• by Tameka Kee , August 1, 2008

When YouTube rolled out its Insight video analytics tool in March, the intention was to help video uploaders understand who their audience was and how well their clips were performing. And in the four months since the launch, increasing numbers of users have taken data from the tool and found that the YouTube audience as a whole is a bit older and more educated than they thought it would be.

For example, Erik Martin, an online media consultant, tapped YouTube to help in the development and marketing of a PBS pilot called "YourWeek," which was based on commentary and analysis of stories from social news site Reddit. The show, which was produced by WETA (a Washington, D.C-based public broadcasting station), had its own blog and YouTube channel, and was aimed at bringing more interactive journalism to PBS.

But the producers were concerned about audience quality, and whether the hybrid Web/TV format would attract too many young "digerati," who typically are not the target demographic of PBS shows. "They were curious about what the online versus TV audience would be like," Martin said. "There was this perception that the users of a social news site and YouTube were a fairly young bunch. And the traditional PBS audience skews a little older."

Over the course of three months, the team uploaded five episodes to the YouTube channel, with topics ranging from genetically engineered food, to the controversy over "Grand Theft Auto: IV," and literary pundit Christopher Hitchins' take on the upcoming election. And through YouTube Insight, Martin found that over half of the channel's nearly 125,000 views were from people over the age of 45. Some 40% of the views were drawn from users ages 45-54, and 15% of the viewers were ages 55-64.

Although the pilot did not get picked up, Martin said that the statistics proved that YouTube, and online video overall, could attract a more diverse audience than typically believed. "The pilot didn't get a green light, but the data surprised people. The experiment was so informative that I don't think it will be long before someone at PBS or another organization tries to develop a hybrid on- and offline social news program."

Meanwhile, Dan McCoig, blogger behind DanTraveling.com, used data from YouTube Insight to gain entry to historical landmarks and face time with local historians. McCoig's blog covers local attractions in the Southeast like the October Sky Festival in Coalwood, W. Va., complete with video clips, but he had often encountered resistance from museum directors and others about allowing him to film.

"There's a really negative perception of people in the South, particularly of those in the Appalachian region," McCoig said. He said that local historians and museum owners were wary of being presented in a foolish or stereotypical light, and were also concerned about the makeup of the viewing audience--namely, that they would be from places that were too far away to be beneficial. "We had to show them that we weren't going to portray them negatively, and that the clips could actually help attract more local tourism."

And with YouTube Insight data, McCoig has been able to prove that a majority of the people viewing his clips lived in or around the locales he was filming. For example, a video shot in a historic Moravian Village in Winston-Salem, N.C. garnered over 2,800 hits, 80% of which came from viewers in North Carolina. And over 60% of the viewers were between the ages of 45 and 64.

So when McCoig wanted to film in the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based Bethabara Park Museum, he used the data to make his case. "We were able to say to the (Bethabara Park) museum, 'This is your target market,'" McCoig said. "'These are the people who you solicit donations from and that you'd like to use your educational programs, and that's why you should let us film.'" And footage from the trip is now available on the blog.

According to Tracy Chan, product manager for YouTube Insight, those kinds of accounts are exactly what Google had in mind when it sought to "democratize" the information around the performance and audience of YouTube videos. "Before we launched Insight, there was basic video analytics, and then there were tools for big corporations who could afford it. So it was either rudimentary or expensive. But now anyone can upload a video on YouTube and use it as the world's largest focus group."