One of the best ways for a popular website to crow about its successes is the use of statistics. This is even more true with the world of video, which is ruled by things like view counts, comments, subscriptions, and ratings. We’ve all heard some of YouTube’s most impressive numbers–over 2 billion video views per day; over 35 hours of video uploaded per minute–but those aren’t the only awe-inspiring YouTube statistics.
In fact, YouTube has been kind enough to create a public web page dedicated solely to the most impressive facts and figures they can find to share. One assumes the page will be updated moving forward, as new milestones are reached and new hurdles are conquered.
But there’s an arsenal of admirable data there, and I thought you might enjoy hearing about some of the lesser-known (but still impressive) stats about YouTube. I’ll do my best to break them down by topic or theme:
YouTube Video Upload Statistics
1.) 35 hours of video footage is uploaded to the site every minute. This is one we’ve all heard before, and yet it’s still incredible to me every time I hear it. It’s a powerful indicator of video’s importance to the future of online content, and proof that there is more raw content than we can ever hope to keep track of.
2.) Over 13 million hours of footage was uploaded in 2010. I swear, one of these days, I’m going to find a way to score a behind-the-scenes field trip at a YouTube server farm, because it’s got to be one of the coolest things you could ever see.
3.) More video is uploaded every 60 days than the three major US television networks produced in 60 years. That’s what happens when you give a platform to the masses. Note that this stat doesn’t say anything about how good the content is every 60 days (compared to the relative quality of network TV).
4.) Each week, YouTube receives the equivalent of 115,000 full-length feature films in uploads. Again, most films released in theaters are of pretty good quality, relatively speaking, which can’t be said for the bulk of YouTube uploads.
YouTube Demographics
5.) 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the U.S. That’s not surprising, and the number will probably only grow as more and more cultures and countries gain access to high speed Internet service.
6.) YouTube is localized in 25 countries across 43 languages. You don’t stop to think about that very often, do you?
7.) The base age demographic for YouTube is 18-54. That skews quite a bit higher than most of us probably realize.
YouTube Views/Usage/Content
8.) Over 2 billion videos are viewed every day. Again, while most of us have heard this number several times before, it’s no less staggering.
9.) YouTube Mobile gets over 100 million views per day. Hmm… I guess that means mobile is 5% of YouTube’s usage at this point?
10.) In 2010, there were over 700 billion video playbacks. Yikes. But still… 2011 will probably more than double that number.
11.) A full 10% of YouTube videos are in HD. And while that number is surely climbing, it’s a powerful reminder of how far HD video equipment has yet to spread.
12.) There are 7,000 hours of full-length movies and television episodes available on YouTube. I’m not sure I’d share that stat, if I were them. Because it’s not all that impressive. That’s about 3,500 movies, basically. Most competitors in this space have far more content.
Monetization & Copyright On YouTube
13.) 2 billion video views per week are monetized, and I’m sure that number is rapidly increasing.
14.) Hundreds of partners are making six figures per year. Hundreds of thousands of users want to be partners right about now.
15.) 94 of AdAge’s top 100 advertisers have run campaigns on YouTube. There may still be plenty of disagreement in what the best method is to leverage online video for brands, but this stat shows there’s no shortage of brands willing to give it a try.
16.) The total number of advertisers using YouTube has increased 10-fold in the last year. This just in… online video advertising–specifically YouTube advertising–is all the rage. Expect this trend to continue in 2011.
17.) There are currently over 10,000 official partners. That sounds like a lot, but it pales in comparison to the number of channels producing good content. There will be new opportunities for filmmakers to gain access to the partner program moving forward, but look for it to continue to be an exclusive club for which members are carefully-screened.
18.) Content ID–YouTube’s automated system that serves as a copyright-violation watchdog–scans 100 years’ worth of content every day. Sheesh, that is a lot of work. Granted, it’s an automated system… but still… that’s a ton of video content to go through.
19.) 1000 partners are now using Content ID to help protect their content rights and monetize the infractions of other users.
20.) Over one third of YouTube’s total monetized views come from Content ID.
YouTube & Social Video
21.) Over 5 million people have found and subscribed to a friend’s channel using YouTube’s friend-finding tools. YouTube is going to need their social tools to work and to be used if they want to stay king of the mountain for online video. As the total amount of online video content swells, users will be relying on friends more than ever before to help them quickly get to the best content.
22.) Every auto-shared tweet results in six new YouTube.com browsing sessions. Twitter is playing a role in how videos get popular on YouTube, and should continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
23.) More than half the videos on YouTube have been rated or commented on by users. That might sound low… but when you consider how many videos toil away with little-to-no views (far more than the number that go viral), it makes more sense.
24.) Over 4 million people are connected and auto-sharing to at least one social network. I’m looking forward to a future where social behavior means more than just auto-sharing your videos, but that shouldn’t diminish the fact that users are connecting their video marketing to social networks more and more.
25.) Every day, millions of clips are “favorited” and millions of subscriptions occur. I wish this statistic were a little more specific, and a little less vague, but it’s nice nonetheless. Subscriptions and favorites are both likely to play a role in the future of video SEO.
Wrap Up
Hopefully these numbers will be updated regularly, and we can begin using this as a resource whenever we need a specific statistic regarding YouTube. YouTube’s numbers can be staggering. It’s hard to get your head around 2 billion video views–at least, it’s hard for me. But that’s kind of the whole point. YouTube is a pretty big deal… online video is a pretty big deal, and the numbers above bear that out. If you think video is a fad, you’re mistaken. But I’m guessing none of our readers are still under the impression that video’s popularity is destined to be short term.
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