MySpace Trumps YouTube in Video

An anonymous reader writes to mention a MarketWatch article revealing MySpace is actually the largest video provider on the internet. From the article: "Now that third-party figures are available for individual sites, we're beginning to see who's actually attracting those coveted eyeballs. According to a new video report that comScore Media Metrix will begin offering starting Tuesday morning, 37.4 million unique individuals watched a video on MySpace in July. All told, they collectively watched 1.4 billion videos. By comparison, the audience on Yahoo watched 812 million video streams, making Yahoo the No. 2 most popular video site as measured by video streams. Yahoo ranks No. 1 as measured by unique streamers (similar to unique visitors), but barely beats out MySpace."

Comments

Watched but not watched..

[joshetc]

With all the movies on personal myspaces it makes one wonder how many were actually watched Its not often someone will visit the same youtube video daily. Very common for one to visit their friend's myspace daily though.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[jimstapleton]

since I can't upmod you, I'll just say that's a very good point - a lot of those videos are repeat visitors probably, and quite possibly people trying to up their own watched cound...

Re:Watched but not watched..

[LiquidCoooled]

The videos are just an incidental part of visiting the page.
Its like the god damned 1998 geocities crapola.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[bronzey214]

I only RPOTFA (read part of... well you know) but it seems like those were the ones actually watched. It calls them unique views.

My question is - are they the ones just initialized or viewed completely? I know a lot of the videos on myspace are dumb home videos by 12 year olds (as are most on YouTube, but the overall quality on YouTube is better) so does a viewing count as only clicking on the video of the kid eating the worm, or is it after the video completes and you see him puke it up?

Re:Watched but not watched..

[slashkitty]

My guess is that they are actually just watching YOUTUBE videos on Myspace pages. youtube is by far the #1 video provider.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[Golias]

With all the movies on personal myspaces it makes one wonder how many were actually watched Its not often someone will visit the same youtube video daily. Very common for one to visit their friend's myspace daily though.

I have a MySpace page, and I have many friends with MySpace pages which I visit frequently. Video links on a MySpace page are *not* viewed every time the page is visited. You must click on "Play" to see them.

Also, it seems that the vast majority of videos shared on MySpace are embedded YouTube objects, so to say MySpace is "trumping" YouTube is silly. They are very much intertwined.

In fact, I'm far more likely to find interesting and entertaining YouTube videos via the blogs of friends (or the Videos links on Fark.com) than I ever would by simply rummaging through YouTube's main page. They are a video hosting service, not a video search engine service.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[Paul Slocum]

If you look at the stats, Myspace had 37k unique streamers/day, and Youtube had 30k unique streamers/day. So they're pretty close for number of unique video users. It's just that Myspace gets a lot more videos viewed per user, which I suspect is from embedded and pushed content.

The quality of the content of the videos on Myspace isn't even close to Youtube IMO. I just quit watching Myspace videos because they were often ads, or they just weren't funny or interesting. The features on Youtube often are funny, or are really creative and/or weird, which is cool. Plus they have so much rare and vintage content. And I've never had anyone send me a link to a Myspace video, but I get sent links to Youtube videos very frequently.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[chroot_james]

Interesting point. Do you have anything to substantiate the claim?

Re:Watched but not watched..

[dthree]

No, those would be counted for YouTube. TFA mentions this.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[LiquidCoooled]

Actually yes.
I just did a very quick google search for site:myspace.com video
heres one from the first page of results.

myspace is crap.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[Anonymous Coward]

FTA: "MySpace's figures do not include YouTube videos viewed on MySpace. The views are only of the site's own videos viewed either on their property or embedded across the Web on blogs or on distribution partners".

You are by far the #1 wrongness provider.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[jacksonj04]

This, my friends, is why FlashBlock was invented.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[LiquidCoooled]

Actually I have flashblock enabled, its the quicktime movie lower down that still gets through.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[Treates2]

i usually go for the music.. only bands/people that are worth listening too.. hmm.. that knocks out 95% of the videos.. so 5% 95%

Re:Watched but not watched..

[Nasarius]

What the hell are you babbling about? It's not a "claim", it's the simple truth that you can observe if you have ever used MySpace.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[sabit666]

I have a MySpace page ...

