.  For the first time in over a year Lady Gaga may surpass Avril to claim the title of the most views on a single video.   In a  few months Lady Gaga accomplished what it took Avril almost 2 years to obtain.

This  begs the questions of whether it is simply that Lady Gaga is  the next Madonna or whether video consumption patterns are changing.  Maybe both…

So that was how the charts got mashed up but what do they accomplish by switching platforms.  Well there’s a slightly more engaging interface, it’s more focused on the visual aspect, it’s easily compatible with other Google run accounts and has easy buttons to favorite and create playlists.   Is that enough?  The ads meshed into the business plan are played between videos and are easily skipped plus the annoying factor that the site is limited to Sony, EMI and Universal content rather than a consumers on demand search of all content may inhibit the adoption their looking for.

What puzzles this cat is that YouTube Partners get paid per view so why would they not create customized channels within YouTube and attach ads to all Sony, EMI and Universal content rather than splitting the traffic between two platforms?  The functionality of Vevo can easily be inserted in to YouTube suggesting some kind of new functionality would come with the release of a new platform.  Not so much.  You still can’t do a search on Vevo without interrupting your music experience which tells me they still haven’t got a grip on the total in-browser music experience online.

Cheers

PS. Vevo currenttly has an Alexa rank of 4078  (Websitegrader.com Feb 26th)

Update Feb 27th:  Ads also flash up in the lower part of the videos frame similar to YT.

So who got the axe?

After Chris Brown’s public image fiasco his Kiss Kiss video soon lost appeal.  The Jonas Brothers join Chris as both their top videos SOS and Burnin Up dropped off to make way for the ladies.  Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Venessa Hudgens have since taken the spot light.

*Growth calculated from May 15th

The interesting thing about the three latest editions to chart is that Vanessa’s video was added 2 years ago while Lady Gaga and Katy Perry have only been on YouTube for a year. 

Pay close attention to Hollywood Records and their strategy with Vanessa as they choose not disable the embedding feature.  A strategy that has allowed Miley’s 7 things video to amass over 30 million views since last March.  Now capping 100 million views on one video alone the strategy seems to be paying off.    

Cheers!

Guy Catches Glasses with Face is an earlier work of Never Hide Films and is listed in the Viral Catalog.  Guy Catches Glasses is currently running at 4.1 million views plus keep in mind the additional debunking and “is it true” publicity they got was sizable.

They followed it up with a video whos title takes the cake.  In term of sparking curiousity when you read “Cow Gives Birth to a Dude” you take a second glance.  At least 1.8 million people have.

This year’s release we have touched on before in the article 3 Pillar of Success for the Super Chameleon Viral and it should be noted that Chameleon is now sitting at 830k views.  What’s also interesting is that the release of their newest video, Massive Ball of Yarn Rolls Through San Francisco, has created a small scale compounding effect on Super Chameleon.  Since the release of Massive Ball of Yarn, Chameleon has steadily increased in average views going from 5400 at its lowest on May 4th to 7000 a day on the 6th. 

It’s still early for the Massive Ball of Yarn and we will be monitoring its progress.   The video is closing in on 40k and will need a few more blog posts to hit the charts where there sits a ton of untapped traffic.

It would be interesting to know how Ray-Bay sales fair in these economic times.  They have continued to use all forms of marketing having bought billboards in Europe (Netherlands), sprayed YouTube with a couple virals and matched their website to align with the Chameleon branding.  Ray-Bay seems to be ahead of the curve when it comes to integrated marketing. 

Cheers!

Remind you of something?  No? How about the video “Did You Know?” that was done in 2008 and slept until 2009 before going viral.  Did You Know was not trying to drive a brand though and could be the difference between multimillion views and a couple hundred.  

The graphic design and animation that goes into these works is a unique job.  A whole range of these videos are popping up on the web and people are liking it pushing clips like the Crisis of Credit into viral status.     

We have touched this next video in a previous article and it has moved since then but is still waiting to be really picked up.  Notice the style and how the story is told.  The clip is well put together but has not utilized its potential yet.   

This is the start of a new style of video making.  It is right in line with the digital world.  Some videos use film and add effects like Super Chameleon.

Others use an all digital environment (Beat the BS is included here)

And amazingly, some use an incredible combination of both.  

These new age artists will lead the professional web video world as they hold the skills to impress a generation of information at a glance, ADHD, keep my interest or I’m gone, poof! style of media consumption.

Cheers!

The leading video was uploaded to amybethhale’s channel on Oct. 21st 2008 and sat quietly for months with minor incremental views.  We first saw it in an email early that fall as the virus had not yet taken hold but was clearly spreading as the email was addressed to this sneezer’s entire contact list.

