On YouTube, 'popular' no longer means the thing everyone's watching [UPDATED]

In the latest in a series of moves away from its early, freewheeling roots, YouTube has quietly changed the default filter on its highly trafficked main video page from "most viewed" to something called "popular." 

Since its inception, YouTube's "most viewed" page has been the place to find the Web's hottest -- and, in a sense, most popular -- videos. The area is still available but is sure to become less prominent now that it's lost the default status.

YouTube has posted no blog entry about the change, and nowhere does it define or explain what "Popular" means (This we know: It doesn't mean most viewed). In December, when YouTube first introduced what was originally called the "most popular" tab, a spokesman wrote vaguely that "most popular incorporates more signals about video related to freshness and activity beyond just a view count."

But the site will not specify what those signals are. As for freshness, there's already a "rising videos" filter, which tracks up-and-coming clips -- so it's more than just that. And there are already filters for most comments, highest rating and most favorited. Is this mysterious new "popular" some kind of hybrid of the above -- or something else completely?

We may never know. In an effort to increase its appeal to advertisers, YouTube has tightened its grip on which videos it allows on its most visible pages, and we can only suspect that this is an extension of that trend -- a trend by which YouTube's user-facing policies have become less and less transparent.  Everyone understands what "most viewed" means, and the clarity of that metric has allowed a meritocracy to develop among YouTube producers: Whoever gets the most views wins. But with a deliberately opaque algorithm deciding which videos to elevate, video makers will no longer know what it takes to get exposure for their content. That's a worrying prospect for those who have built careers on the success of their YouTube work.

"Wow ... youtube has changed the default to Most Popular,"  tweeted Marina Orlova, YouTube's HotforWords.  "Was nice knowing you all."

Updated, Feb. 5, 8:49 a.m.:  YouTube star Philip "sXePhil" DeFranco writes in to shed some light on the "popular" tab by sharing some info he says YouTube gave him. "Think of it as a Most viewed for interesting content. It is a mixture of views, audience attention (how long the viewer watches) and ratings. Why promote content that people aren't enjoying even after they watch it? Unlike Most Viewed, if someone watches for 10 seconds ... and leaves, [Popular] will not reward the video."

In other words, it's one way to minimize the effect of gaming, in which users employ racy thumbnails or video titles to trick viewers into watching less than racy videos -- and the viewers quickly lose interest.  This would be a logical explanation that, if true, it seems YouTube could have fit into a blog update.

Also: It appears that last night, after this post was published, YouTube added a new, smaller "most viewed" module to its main video page above the popular area.

-- David Sarno  [ follow ]

Comments

[John Davis]

LOL, I guess only YouTube will ever know! LOL

RT
www.online-anonymity.at.tc

[Werner]

Awesome

[Lena]

Must be a sneaky Google algorithm.

[srdr]

Popular most likely means "most viewed in the last month (or week or some another time)". I think that would be a more useful one than the current most viewed filter.

[Michael Orlinski]

The only real "Notice" that Youtube has put out was this video named "How do you get featured on YouTube?". The video highlights that videos that have comments and ratings will fair better than just simple views.

It short, quirky, and just may help answer some of the questions above:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZTh94Fapg

[Jeremy Bee]

This article misses a very key point, which is that the labels ("most viewed" and so forth) are not intended for the benefit of those *uploading* the videos, but for those trying to find or watch videos. The author is mixing up two different arguments and in fact criticising the service from the point of view of someone trying to "game" the system, rather than an average user or a passive viewer, both of which are much larger categories of YouTube users.

He says: "Whoever gets the most views wins"

YouTube is not a game to see who can "win" the most views, at least it's not supposed to be. The purpose of that page is to help the user find videos, which the new system seems destined to do rather a better job of than a simple "most viewed" metric. All the previous metrics are also still available.

I can see how if you are a video producer and have successfully "gamed" the system in the past you might be upset about this, but otherwise it's a mystery to me why this is being given such a bad review.

[jordan rothstein]

Poshsociety.com was responsible for SHUTTING down juicycampus

[Herb Gilliland]

Well, I can tell you this: it's not the only thing that YouTube isn't disclosing. View my statement on http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/heg about where YouTube really came from.

