watchtime
nounEtymology From watch + time.
1
The amount of time that viewers spend watching something.
- YouTube has also said that its watchtime has been growing 60% year-over-year. With some rough math, let's say then that YouTube now has around 650 million hours of watchtime a day. Facebook video could be seeing about one-sixth of the watchtime as YouTube. Because YouTube hasn't actually released an updated stat in a while, we still don't have a perfect idea of how YouTube and Facebook's platforms compare in terms of watchtime.2016 January 28, Jillian D'Onfro, “Facebook finally gave us a real idea how close it's getting to YouTube”, in Business Insider, archived from the original on 28 Jan 2016:
- Jason Urgo, CEO of YouTube analytics firm Social Blade, told Motherboard that according to data pulled from over 12,000 channels over the month of May, "there is evidence that, on average, a video when viewed on mobile will have less watchtime than any other platform." He found that videos watched on phones and tablets averaged 3.5 minutes of watchtime while computers averaged 5.2 minutes. Televisions, unsurprisingly, won out with 10.3 minutes. "When taking a macro look into watchtime habits, yes there is evidence that shorter is better on mobile," he said.2017 May 26, Meaghan Beatley, “20-Minute Episodes of 'Game of Thrones' Are Just About Ads”, in Vice, archived from the original on 21 Jan 2022:
4 more examples
- To qualify for the YouTube Partner Program, a channel must meet the threshold of 4,000 hours of watchtime within the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers.2018, Kenneth E. Long, Trump’s Economic Era and the Neoconservatives, Progressives and Globalists, [Radford, Va.]: Austrian Economics Press, →ISBN, page 21:
- YouTube’s recommendation system is engineered to maximize watchtime, among other factors, the company says, but not to favor any political ideology.2019 August 25, Max Fisher, Amanda Taub, “In Brazil, YouTube Fuels Rise of Far Right”, in The New York Times International Weekly (in collaboration with Toronto Star), Toronto, Ont., page 6, column 1:
- Similarly, YouTube argues that they are not simply optimizing for watchtime but for user ‘satisfaction’ (Lewis, 2018).2020, Bernhard Rieder, Engines of Order: A Mechanology of Algorithmic Techniques, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, →ISBN, page 254:
- “Over the past year alone, we’ve launched over 30 different changes to reduce recommendations of borderline content and harmful misinformation, including climate change misinformation and other types of conspiracy videos,” he [Farshad Shadloo] said. “Thanks to this change, watchtime this type of content gets from recommendations has dropped by over 70 percent in the U.S.”2020 March 8, Jack Nicas, “Can YouTube quiet its conspiracy theorists?”, in The News Tribune, volume 137, number 334, Tacoma, Wash., page 2C, column 4: