One of the major things to come with the proliferation of Internet technology is the ability to access and upload web video.
This was the topic of conversation for our lecture this past week.
One of the most interesting things that we came upon were some of the figures about web video such as:
-total videos uploaded to youtube – 78.3 million
-average video length- 2 minutes 46 seconds
-time it would take to view all of this 412.3 years
-average age of uploader: 26.57
Of course those numbers are constantly changing, however the point I'd like to examine is what really makes a viral video viral.
At our discussion we discussed that for the most part there are 4 types of web video:
-business generated
-business generated but customized
-business initiated, user-generated
-user-initiated and user-generated
These categories tend to be the general kind of videos that we as users experience. However, my thoughts are what makes a viral video, and do any of these in particular make better viral videos?
In general, one would assume that business backed videos with seo campaigns and marketing campaigns can push any video to be a "viral" while the more user-created may have a harder time or requires a bit more luck to really reach the same level.
Thoughts?
You make a good point that "professional" videos have a greater chance of becoming viral, but I also agree that it takes away from the authenticity of it all. User-generated content feels more genuine. This is a key reason why so much of the corporate viral content tries to look amateur or even tricks people into thinking it is user-generated.
ReplyDeleteIn the end, though, viral content is all a matter of luck and chance. Of course there are specific things that most viral videos have in common, such as being short and usually humorous, but it's a pretty good mix of business and user content. That's why I don't think it really makes a difference in the long run unless someone was really trying to make a point with their video.