YouTube is currently streaming to over 1 billion unique users every month qualifying it to join Facebook, which crossed this benchmark in the month of October last year. Eight years after it had been created and seven annums since Google took it over, the website has managed to reach this milestone.
In technical terms, practically one out of every two Internet surfers latches onto YouTube. We can detect the company’s exhilaration as it compares the site with countries like China and India. It clearly states that if the website were to be defined as a geographical expanse, it would gladly stand as the third most highly populated one.
So how did the website make it this far? As there is no definite way of distinguishing people who view videos online, Neilsen which specializes in understanding consumer behavior, classifies this category as Gen C. This firm moreover remarks that this class basically survives on four C’s.
Connection being the first C, it pinpoints that users’ video streaming source is not just limited to their computers’ monitors, but also other screens including those of their smartphones. More than just watching clips online, people care enough to construct and upload them. This by Neilsen’s theory is Creation, the second C.
As social animals, it is next to impossible for users to not interact with each other. This tendency is passed onto the digital realm too, with people sharing already existent videos, thus defining the popularity of the same within the ‘Community’ (third C). And lastly, the existence of people who go hunting for relevant clips brings us to the fourth and final C, Curation.
With the web portal increasingly becoming a dominant part of consumers’ lives, it has drawn the attention of product marketers. The company offers to act as a medium for highlighting a brand by broadcasting advertisements on clips with the help of TrueView video ads.
In the year 2012, the figure of consumers streaming videos on YouTube using their smartphones was more or less the same as that of users viewing clips on their computers. Statistics confirm simultaneous usage of the web portal while carrying out other activities such as commuting or watching a TV commercial, to be the cause for this development.