Earlier this week YouTube posted some interesting data in regards to ratings. For those who aren’t familiar, YouTube allows you to rate videos you view from 1 – 5 stars using the following scale:
- 1 star = Poor
- 2 stars = Nothing Special
- 3 stars = Worth Watching
- 4 stars = Pretty Cool
- 5 stars = Awesome !
Here is the star breakdown of all videos with ratings according to the YouTube blog:
If you’ve seen The Onion’s report, you know that most users struggle to upload a ‘good’ video, let alone an awesome one. But keep in mind that this represents only the videos that have been rated. I guarantee the number of videos with no rating at all would dwarf the number of rated videos. Which is why I love this quote from YouTube Project Manager Shiva Rajaraman:
Great videos prompt action; anything less prompts indifference.
If your video can’t get someone to click their mouse button once, then all the optimization in the world won’t help.
January 12th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
[...] already discussed how most people that rate a video will rate it 5 stars, so I’m not sure how useful a star system is for YouTube. I know others have talked about [...]
April 6th, 2010 at 5:29 pm
[...] has been talking about the effectiveness of the 5 star rating system for some time now, and it looks like it didn’t make the cut. Instead you get the option to [...]