Our Videos at One Year: Facts and Figures
By leelefever on April 23, 2008 - 10:21am.
Well, as of today it has been exactly one year since all this video craziness began. On April 22, 2007 we published RSS in Plain English. We never guessed these videos would take us so far - it was just a problem that begged to be solved. Did you ever see a blog post with the same name from 2004?
Since our work is in front of people often, we both feel a little self conscious in talking about the numbers behind the videos. We don't want to seem ostentatious or too self-promotional. But, at the same time, I think that exposing some of the figures provides context and hopefully examples of the power of Social Media.
So, let's take a look.
First, please note that the #s of views are rounded and cumulative across hosts. A single video exists in multiple places and those views are added together. These numbers comes from our accounts on You Tube, Blip.tv and dotSUB. We use other hosts, but these are our core.
Totals April 2007-April 2008:
Total views (including client work): 3.9 million views
Total views (excluding client work): 2.4 million views
Most viewed Client Video: Google Maps for Mobile 834,000 views (includes UK version)
Most viewed Show Video: RSS in Plain English: 755,000 views
Breakdown of Views by Video (Common Craft Show only):
RSS: 755,000
Wiki: 436,000
Social Networking: 207,000
Social Bookmarking: 205,000
CFL Lightbulbs: 53,000
Zombies: 280,000
Blogs: 169,000
Photo Sharing: 42,000
Twitter: 223,000
Podcasting: 5,000 (published 2 days ago)
Breakdown of views by host (Show only):
You Tube: 1.3 million views
Blip.tv (embedded on our site): 772,000
dotSUB: 300,000
Incoming Links from Blogs
We would not have become popular without bloggers. We've always aimed to create useful resources that bloggers can use to educate others. One way that we track usage by bloggers is Technorati.
According to Technorati (today) for CommonCraft.com:
Technorati Authority: 3,040 (incoming links over 6 months)
Technorati Rank: 170 (170th most linked-to)
Blog Reactions: 15,000+
Here's how "Blog Reactions" looks across videos (rank/authority isn't always available)
RSS: 462
Wiki: 786
Social Networking: 452
Social Bookmarking: 560
CFL Lightbulbs: 45
Zombies: 151
Blogs: 444
Photo Sharing:100
Twitter: 535
Podcasting: 34
Search Results
We've been surprised to appear on the first page of Google searches for these terms:
RSS
Wikis
Social Networking
Social Bookmarking
Zombies
Twitter
Our SEO secret? Make content people want to see.
Language Translations:
One of the resources that has been very important to us dotSUB - a free way for our videos to be translated into multiple languages via subtitles. We're so excited by these language figures:
RSS: 27 Languages
Wiki: 30 Languages
Social Networking: 25 Languages
Social Bookmarking: 18 Languages
CFL Lightbulbs: 12 Languages
Blogs: 20 Languages
Photo Sharing: 9 Languages
Twitter: 15 Languages
Podcasting: 4 Languages
So, this past year has been a blast and something we never expected. We just make the videos - you share with friends, you link, you view. We owe you - big time. That's what I love about the social web - everyone contributes a bit and those bits roll up to bring visibility to content that may have never been discovered otherwise. Thank you so much for an awesome year!
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Comments
Details, Details
Licensed
powered
Monetized
way to go!
It's hard to believe it's been a year since I saw that first RSS video. Congrats on a great year!
Conversion rate
Lee
I am curious about how much new business you can account for as being driven by the videos?
Lee
New Business
Hi Lee,
Our business has been 100% based on videos since about June of 2007. Mostly, we are hired for custom videos. So, I'd say that a full 100% of our business and growth is attributable to the videos being shared by the websites out there. For the past 6 months, we've seen multiple inquiries per day for custom videos. Too much to handle, but a great problem to have. :-)
Congratulations!
Lee and Sachi,
Wow wow wow.
100% true: "Our SEO secret? Make content people want to see."
Don't make something "viral." Make something "good." The system for viral is already there. If you make it good, it'll go.
And that's exactly what you did. Looking forward to more.
Congrats, Lee and Sachi
What a year!
Well done you guys. And behalf of the internet on the whole, thank you for helping us all understand (and explain) these otherwise complex topics in such a clear and fun way.
I found it interesting that dotSub was responsible for such a large number of views. Go translators! Tres cool.
Congrats!
Congrats!
You Guys Rock
Your "Plain English" videos let us get faculty to using the tools in a fraction of the time it used to take. Keep up the great work!!!
Congratulations
You guys do a great job! Love the video's, so helpful! Keep up the good work and best wishes in the coming year!
Further details for Lee's 1 year summary from dotSUB
We at dotSUB love the relationship with CommonCraft, and his videos are always well viewed and subtitled.
A few more stats - actual views as of today total 312,962, of which 119,135 (38%) were viewed from embeds on other sites, of which we estimate 85% are in foreign language (non English) sites and video blogs.
In addition to a total number of languages subtitled 100% complete across all videos of 175, there were 44 more languages started with at least one line of subtitle, but not completed.
Keep up the good work.
Michael Smolens
Founder & CEO dotSUB
yup
"Our SEO secret? Make content people want to see. "
It doesnt get any more truer than that. Take it from an SEO.
Way to Go!
I am hooked! You guys are amazing. I love the creativity and simplicity of your work. I guess that is also why my middle school students love to watch the Common Craft show at any opportunity. I introduced twitter to my classes and now many of my students are tweeting.
P.S. the Zombies never seem to get old!!!!!
Props!
Well done!
Well done
Now ... how about showing us how to monetize. That might be a more challenging nut to crack ... but I'd love to see a video offering a few ideas?
Congratulations and I think you are correct ... "make content people want to see."
How about Videos focusing on other subjects
Great Job on the technology videos that Commoncraft has produced to date.
A couple of other subjects/areas that I think would be excellent for commoncraft videos would be finance (such as how stock market works or how mortgages work etc) and more complex technical subjects such as how HDTV works etc.
Other Subjects
Thanks the thoughts. You're right, we've been focused on Social Media for a while now. Over the next year, you'll see us branch out a lot more and finance is something that is at the top of our list. We plan to work in themes, where we focus a few videos on on a subject and then move on. The Social Media theme is very close to completion. Do stay tuned. :)
Thanks
Just wanted to say thanks for the great video RSS in Plain English. I stumbled upon your site when googling for a definition on RSS.
The explanation on other sites made my eyes glazed over with their indepth descriptions .... yours helped me to grasp the concept immediately. It's really great for those of us who just need to understand something without having to sieve through all the big words.
I've added your site to my subscribed favourites. Thanks and keep up the great work.
Great results. My
Great results. My congratulations!
Congrats on 12 months of Outstanding Video Work!
Thank you for all the hard work and kick-butt videos over the past 12 months.
I look forward for the next 12...
Cheers,
Mark.
Thank you!
I love your work. Very helpful,easy to understand tutorials for the average user. Thank you for posting for us to use for free. :) How kind.
Congrats for huge Success
Absolutely fantastic!!! Congo not for completeing first yearr but compleing first year with great start and as you know a great start certainly leads a long way...
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