Please leave Slashdot, you have been reported to the e-police.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[dfghjk]

so much for insightful. from the article:

" Just to be clear, there is no double counting, according to comScore. MySpace's figures do not include YouTube videos viewed on MySpace. The views are only of the site's own videos viewed either on their property or embedded across the Web on blogs or on distribution partners. So, YouTube's 649 million video streams count the videos viewed on YouTube as well as blogs that might have embedded a YouTube video."

Re:Watched but not watched..

[Anonymous Coward]

The videos are just an incidental part of visiting the page.
Its like the god damned 1998 geocities crapola.

Back in 1998 though while snailing the internet in my 56K. There weren't many videos, except for pron and even then they were 20 x 20 pixels.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[LiquidCoooled]

Back then you had unwanted animated gifs and midi files, nowadays its mp3s and movies.
same thing, different bandwidth.

Re:Watched but not watched..

[Golias]

I have a MySpace page ...
Please leave Slashdot, you have been reported to the e-police.

Ah, an anti-MySpace snob.

MySpace not only host free blogging space for me to share things with my friends, but it also keeps me up-to-date with concert tours of my favorite bands, provides an easy means to stay in touch with distant friends, introduces me to interesting people I've never would have otherwise met, and is actually kind of fun to monkey around with.

Sure, I can write valid HTML and host a web site on a Linux box running Apache via my DSL line. In fact, I did so for back in the 90s. No, I don't expect you to be impressed. That's not my point.

My point is, having a MySpace page is more fun. I don't give a shit what other nerds might think about it. I'd rather do the More Fun thing.

really?

[bronzey214]

Judging by MySpace's average user profile, I didn't even know most of them could program HTML to include videos.

yes, I know of MySpace's video feature. I'm just trying to be 'funny'.

I still consider YouTube's feature to be better due to their (comparative) lack of advertising.

Re:really?

[varmittang]

Get enough retarded people together and they will procreate. Thus, Myspace.

Re:really?

[nanio]

MySpace has taught more kids CSS than all of us combined.

Re:really?

[kirun]

The average MySpace user has trouble reading the English language. Due to a tool on my site called "CSS Preview" having a feedback form (with a nice heading above it announcing this fact), I get the occasional submission of some lame MySpace template from somebody who clearly thinks that MySpace is the internets, and my site will magically detect what they wanted and turn their markup-vomit into a display of how their inane ramblings will look when a template created by running FrontPage output through the Netscape Rainbow Colorizer is thrown at it. MySpace users also rudely hotlink my images.

I wouldn't care so much if their Land That Design Forgot left me alone, but I'm getting their stupidity on me and I don't like it.

Re:really?

[British]

MySpace has taught more kids CSS than all of us combined.

Last I checked, myspace has no teaching facility, and never will. I'm assuming most of the kids are copying & pasting CSS code from some blinky-ass website to copy & paste. Heck, even I copied & pasted some helpful code to make a custom contact table.

Re:really?

[TheRaven64]

MySpace users also rudely hotlink my images.

Oh, but there are so many fun things you can do with this. For best results, only divert 10% or so of MySpace referrers to something else; that will keep the page owner guessing when they receive complaints, look at their page, and see what they expect to see.

Re:really?

[Darthmalt]

thats easy to fix just link our old friend goatse and have some fun. "Land That Design Forgot" i am so stealing that.

Re:really?

[caluml]

Yeah.

RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^http://(www\.)?yourdomain\.com [NC]
RewriteRule .* /files/goatse.jpg [NC,L]

It'll soon stop that.

Re:really?

[ElleyKitten]

Last I checked, myspace has no teaching facility, and never will. I'm assuming most of the kids are copying & pasting CSS code from some blinky-ass website to copy & paste.

Copy and paste still teaches. Even if it starts out looking like gibberish, eventually, you see that this gibberish does that, and that gibberish does this, and you can start to break it down. Then, you get curious, and want to do something slightly different from your copy and paste, so you start actually working with the code to see what does what, so then you can make your own. I learned more about working with a command line copying and pasting from UbuntuGuide.com than I learned in my "Advanced" Linux Administration course in college. A lot of it has to do with learning being easier when you're doing what you want rather than what someone tells you, but I would definately agree that MySpace has taught more people more CSS and HTML than probably anything else.

Re:really?

