Sesame Street is celebrating an astonishing 1 billion YouTube views, which is very nice. Still, even a video of The Count counting every single view highlights a problem that persists with YouTube no matter how popular your videos are.
Before anyone asks, why yes, I will take any excuse possible to post Muppet-related videos. I’m simply wired that way. The Count’s video is very cute and good fun and all that, and it’s amusing to note that the Children’s Television Workshop has gone to some trouble to obscure laptop and computer brands. Equally, for those who like statistics, the Sesame Street Twitter feed followed up the video with this little factoid
Count von Count could count to a billion – but at one second per number, it would take him over 30 years. (Double that for the “ah ha ha”s.)
Still, there’s one specific bit that genuinely irks me, and I can’t be the only YouTube content creator to be irked by it.
There’s a specific section where The Count stops to count an individual live YouTube view — and he’s talking about the Sesame Street channel, not just the specific view — but as any YouTube content creator would know, the numbers just don’t work that way.
It can be hours if not days before actual view counts come tumbling in, and, if you’re a YouTube content creator that also uses YouTube as a revenue source via monetisation, those views and clicks can equal actual dollars. YouTube doesn’t provide that kind of live tracking at all. The only thing you can do is stop and wait. Oh, and watch Sesame Street videos if you’re a mad puppetry fan like I am.
Sesame Street: Counting the “You”s in YouTube [YouTube]
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.