You know the received wisdom that you need time to make your YouTube videos a success, with people slowly discovering it and passing it on?  More often than not its wrong – according to TubeMogul (via Thought Gadgets) half the audience for the average online video will have come and gone within the first six days.

According to Business Insider our online attention spans are definitely getting shorter:

” In 2008, it took 14 days for a video to get 50% of its views and 44 days to get 75% of its views.”

In other words, the shelf life of the average video has now halved.  Some other stats that build on this one:

If supported by social media recommendations, people will be more engaged with your video.  Another TubeMogul and Brightcove survey found that music videos recommended on Twitter are watched on average for a minute longer.

In terms of the chances of your video becoming a huge hit with 1 million+ views, you are 6x more likely to get hit by a bus anyway

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A number of graphs, which are worth noting from an excellent techcrunch article by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan – Context is King: How videos are found and consumed online.

First of all, most are discovered within two weeks of them being posted up.    If your video hasn’t gathered viral momentum in the first ten days or so of it going online, it probably won’t.

55% of video views are via “discovery”, people stumble on the video, mostly via blogs.   Get that online PR campaign going!

Then, after two minutes, over 3/4 of your audience will have zoned out and clicked somewhere else.   So keep those virals short.

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• Context is King: How Videos Are Found And Consumed Online (techcrunch.com)

A sign of how online shopping has moved into the mainstream can be seen from the Allurent Holiday Online Shopping Survey in the States.

Buggy sites, difficult to understand navigation and a lack of features will leave Internet shoppers cold, with 60% of all consumers and 73% of “power shoppers” saying that their online shopping expectations had increased over the past twelve months.

Among the findings:

Variety is the spice of (online) life: Over half (57%) now consider themselves ‘sophisticated online shoppers’ and want retailers to try new and different things online

Yet at the same time, almost half (45%) say that most online retailers are by and large the same with price and availability the only real differentiators.   The opportunity is therefore for websites to concentrate on the overall experience.

According to Graeme Grant, COO at Allurent:

“The survey makes clear that the majority of consumers are now very comfortable with e-commerce. The question retailers now must ask themselves is: ‘What are we doing to meet the higher expectations of these sophisticated shoppers?’

“In 2009, I think we will see that those retailers who continue to innovate on their online shopping sites are the winners, while those who do not are left behind.”

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