[kirun]

I've been reluctant to implement referrer-checking tricks, thanks to my experience at work. AcromymFinder.com whitelists user agents, so if you're behind Squid with the privacy features turned on, the site more-or-less tells you to eff off, you clearly-screenscraping-thief, and come back with IE or Firefox or something. I don't want, should some firewalls block refererrs, to brigten some poor person's day by changing all of the images to "Stop Thief!!" or whatever. I've manually changed filenames in the past, so I'm not opposed to causing trouble if it doesn't hurt legitimate users.

Re:really?

[bsims]

Get enough retarded people together and they will procreate. Thus, Myspace.

Speaking of The Masses procreating; http://www.pornotube.com/

Link is in no way safe for work.

Re:really?

[whoa buddy]

I'll believe that when I stop seeing "I edited my profile with BACARDI'S Myspace Editor V3.6!" on the end of everybody's about me.

There are several pages where the code is simply copied and pasted, and the html is extremely sloppy. If anything I recommend the basic html and css tutorials over at w3schools to those that want my help with their page, so at least they know what I mean by "opening and closing a tag".

/.02

Re:really?

[Wakko Warner]

MySpace has taught more kids CSS than all of us combined.

If by CSS you mean "nothing at all about CSS", then I definitely agree.

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

The number of videos I watched/downloaded from Youtube or Myspace is ZERO.

Re:Who cares?

[LiquidCoooled]

So you are the guy sitting on pornotube all day.

Re:Who cares?

[b0r1s]

There's some great videos out there on the various sites. Most of them are just crap, but the classics like George Costanza ("I must be out of I'd pick up the phone") clips are worth the effort to find them.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well at least 37.4 million people care. But hey, it doesnt affect you so I guess the internet shouldnt post it. Sorry to inconvenice you by making you read the blurb on the front page, then click through and post a message. Have a nice day!

Video killed the radio star.

[Entropy]

MySpace Trumps YouTube in Video

Maybe, but I won't *believe* it till I watch it on youtube.

Re:I hate myspace

[Anonymous Coward]

wow thank you so much for your brilliant analysis. busy improving your capacity for facts on wikipedia you are blazened with the frustration of having to visit a myspace page. great. next...

the secret of their success ?

[Anonymous Coward]

getting their users to put 20 videos on each page, i know my browser doesnt know whats hit it when multiple plugins start when hitting someones myspace page

myspace is simply the new Geocities except those midi files have become videos of cats and the latest mp3 they downloaded

Re:the secret of their success ?

[stunt_penguin]

Unfortunately, the blink tag remains very much in use :'|

I'm more interested in August figures.

[chroot_james]

I don't think YouTube was the powerhouse it is now back in June. Sure, it was popular, but my parents are using youtube now. They weren't in June. My Mom has had a myspace account since April and doesn't care about myspace videos, but she sends me youtube links all the time now.

Re:I'm more interested in August figures.

[Anonymous Coward]

and they don't get stuck in the tubes on the way to the basement?

Re:I'm more interested in August figures.

[kalirion]

So based on a sample size of 2, you have come to the conclusion that YouTube's popularity exploded in recent two months?

Re:I'm more interested in August figures.

[Xymor]

His method is flawed, unless he used his brother or sister as control group.

Re:I'm more interested in August figures.

[eodmightier]

Tell your mom to accept my darn friend request already

How is the data collected?

[Anonymous Coward]

While the article mentions that a third party is gathering the data, they don't mention exactly how the measurements are made? Are the sites now instrumented to provide the stats? Do they assume that landing on a page with a video is the same as "viewing" it (I assume not from the description). Also interesting would be to find out how much data is actually being streamed, how long the videos are and how long the user watches a particular video (e.g. MySpace users tend to watch 80% of the video while youtube users are only watching 40%). Just wait until any of the bigboys figure out how to automatically do product placement within the videos.

Re:How is the data collected?

[ran-o-matic]

Go to http://www.comscore.com/ to see how they measure usage. Basically, they have software (installed on millions of PCs) that logs web info. No exactly spyware, but close. They often refer to it as researchware.

Re:How is the data collected?

[laughingcoyote]

From the Comscore site you linked:

This provides no information about the content on each Web page, including secure content, without which it is impossible to capture detailed transaction activity across all sites. comScore's proprietary technology captures not just clickstreams but all content, including secure content, in an elegantly simple manner that ensures the complete privacy protection of all participants.

Sorry, but that -is- spyware, and of a very nasty type. The only question is how no one is in jail yet, that's cracking.

