YouTube by the Numbers

With Social Media Week London fast approaching, the team at LimeTree have been taking stock on the media platforms and online features which have, imperceptibly, become central to our online experiences.  

After much consideration (there are an awful lot of options for us to choose from, after all) we concluded that YouTube, the video sharing website which has become synonymous with online streaming, is a website fully deserving of a closer look.

After all, who hasn't streamed a music video on YouTube at some point when hanging out with a group of friends, or spent a (perhaps too large) chunk of time trolling through the inexhaustible list of “suggested videos”?

With this in mind I set out do some research into YouTube: what makes it popular, what makes it fun, how much is it used? During the investigation I managed to uncover some rather interesting facts, which I decided to present in an infographic. Here’s a brief selection of my findings, excerpted from the charming infographic.

The Facts

- It was predicted by Dagfinn Bach in a MusicTank report in 2010 that YouTube could, by 2013, consume a whopping 1% of global electricity. That's a substantial number for just one website, and a vast increase from it's 0.1% mark in 2010.

- Every minute, three hours worth of YouTube video is uploaded via mobile. Given that we can see the move to mobile on other platforms too (Facebook instantly springs to mind) why should it be any different for YouTube?

- Speaking of Facebook, what happens when you pair two internet giants together? Well, the result is an unbelievably epic 500 years of YouTube video being watched everyday via Facebook! Think of all the things you could do in 500 years, and consider that YouTube gets through more than that each day!

- In 2011 YouTube had 1 trillion views. Averaged out that’s 140 per person on the entire planet Earth! 2 years later and one can only imagine just how much this has grown...

For more mind boggling statistics (and details on a Youtube hack which turns your favourite video into video game!) see our infographic. LimeTree, alongside Fourth Source, will be hosting an event at SMWLDN 2013 focusing on the future of Social Media. "The Future Medium" will look to today's social activity for clues about tomorrow's (and will even feature the portents of an astrologist)!

Click here for the full infographic.

Image (cc) Abi Sehmi at LimeTree.