EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
EEVblog => EEVblog Specific => Topic started by: EEVblog on October 19, 2016, 12:38:35 am
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Just wanted to share this.
The reality of doing (what I think is good) design videos "everyone" says they want to see.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/the-reality-of-design-videos/?action=dlattach;attach=263395;image)
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A fact that has befallen all too many TV stations in their life; nowadays, Discovery isn't about discovering, TLC isn't about learning, History isn't about history; need I go on?
Just don't fall into the same trap. :)
Tim
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Here is a tip on how to get even more views - naked women on thumbnails. Works for so many junky channels.
Interestingly, they all have very similar number of likes.
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Here is a tip on how to get even more views - naked women on thumbnails. Works for so many junky channels.
My most popular mailbag ever, by more than three times:
(http://i.imgur.com/6XLL5I0.png)
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My most popular mailbag ever, by more than doube:
Yep.
But seriously, would it help if thumbnail was more interesting (not unrelated, of course)? White board does not look so good and a lot of white board videos are horrible, so people may have learned to not notice them. I do for unknown channels.
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Hey, what's wrong with whiteboard videos? I tend to become more interested when I see a whiteboard on a YT electronics video because there's more chance there will be an actual discussion of design choices, principles of operation and so on, instead of most a video being a guy connecting a meter to breadboarded circuit or showing a sine wave on an oscilloscope which happens sadly often.
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I guess you could do some destructive videos. Those seem to get all the views. Like Photonic Induction's and ElectroBoom's do.
Maybe build a 2000 volt, 300 Joule capacitor bank and show the design details and then go blow up stuff with it.
OR
Talk about magnetic fields and how motors work, and then take a DC motor and hook it up against a gas engine in a shaft vs. shaft duel.
OR
Test surge protectors with a Variac to see which ones can take sustained over voltage before catching on fire and maybe explain the downsides to them for surge vs sustained over voltage.
OR
Build a Zero Voltage Switching oscillator that powers a huge a flyback that you make deadly high current, high voltage arcs with to melt things.
Basically, it seems this generation likes destructive things a lot while still learning the fundamentals.
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I guess you could do some destructive videos. Those seem to get all the views. Like Photonic Induction's and ElectroBoom's do.
Not necessarily, even when combined with pretty girl thumbnail
(http://i.imgur.com/HPCF2gW.png)
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You have to be in the mood for pure theory. I'll watch it eventually, but I wasn't overly inspired by the first part.
I think what people actually want is to see you build or debug something that they can, or want to be able to, build at home.
I bet you'd get a million views for a 3 stepper controller with on board mcu. Even though there are a thousand of them available online. Be like a hobbyist. Design your thing, build your osh park pcb, drive your rotating Delorian display.
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Thanks for the effort. Those definitely keep me coming back. You've said many times you do these to have fun yourself. Won't speak for you, but feels the sense of accomplishment from a nice design video no one has done before is much greater than puppies, kittens, piece of ass, whatever. Keep up the good work!
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I think it depends on the ratio of design-/other videos.
Too much is not good as it reminds me of MOOCs.
The current ratio seems pretty spot on for me. :-+
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Doesn't the Pi supercomputer count as a design video? 65000 views.
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Part one has 50,815 views so I don't see the issue
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BTW: How is the rating of the "DIY DC Load" video?
(Still my favourite design video...)
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The different ages of the videos in your list makes comparisons a little difficult, but you only show a 3:1 ratio between the least viewed and most viewed videos. That's not huge. I somehow expected mailbag to have at least 10 times the views of anything analytical.
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The different ages of the videos in your list makes comparisons a little difficult, but you only show a 3:1 ratio between the least viewed and most viewed videos. That's not huge. I somehow expected mailbag to have at least 10 times the views of anything analytical.
I agree, you'd need to look back at least a month to get any reasonable comparison
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Honestly, I think some more real-day design projects would be better IMOHO.