Willingly?

[xitshsif]

Many of videos on MySpace start playing as soon as the page loads. I wonder how many videos are actively played on each site.

Not so fast!

[slashmojo]

How many myspace videos were user generated/uploaded rather than myspace/fox promo vids pushed to all their users?

this will save Universal some time

[User 956]

An anonymous reader writes to mention a MarketWatch article revealing MySpace is actually the largest video provider on the internet.

In other news, Universal has announced that they plan to sue MySpace first, then YouTube.

meh

[not a cylon]

Sorry, but until Myspace starts carrying episodes of MST3K and Krofft Superstars, (legally or otherwise), YouTube owns my eyes.

And?

[Trashhalo]

How is a study like this helpful at all? Find a site you like and use it. I personally like youtube because its layout doesn't kill braincells. Secondly its a site designed from the ground up to share videos not something added onto a social networking site as a after thought. But back to my original point my needs are different than your needs and thats why there are different sites offering video. If myspace works for you then run with it. The only thing that a article like this will cause is flamewars.

better compression

[Anonymous Coward]

I upload to both myspace and you tube. myspoace has better compression and audio video sync.
This probably is partially the reason

Re:better compression

[sfe_software]

I upload to both myspace and you tube. myspoace has better compression and audio video sync.
This probably is partially the reason

I was waiting for someone to mention this. The major complaint I have about YouTube is that my videos are converted to mono sound, where MySpace retains the stereo sound. I also upload all of my videos to both sites, for maximum exposure, but the MySpace versions always seem to look/sound better (source video is WMV 9 at 512kbps).

Personally I hate the interface/user experience of both sites; youtube is simple, but sorta primitive. Myspace is just too cluttered and riddled with ads, not to mention inconsistant and buggy (error messages are quite frequent during "after school" hours)...

Both use some form of Flash, and I do appreciate the file size/quality ratio of both sites (on my DSL, playback usually starts immediately without a lengthy buffering period). But given a choice, I prefer MySpace, if only because I like to preserve the stereo audio I so carefully produced...

How many Myspace videos are YOUTUBE videos?

[abricko]

I don't know but I know a ton of myspace pages are actually filled with embeded youtube videos... so how many can myspace claim are theirs?

Re:How many Myspace videos are YOUTUBE videos?

[dfghjk]

RTFA

"Just to be clear, there is no double counting, according to comScore. MySpace's figures do not include YouTube videos viewed on MySpace. The views are only of the site's own videos viewed either on their property or embedded across the Web on blogs or on distribution partners. So, YouTube's 649 million video streams count the videos viewed on YouTube as well as blogs that might have embedded a YouTube video."

Forgetting something:

[Donniedarkness]

I think they're forgetting something big in this report-- Most videos on myspace are not HOSTED by myspace (As a matter of fact, a lot of the--probably most I've seen-- were youtube). Also, most videos put on a myspace page are PLAYED each time someone visits the page, and I (unfortunately) know several people with SEVERAL videos on their page (one girl in particular with 5 videos).

So these statistics are kind of BS...I'd be much more interested in seeing how many slashdotters have a myspace account.

Myspace.com/uryuu_Ishida

Re:Forgetting something:

[dfghjk]

"...Most videos on myspace are not HOSTED by myspace..."

Not true. From the article:

"Just to be clear, there is no double counting, according to comScore. MySpace's figures do not include YouTube videos viewed on MySpace. The views are only of the site's own videos viewed either on their property or embedded across the Web on blogs or on distribution partners. So, YouTube's 649 million video streams count the videos viewed on YouTube as well as blogs that might have embedded a YouTube video."

"Also, most videos put on a myspace page are PLAYED each time someone visits the page..."

No they aren't. MySpace videos are in a separate section off a person's page. They do not play automatically any more than a YouTube video does.

"...and I (unfortunately) know several people with SEVERAL videos on their page (one girl in particular with 5 videos)."

Perhaps, but those are no more likely to be MySpace videos than anything else.

"So these statistics are kind of BS..."

Maybe, but not for any reasons you say. The only BS here is your uninformed opinion.

It's the end of the world :(

[QX-Mat]

NB. Irrelevent opinional post.

