YouTube launches map of where videos are being watched across the world

by Amy Judd | March 27, 2008 at 08:36 am

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YouTube announced yesterday it will soon be launching an interesting new feature that will enable video creators to see when and where across the world people are watching their videos. It will essentially map the location of viewers so that marketers can test their video product.
I'm not sure how useful it will be for the YouTube user who posts videos of himself performing stupid stunts for example, but it will be interesting to see where a product is more popular, and it could help advertisers 'test-run' their ads before paying to put them on the television.

This program, called YouTube Insight, provides a detailed view of a video’s popularity, both over time and geographically, broken down by state. (Internationally, YouTube Insight is not as insightful, providing only popularity by country.)

YouTube has provided basic analytical information to creators of videos since its introduction, including the number of views, the viewers’ ratings of the video, and the number of comments left. Advertisers received a slightly more sophisticated summary.

With the Insight information, video creators can dig into the specifics of a video’s performance and find, for example, that it peaks on Fridays in winter months, or it has taken several weeks to get traction — information that can help better promote their work. The information, presented as a color-coded map and a graph of a video’s popularity, is accessible through a link from a video creator’s account page on YouTube. The company will update the data once a day.

But it is likely that marketers rather than casual users will be clamoring for these tools the most. YouTube executives suggest that marketers can use the tools in several ways. A movie studio might run several versions of a trailer to see what is catching on where, and if a humorous spot is catching fire in Texas, might start running that trailer as a TV ad in the state.

A political campaign could test spots of a candidate discussing the environment or the economy; if an environmental spot is popular in Pennsylvania, that might help decide what the candidate stumps about there.