Source: Amybeth's YouTube Insights

The beginning of 2009 marked a steady increase for this particular video increasing daily all the way through February as well.  Finally, its daily views peaked in March reaching up to about 70k a day.  This comes from Amybeth Hale’s YouTube insights as she held the channel with the leading video accounting for 4.5 million of the total views.  Her insights also tell us that this increase in views was predominantly because the United States finally picked up the contagious piece of media.     

From the post Understanding Viral Videos: Production Vs Distribution the description of a sleeper viral can be explained and mapped out via the increase in popularity as it spread through various audiences and delivery systems.

The research and assembly that was done by Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod, and Jeff Brenman to create this video provides a clear glimpse at what exceptional content can do by itself. 

Cheers!

Combining music and comedy is a lethal combination launching Andy Samberg even higher as he releases a CD (Incredibad) with his growing compilation of tracks. The situation smells like Adam Sandler in 1993 when There All Gonna Laugh at You came out. The comedy and sketch mixture is a perfect recipe for advancing ones stardom. Only this time the hype is based online. The Lonely Island channel has broken 90 million views with the release of Like a Boss in early April.

Source: Tubemogul

Looking at The Lonely Island’s stats over the last couple days the impact becomes visually clear what Andy is doing online. On December 6th the I Jizzed in my Pants song was released and the taboo subject only caused it to circulate more.

Andy Samberg is putting all the elements together to make successful virals. He is following the patterns and succeeding (the patterns are based on the stickiness factors in the book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath). For instance:

Simple (Music) – Samberg’s videos include extremely simple concepts blown up to great proportions. Mark Wahlburg talks to animals (SNL), Like a Boss (The lyrics arn’t complicated here), Jizz in my pants and I’m on a Boat.

Controversy (unexpected) – Jizz is a controversial word, Dick in a Box (SNL) pushes the limits the same way Adam Sandler’s Goat use to talk about getting beat by his old man on a 40 of Jim Beam.

Source: Tubemogul

Comedy – Impressions, satire, ridiculous claims, funny faces all thrown together to reference pop culture (I’m on a Boat) for widespread appeal.

Credibility (Stars) – when you’re a star you can get other stars to work with you (Seth Rogan – Like a Boss, Chris Parnell – Chronicles of Narnia and Justin Timberlake – Dick in a Box, T-Pain – I’m on a Boat). Connections to SNL don’t hurt in gaining access to these names and neither does Samberg’s heritage.  Either way their tactics have definitely made an impact as The Lonely Island will continue hover around 670k (views) a day for the next couple weeks. 

Cheers!

We know.  We had to.  Having written an article on the first Escape from City 17 it came natural to check out the “second”.  Not paying attention a clever uploader under the name purchosebrothers has duped 128 000 people thus far.  

Interestingly enough the joke is not completely out of the blue as another video extremely similar to the Half Life style (it carries a Half Life tag as well) has surfaced out of the Netherlands.  Tim Smit has gained a tsunami of attention since uploading What’s in the Box on March 13th.

The similarities are obvious and sources across the ponds claim he has raised studio attention not only for the skill but for the fact that it was done for 150 euros.  

The RickRoll had to be done.  

Cheers!

While many “twitterers” may deny the fact that they have few friends and boast their followers it really comes down to what really is a friend.  Online friends are inherently different than personal friends.  Somewhere in the middle of these two worlds we have to come up with a web 2.0 name that means the same as acquaintance but isn’t as long to type.  

With the help of the Urban Dictionary some options have surfaced, but not taken off.  For example Edge, Interknow, and .comrad are some listed on the Urban Dictionary.  To apply a negative connotation to the word forces those in the online world to reject the fact that knowing someone via an online connection is a negative thing.

If you have any suggestions we can finally describe the host of lose connections we have all over the world.

We would love to see the Twitter traffic since the release of this clip.  The described “Facebook status on steroids” probably loves the free promotion. As the clip continues to climb it offers a curious look into the younger generation’s on goings.  Those interested will also continue to learn that this platform is another type of an at a glance social updating tool.         

Source: Tubemogul

The video is doing substantially well and has earned viral status.  Current, the user curated media platform that posted the video on it’s YouTube channel, has seen its popularity rise and will undoubtably gain more users willing to cast their vote in the video’s aftermath.  For that they should remember March 24th as special day considering the video climbed over 300k and hasn’t looked back. 

All this from a social commentary on a social platform.  But if we didn’t have Twitter how else would we know what Paris Hilton thinks is hot on a daily basis?  Boy were we missing out…

Cheers!