Since I've not seen a single myspace video... only youtube videos via myspace... it looks like the world is coming to an end because I've lost my grip on reality. (finally! yay - I'm diagnosed)

Or, you might find that myspace doesnt trump youtube, but that the original accessor site IS mysapce and that the videos are HOSTED by youtube.

Finding the google news portal, "the biggest news site on planet earth ever", or google.com as "the internet", might also be great articles.

Matt

Don't you mean

[thewils]

MySpace Wallops YouTube?

Trumps?

[Anonymous Coward]

My first reading of the headline was "MySpace Tramps YouTube in Video". I guess I've seen one too many MySpace pages made by young women so desparate to increase their viewership that they post some, ahem, risque photos of themselves.

ComScore

[TrippTDF]

ComScore's rating system is based in part on a traffic-tracker they get on people's computer by pairing it with ad-blockers and other things... it's pretty much spyware. So the users that have it installed are, more than likely, idiots that will install anything. I don't trust their numbers.

The sample is not representitive

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone question the methodology of gathering this data? I was curious, because it just seems hard to beleive. Looking at their site though, I realize they use SPYWARE to get this data. Taken from their Methodology document what does this say to you guys?

"comScore has recruited for the Marketscore Panel over one and a half million opt-in
members who have agreed to have their Internet behavior confidentially monitored and
captured on a totally anonymous basis. These members give comScore explicit, opt-in
permission to confidentially monitor their online activities in return for valuable benefits
such as increased download speed, sweepstake prizes, and the opportunity to help shape
the future of the Internet."

OK, so the real story here is "Gullable internet users who don't mind running spyware/adware in the background PREFER Myspace over YouTube and Yahoo video." Now, doesn't that sound more plausible. :-)

Re:The sample is not representitive

[LocalH]

It's not spyware any more than the Nielsen TV ratings.

Yahoo does videos?

[slysithesuperspy]

First time I've heard of it.

Re:Yahoo does videos?

[hey]

http://video.yahoo.com/

Letter to the editor

[WedgeTalon]

Dear Slashdot,

I really enjoyed your "MySpace Trumps YouTube in Video" article. It was very insightful. I also liked how it never mentioned YouTube save for in the title, cause then I have to read the original article to find out what you're going on about!

Yours Truly,
WedgeTalon

Hot reporter!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, how can you go wrong with exotic looks, brains, and a great stripper name?

Sob

[Yvanhoe]

All of that, without the function "save", *sigh*...

By the way, am I the only Amber geek who imagined wired things with MySpace making a call to YouTube thanks to a Trump card ?

In soviet Russia

[mcwop]

In Soviet Russia mySpace Trumps youTube too.

Re:i read slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

that made me laugh, nice one lol

Yes but..

[Plutonite]

the collective pornography industry is sitting back and having a good laugh. Just because it's pr0n doesn't mean you don't count it.
Be fair. We know you've all done it, you statistics-recording, survey-writing freaks!!

P.S: TFA looses its significance when you realize that most of the 1.4 billion video views were of the same scantily clad 14 year old girl.

Just like in the RL commercial sector

[SFSouthpaw]

The most popular thing is crap.

wow

[johansalk]

And I use neither myspace or yahoo. What's wrong with me! why am I so abnormal!

Re:i read slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

:P

But most of them are youtube?

[ninji]

But most videos viewed on myspace are hosting on youtube and just embeded, I think they are counting videos hosting on youtube but played throuhg myspace as myspace and not youtube.

I find this hard to believe...

[thombone69]

...especially since myspace video requires Internet Explorer to even work. ANY other browser nets you an error message if you so much as try to play a video.

Re:I find this hard to believe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, works on my copy of Firefox...

Re:I find this hard to believe...

[sfe_software]

...myspace video requires Internet Explorer to even work.

I use FireFox exclusively, and have for a few years now... and I've never had a problem with MySpace videos. I've been using FireFox long before I even heard of MySpace.

Their videos are Flash (whatever format you upload is converted to a Flash video, same as YouTube), so if you have a relatively recent version of the Flash Player installed, the vids work fine in Firefox. Also, though their pages are generally far from standards-compliant, they show just fine in FireFox/Mozilla/Opera... at least in my experience. And even most of my (non-computer-literate) family uses firefox, mostly for tabbed browsing and popup control...

Meaningless to me...

[kria]

While I don't watch many videos online, YouTube would be my only choice out of those for a goodly part of the day. MySpace is blocked by our filter at work.