Data Behind the 2013 YouTube Music Awards Nominees

The first-ever YouTube Music Awards are live this Sunday evening at 6pmET and to celebrate, we did a little digging into the data behind some of the 2013 nominees, all of which were selected based on a series of viewership, subscriber, and/or engagement metrics. (To get all the details on the nominees read this or check out the YouTube Spotlight channel where you can also vote for the winners.)

Video of the year is one of the categories drawing the most interest, and that's not really a surprise when you consider the 1.9 billion views these videos currently have combined. That's an average of over half a million views for every second of video.

Here is daily viewership data (though, please note that we have cut off the initial "Gentleman" spike, which at a record 38 million views in a single day made this chart hilariously unreadable):



The ten nominees for Artist of the Year drew nearly 10 billion views combined on their official videos between October 2012 and the start of this month. They also saw large numbers of new subscribers to those channels. And while many of the artists reside in the United States, when you look at likes, shares, and other types of fan activity, over 75% of the combined engagement top artists saw was from outside the U.S.

Here you can see their weekly growth in subscribers and the impact new video releases from Rihanna and PSY had on their channels:



While the data determined the nominees, the winners will be decided by fans whose sharing activity this week and last will be tallied right up to Sunday night's show.

For the expert trend trackers, see if you can guess what keyword this graph of YouTube search data represents... (hint: it's the top spiking "music"-related search of 2013)



Click to find the answer.

-- Kevin Allocca

Top 5 Educational Blockbusters of the Summer

Summer's over, school is back, and students are in the classroom ready to learn again. But did they ever stop? Turns out, people on YouTube spent 15% more time watching educational videos in August 2013 than April. From outrageous science experiments and geographical anecdotes, to lessons on how to become British Royalty or stop an asteroid, people spent over 142 million hours watching educational content on YouTube this summer. That’s nearly 16,200 years of video watched, and more than twice as much as last summer!



And the numbers keep climbing. From 2011 to 2013, views of educational videos during the summer have increased by 99% in the US.



While the views come from a collection of over 46 million videos, we’ve put together a list of the summer’s educational blockbusters and highlighted the top five most-viewed EDU videos of the season. Sure beats summer school, right?

Video		Channel	Total Summer Views
	How Old Are Your Ears? (Hearing Test)	AsapSCIENCE	5,416,659
	Why Are Things Creepy?	Vsauce	4,560,119
	Self Freezing Coca-Cola	Grant Thompson	4,458,311
	Amazing Resonance Experiment!	brusspup	3,416,145
	Canada & The United States: Bizarre Borders	CGPGrey	3,277,612

*View counts based on totals as of August 31, 2013

Even if you’re back in class, it’s not too late to catch up on the summer’s hits. Check out our top five playlist, and good luck this year.



-- Dan Abel

Batman wins YouTube: Our top 10 most popular superheroes

If YouTube popularity can determine who’ll win in the upcoming Batman vs. Superman movie, your views and uploads put Batman as the clear winner. Based on keyword searches, Batman is the most popular of all superheroes on YouTube, with more than 3 billion views of 71,000 hours of video. Following Batman is Thor, Superman, Iron Man, The Avengers, and Wolverine -- the rest of the list is below. Collectively, the top 10 superheroes alone account for more than 10 billion views and 234,000 hours of video.

Superhero(es)		Views	Hours of video
	Batman	3,000,000,000	71,000
	Thor	2,100,000,000	66,000
	Superman	1,700,000,000	14,000
	Iron Man	1,400,000000	20,000
	The Avengers	1,000,000,000	31,000
	Wolverine	540,000,000	7,800
	Spider Man	340,000,000	7,400
	Captain America	280,000,000	4,900
	Justice League	220,000,000	3,200
	Deadpool	200,000,000	8,900

While Batman also takes the top overall spot for searches, the Dark Knight has been overtaken in searches by Thor, Iron Man and The Avengers since 2008.

The top videos for each superhero are a mix of popular movie trailers, video game play, fan originals and more - check the playlist of the top 10 here:

A year since Gangnam Style, K-Pop keeps getting bigger

On July 15, PSY's now legendary video for "Gangnam Style" will officially turn 1 year old. The video is already the most viewed video ever on YouTube and was the first clip ever to surpass 1 billion views -- it currently stands at 1.7B and is still growing for those counting. But impact of the biggest web video phenomenon of 2012 extends beyond PSY's singular music video.



While global interest in K-Pop has been on the rise for the past few years, the data suggests views of Korean artists tripled in the year following the release of Gangnam Style. Here's a chart of monthly views on top K-Pop channels, including PSY:


In the year before "Gangnam Style", official music videos from K-Pop artists were viewed over 2.2 billion times globally. The year following, that number jumped to over 7 billion views, 3x the viewership. In 2011, less than half the viewership on top K-Pop channels was from outside the Asia-Pacific region. Now, the majority of the watching is taking place outside the region. 91% of viewing in the past year was outside Korea.


In the U.S. where, for many, K-Pop had been an unknown genre of music, video viewership of top K-Pop artists doubled the year after "Gangnam Style" hit the web.

So what were people watching?

The top 10 music videos from Korea uploaded since "Gangnam Style" represent a diverse mix. PSY tops the list with his follow-up "Gentleman", which itself now has nearly half of a billion views. Other major acts include Girls Generation and Big Bang, both of which have cultivated large international followings.

You can see the full top 10 via this playlist or watch below:



-- Kevin Allocca