Happy Birthday Viral Video Chart! 5 Years Old Today

Today is a very special day for everyone at Unruly. That’s because it’s 5 years to the day that we unleashed the Viral Video Chart upon the Internets.  It’s certainly been an eventful 5 years, in which Viral Video Chart has seen - and tracked - a number of transformational changes in internet culture.

It has seen Facebook grow big enough to challenge Google’s dominance online. It has seen 140 characters revolutionise the way we communicate. And it has even seen a man in a white towel and some babies on roller-skates rewrite the rules on how brands can engage with their customers.

The Viral Video Chart has been there throughout to track every ‘like’, tweet and blog post. Sick Puppies’ Free Hugs, Paul Potts’ Nessun Dorma, Obama’s inauguration address and Randy Pauch’s Last Lecture are just a few of the videos that have held the coveted top spot on the chart, which has been described as “the Billboard Hot 100 of our generation” by Will.I.Am, whose own political music video, “Yes We Can”, dominated the chart for 12 weeks in 2007.

We’ve always advocated that ranking content by the number of times it has been shared rather than the number of times it has been viewed produces a more authentic barometer of what’s genuinely popular and the sheer volume of those shares is one of the biggest changes over the last half-decade.

Below is a chart of the number of shares tracked by the Viral Video Chart since it was first launched back in September 13, 2006.

It shows that the number of shares across Facebook, Twitter and the blogosphere has multipled in size by 100x in the last five years, growing from 27,183 in September 2008 to 3,502,849,134 in September 2011.

Sharing on such a grand scale was simply unthinkable five years ago.

When Unruly launched The Viral Video Chart back in 2006, YouTube was a cult indie site, Facebook profiles were restricted to university students and "Little Superstar" was vying with "Free Hugs" to become the most shared video on the web.

Back then, you only needed 52 shares to become the most popular video of the day.

Fast forward to 2011 and, thanks to the growing dominance of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, the number one videos are attracting over 60,000 shares a day.

These social networks have fundamentally changed the way we use video to build and redefine relationships with friends and family, brands and causes.

It’s not just that people are watching three billion videos a day on YouTube; it’s the fact that they’re sharing over a billion pieces of content a day on Facebook alone, actively searching for content to post and discuss with peers.

Five years ago, this was not the case: it was largely bloggers and webmasters hunting for cool and kooky content. But in today's socially-networked cyberworld we are all micro-media owners and there are billions of people now using online video content as a killer conversation starter, a powerful tool for self-expression and a catalyst for social and political change. 

The Viral Video Chart has been there through it all: a one-stop shop for anyone looking for the hottest online video content. For sure, you’ll know the videos that have topped the chart over the years, but here are 5 things that you might not know about the Viral Video Chart itself:

• VVC uses a rolling time period to generate charts, meaning that charts update throughout the day.
• VVC is currently tracking over 2 million videos, with a combined share count of over 7.5 billion.
• 254 billion video stream tracked since 2006.
• There is a VVC widget which you can use to directly embed VVC into your own site.
• If everyone who shared a video currently being tracked on VVC watched it throughout, they would have a combined watch time of over 64,000 years.

Footnote: Here’s an early screenshot of the Viral Video Chart – we were never guilty of overdesigning it that’s for sure! As a tech company, our energy was focussed on the software powering the charts and the data generated by the software – it was actually 2010 before Viral Video Chart had a thorough design makeover!

This post was authored by Sarah Wood, David Waterhouse and Eddie Tomalin, with input from Tim Pickles and David De Juan.