[Sam]

This seems to make perfect sense. They are trying to take back control of the site from the users who have perfected robots and other software to increase play counts and basically hijack these categories. To keep interesting videos on the front page that engage the user as opposed to marketing tactics of teenage girls leaving obscure messages that end up being a commercial for iced tea or whatever.

I'm glad they are taking some initiative here.

[Tom Clarke]

Thank you Jeremy Bee for making the sensible comment first.
"That's a worrying prospect for those who have built careers on the success of their YouTube work."
Well, actually it's not, because if they have a career, then it's likely.
The best description of Google I've heard is that it is, at its core, an algorithm design company. Their job is to come up with algorithms that beat other people's in terms of search, prioritisation, and data collation. The fact that they have updated their "front of page" algorithm to prevent a "most viewed" arms race should surprise and worry no-one but system gamers.

After all, what. If one video received more views than any other, would it remain front page forever, despite clearly having reached the point where everyone had already seen it? And then there's the problem that once a video is on the front page, it's unlikely to move, as it'll *gain* hits faster than a page that isn't front page.
Much better to develop an algorithm based the idea of "hit growth", where stuff that's getting lots of hits over a short period of time gets boosted, and then gets removed once it reaches "saturation point", where everyone who's going to look at it has seen it.

[Television Spy]

It's an attempt to be vague so that they can later on add sponsored videos. They already experimented with it but it caught a lot of bad press and attention for videos with lower view counts but sponsored result status as showing up above higher view count videos.

What they're doing now is trying to make the terms vague so that popular can be used to label any video they choose as frontpage worthy. You'll start seeing "viral" ad campaigns on there as popular.

[Designer]

i trust google and am sure they make very calculated moves.

[Leland]

I dont trust Google. The owners are Koolaid iberals and this is smoke and mirrors too eliminate coservative thought and commentary on Youtube.

[DONIUS]

I don't really understand what YouTube is trying to do with this new poular section on their home page but I do know one thing. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GOOGLE, IT'S YOUTUBE!!!!! Did you idiots even read the article before posting??? lol

[ehjacks]

@donius Google owns Youtube.

[The Cable Guy]

"Philip "sXePhil" DeFranco writes in to shed some light on the "popular" tab by sharing some info he says YouTube gave him"

That one line says it all.

A YouTube employee passing information to their Favorites and Cronies and leaving everyone else playing catch up.

DeFranco is only a "star" because he was allowed to do things on YouTube that other people got banned for doing like posting other peoples copyrighted images without permission, posting thumbnails of womens breasts, posting misleading titles and tags and going on x-rated rants on a site populated by 13 year old children.

But he has YouTube employees in his pocket so he was made a Partner a year before everyone else, he had access to the Partner promotional tools and viewing statistic tools a year before everyone else and even now he an oversize multi-link banner before everyone else.

When YouTube announced that they were opening up the Partner program DeFranco was dead against it because he preferred it when everyone else was handicapped. He backstabs and undermines other video makers on YouTube at every possible opportunity in a desperate attempt to stay ahead.

Does it surprise me that he is been fed information about site updates before everyone else? No.

Do I think that his channel is going to be pushed by his pet YouTube employee onto what ever YouTube decides to have as a landing page? I know it will.

So what has changed? Nothing.

DeFranco and a few rotten employees at YouTube made the site worthless to all but a handful of insiders long time ago and if Google won't deal with the problem at the root then all the cosmetic changes they make will be as pointless as gilding a turd.

[Lon Naylor]

I loved "The Birds and the Biz" How to Get Featured video...typical Google ambiguity.

[Zrix]

It's an attempt to hide corporate videos and charge more $ for frontpage listings, nothing else. 20% of the "most popular" videos are rubbish, have low viewcounts and ratings

[audio downloads]

ebay software The only real "Notice" that Youtube has put out was this video named "How do you get featured on YouTube?". The video highlights that videos that have comments and ratings will fair better than just simple views.

It short, quirky, and just may help answer some of the questions above:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eZTh94Fapg

[nomi]

It is good to see this update.