YouTube, Google's popular video-sharing site, on Thursday launched YouTube Insight, a video analytics tool that allows users to view detailed statistics about the videos they upload.
YouTube Insight gives people free access to detailed information, such as when, where, and how often their clips are viewed. So far, the metrics have only been available to partners and advertisers. Only total views and users’ ratings were available to those providing the 80 million-plus videos circulating on the site.
The YouTube Insight application allows the nearly 3 million users who post videos on the site to see when, how, and where their clips reach their popularity pick. Now, anyone who posts a video will know what day of the week, or hours of the day, and in which location the video clip is the most viewed.
This could help the most successful content publishers, whose videos attract million of viewers to determine programming strategies, very much like advertisers do.
“Everyday contributors will benefit from the new program,” a YouTube representative said in an email. “Until now, they only got limited information, such as how many times their video was viewed or commented on.”
But the tool might prove useful to advertisers as well, allowing them to test the popularity of their ads in different parts of the country.
“Advertisers can study their metrics and successes to tailor their marketing, both on and off the site, and reach the right viewers. As a result, Insight turns YouTube into one of the world’s largest focus groups,” the YouTube representative wrote.
Marketers who buy ads on YouTube already get a flock of metrics about the progress and audience for their ads, but the new program goes even further and breaks down viewership by day and shows the states or countries with the most viewers.
This could allow a company that uploads a video for free on YouTube to see where the clip is most popular and buy ads that target that region on YouTube.
“With this information, you can concentrate on creating compelling new content that appeals to your target audiences and post these videos on days you know these viewers are on the site,” a YouTube employee said in a blog entry announcing the program.
YouTube will hold back some data for its paid advertisers, including information on what percentage of a video viewers watch.
According to a recent market research report from comScore, YouTube accounts for one out of every three videos viewed online, or over three billion of the over nine billion videos viewed in January 2008.
Insight is another attempt by Google to squeeze revenue from YouTube, which the online advertising behemoth purchased in October 2006 for $1.65 billion.