I don't really feel that attracted to the idea of a multimeter, it's not something many people will be going on to develop.
I'd say there is a lot more electronics interest around:
3D printers / stepper motor drives / controllers
Coil accelerators ('coilguns')
smaller and fancy Tesla coils (some of the newer designs even have FPGAs in them!!!)
Robotics (robot arms, wireless controlled vehicles)
Electric Vehicle projects (or even a brushless motor controller? Do something on control theory?)
:-//
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Just wanted to share this.
The reality of doing (what I think is good) design videos "everyone" says they want to see.
Who exactly is "everyone"?
It would not be surprising to me if the people who would like to watch more design videos (and other EE videos) are your patrons, i.e. people who pay for the content they would like. It's certainly not easy to create the right content mix that always both satisfies the small paying audience as well as the vastly larger general YT subscriber base...
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That will scare away many viewers. Most of his viewers are hobbyist, not professional designers
Actually more half of my audience are professionals/graduates, or engineering students
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Who exactly is "everyone"?
The majority who request stuff.
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Electric Vehicle projects (or even a brushless motor controller? Do something on control theory?)
That will scare away many viewers. Most of his viewers are hobbyist, not professional designers, so IMHO it makes no sense to teach Arduino level DIYers how to derive s and z domain transfer functions and solve differential/difference equations.
Implementing designed controller in DSP is fun and not very math intensive, though you may need some knowledge in discrete LTI systems, but designing the transfer function itself is not fun, even for professional engineers.
Actually you can perform practical, basic analog and digital control loop design using the free Octave or commercial Matlab toolboxes. There are readily available functions which will provide transfer function plotting and functions which will perform conversion from the s-plane to z-plane, and give the needed coefficients to the digital filter. The video could be made as a high-level tutorial so that it will show the process of the design, analysis and implementation of simple control loop using the toolboxes, instead of going into the very details in the theory. That kind of overview presentation would encourage people to try things out as the Octave/Matlab toolboxes will hide all the scary stuff.
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Doesn't the Pi supercomputer count as a design video? 65000 views.
It has 'raspberry pi' in the title, so it's perfect clickbait.
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Texas Instruments already covered motor control theory very well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpTvZlnrsP0 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpTvZlnrsP0)
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I find TastyPC quite informative, I'm not much into PC gaming but I enjoy the style and technical prowess demonstrated.
https://youtu.be/l-i5LgakaDQ
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CM800 brings up an interesting one - I'd love to see Dave get that Sinclair C5 running again, and then maybe update the technology - modern batteries, maybe some regenerative braking to assist the rather weak mechanical brakes, etc. Bet it could have more power capacity AND be lighter for easier pedaling with modern batteries and not that honking big lead-acid thing.
Plus it still looks like something from the future, not the 80's.
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FWIW - I will pay for design videos. Not sure if I am minority of not. So many topics are easy enough to find a book to read - but a practical presentation from a real life person can be the thread that ties it all together. I would much rather pay for a video where I can learn in 1 hour what would otherwise take me 8 hours of reading, watching, searching, and experimenting.
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Texas Instruments already covered motor control theory very well:
Solid presentation. Me likey.
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Who exactly is "everyone"?
The majority who request stuff.
You say this a lot and it drives my crazy. "Everyone" complains about this, "Everyone" said to do that. It drives me nuts.
Those 22k people that watched the design video aren't going to get it from Buzzfeed. Who else are they going to request it from?
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You say this a lot and it drives my crazy. "Everyone" complains about this, "Everyone" said to do that. It drives me nuts.
Those 22k people that watched the design video aren't going to get it from Buzzfeed. Who else are they going to request it from?
Exactly.
You obviously were not asked 22K times, so more people watched than asked. Obviously even more people will watch softball videos, since they require no thinking whatsoever.
Do you get requests for RPi videos as well?
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Here is a tip on how to get even more views - naked women on thumbnails. Works for so many junky channels.
Interestingly, they all have very similar number of likes.