Conference Recap: #iabfmcg (IAB Fast Moving Consumer Goods Conference)

Olly Smith, Unruly's Commercial Director, attended the IAB's FMCG Conference last week. The event explored how to reach the consumer at the right time and how to build a brand in the online space. Highlights from the event are below:

IAB: Tim Elkington, Director Strategy and Research

• Consumer goods' investment in online display is increasing fast
• Currently 13.5% of display market (up 5% in share since 2008)

Tribal Fusion: Michael Pearmain, UK Insights Manager

• Understanding FMCG audience is key- the actual people to reach and sell to are not always the customers at the point of sale
• Who are your actual competitors? e.g. with teenagers it's a "share of wallet" to shoot for, not necessarily direct category competitors

Microsoft:

• Interesting look at how mothers use online during their average day
• Key is to add value when marketing to them and proactively find them (because they won't find your brand on their own - they don't have the time)

Unanimis: Will King

• Average time spent on smart phone each day is 77mins (they are replacing laptops and PC's for web browsing)
• On mobile 1 hour between search and purchase Vs online 1 month between search and purchase

Specific Media:

• Partnering with Experian to develop audience insights
• Recent case study showed that when you run video with standard display, it led to a 46% drop in client CPA

Weapon7:

• Natural sweets case study
• Simple executions drive maximum engagements

Grapple:

• Case study on the importance of simplicity when it comes to branded apps

EA:

• Talking about in game advertising the PS3 console as a great engagement platform (PS3 has 4m UU's in the UK)



Geriatric1927 on Silver Surfers

Early this week, I was very excited to have the opportunity to meet up with 82 year old YouTuber Peter Oakley, aka Geriatric1927, a true online celebrity with more than eight million views to his name. You can read about my meeting with him in our previous post, Lunch with a YouTube Legend: Geriatric1927. During our meeting we had a very interesting discussion about how brands can communicate with silver surfers online, and his views on driving and the elderly.

How Brands Can Communicate with Silver Surfers

To begin, I ask Peter whether brands should be giving older people access to services and opportunities online, or whether it’s not appropriate for the older age group. Peter’s response is that though there aren’t as many older people online as there could be, ‘for those that are comfortable using the internet, it’s good that they are starting to have these choices, because they could make life easier’. So, if a brand is offering a service online, what is the best way for them to help older people to discover and use that service? He points out that while older people may be comfortable with what they know online, ‘anything different will start to introduce a Fear Factor – so brands must make sure they can communicate the way the service is to be used simply and clearly ... a good way to do this is through a simple and straightforward how to video, with large clear screen images so that the steps can be followed simply, one at a time. Using online video automatically filters the audience down to only those people who are already comfortable using the internet, and therefore are unlikely to be confused by the content, as long as it is straightforward’.

A Case In Point from the DVLA

‘This is a five star example’, Peter says, explaining that although the video is complex enough to intimidate people who aren’t already online, ‘it is practical and does a very good job of showing clearly and simply how to go about the process for people who are already using the internet’.

Driving for the Elderly

The DVLA video leads the conversation on to a discussion about driving for the elderly, where Peter explains that he thinks it important to stop and think about your driving ability as you get older, and asking people to renew licenses at seventy is a great way to get people to do this. ‘When I reached seventy, I decided to take an advanced driving test to confirm that my reactions were as good as I thought, and that I wouldn’t be endangering anyone on the roads’ he continues. While he believes most, like him, know their limitations and will set their own restrictions (such as not driving in the dark or the fog), there will be some who aren’t competent – and ‘if you’re not willing to put yourself to the test, perhaps someone else should be appointed to test you’.

Interestingly, Peter also contrasted the inability of the old with the inexperience of the young: ‘shouldn’t something also be being done about the much more dangerous 17-20 age group? In biking,’ (another of Peter’s passions) ‘size restrictions are placed on motorbikes for younger drivers – perhaps something like this should be introduced for driving’? In fact, the Institute of Advanced Motorists say that the 8% of UK drivers over 70 were involved in just 4% of all injury accidents, while the 15% of drivers in their teens and twenties accounted for 34%.

Peter is glad that the DVLA is giving people an opportunity to renew their driving license at 70, because he believes that driving is, for the elderly, an almost essential tool. He says, ‘many older people live in villages where there is poor public transport and aren’t lucky enough to have family members or friends on hand to take them around. Thousands of people’s lives would be made very much poorer if they were not able to drive’.