Does YouTube Need to be Saved?

YouTube is currently in the process of making its analytic data more accurate and better representative of viewing habits. How? By way of removing inactive and closed accounts from its subscription numbers and tweaking its recommended video algorithm to favor engagement over clicks. A lot of YouTubers are concerned (to put it lightly) about these changes. Why? Because a number of them have experienced a dip in both subscriber numbers and video views as a result. Some also claim YouTube has purged active users from their subscriber bases in addition to the inactive ones. And because of all that, there?s an online video and social media movement to #SaveYouTube, which calls for more transparency from the powers that be that create the algorithms that power the world?s largest video sharing site, in addition to pleading with those powers that be fix various design issues and help out the little guys on the site who aren?t part of the $100 million Originals Initiative. The Importance of Accuracy in Numbers Trusted and transparent information is good for everyone in the online video industry. Like I wrote back at the beginning of 2012 when YouTube first began to scrub itself of defunct accounts, one of the many benefits of online video is (in theory) it?s very easily quantifiable. Nielsen?s imperfect measurement of television viewership has been considered gospel by advertising executives on Madison Avenue for the past six decades, but YouTube and other companies that make their money in the online video industry hope those advertising executives will start to put more of their faith (and dollars) in the science of hard data. The precise targeting capabilities of online video (and the ability to accurately measure the results of those targeting capabilities) are a huge part of the industry?s pitch to potential advertisers, as evidenced by the following quote pulled from Chris Hardwick?s presentation at the recent YouTube Brandcast. Would you rather drop some cheese out of an airplane and hope a few people find it, or would you rather go to CheeseCon in Kenosha, Wisconsin with thousands of really focused cheese fans and fire delicious cheese directly into their gaping cheeseholes? It?s a good argument! But in order to give that argument more credence, online video metrics across the board must be as accurate and representative of online video consumption as possible. Which brings us back to YouTube?s recent changes

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