Try wet EEVBlog t-shirts
Was the first post a statement that design videos do not do well? (I am a little dense)
There is some talk about paid videos. Can someone expand on that? I have come across some sites that have paid videos, like Lynda.com, but they are rare. YT has some sort of paid service (no ads). Am I missing something? thanks
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You say this a lot and it drives my crazy. "Everyone" complains about this, "Everyone" said to do that. It drives me nuts.
Relax, I'm just trying to convey some stats to people who keep requesting a fundamentals friday / design video, usually also including the comment "it'll be massively popular" or some such.
They aren't necessarily as popular as you might think.
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CM800 brings up an interesting one - I'd love to see Dave get that Sinclair C5 running again
I was actually going to look at stripping that down today, but I've got a lot of crap to get through first.
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I wouldn't mind some Fundimentals Fridays on just basic transistor circuits / amplifiers really.
I'd also happily pay for some videos on certain topics of interest, good educational videos.
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I guess you could do some destructive videos. Those seem to get all the views. Like Photonic Induction's and ElectroBoom's do.
Not necessarily, even when combined with pretty girl thumbnail
(http://i.imgur.com/HPCF2gW.png)
not destructive enough, look at this: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMDMoNu66_1Hwi5-MeiQgw/videos (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMDMoNu66_1Hwi5-MeiQgw/videos)
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not destructive enough, look at this: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMDMoNu66_1Hwi5-MeiQgw/videos (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMDMoNu66_1Hwi5-MeiQgw/videos)
Wow just imagine how much he made off of his press if he got $20,000 per 100k videos !!
Edit: I thought I read somewhere here it was $20,000 / 100,000 views. I stand corrected - it is $200/100,000 views.
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not destructive enough, look at this: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMDMoNu66_1Hwi5-MeiQgw/videos (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMDMoNu66_1Hwi5-MeiQgw/videos)
Wow just imagine how much he made off of his press if he got $20,000 per 100k videos !!
100k views gets you about $200 in ad revenue.
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not destructive enough, look at this: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMDMoNu66_1Hwi5-MeiQgw/videos (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcMDMoNu66_1Hwi5-MeiQgw/videos)
Wow just imagine how much he made off of his press if he got $20,000 per 100k videos !!
100k views gets you about $200 in ad revenue.
He has average ~1M views per video and ~8 videos per month, which translates to $16k per month. Triple average US household income.
84 uploads, ~168M views, in roughly one year
I think that press has paid for itself ;)
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I find TastyPC quite informative, I'm not much into PC gaming but I enjoy the style and technical prowess demonstrated.
https://youtu.be/l-i5LgakaDQ
Wow, that was boring.
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He has average ~1M views per video and ~8 videos per month, which translates to $16k per month. Triple average US household income.
Yes, not saying he's not doing well, just pointing out that you need a lot of views to make a living from just youtube adsense, as this is a common misconception.
If you have a channel that gets 100k views a day (every day, 365 days) then it's just enough to earn you a decent income.
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Edit: I thought I read somewhere here it was $20,000 / 100,000 views. I stand corrected - it is $200/100,000 views.
That's a rough average and good rule of thumb.
It varies a lot and has cycles and bursts based on the subject and ad campaigns budgets etc etc
Could be as low as $100 or even less per 100k views.
Potentially less if you share it with a network, although they claim to be able to get you better deals too which has never really been proven.
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If you have a channel that gets 100k views a day (every day, 365 days) then it's just enough to earn you a decent income.
I guess my 14 views in 6 years is not going to cut it. :-DD
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Electric Vehicle projects (or even a brushless motor controller? Do something on control theory?)
That will scare away many viewers. Most of his viewers are hobbyist, not professional designers, so IMHO it makes no sense to teach Arduino level DIYers how to derive s and z domain transfer functions and solve differential/difference equations.
Don't chuck all hobbyists into the same bucket as "Arduino level DIYers".
It is a generalisation that is not only grossly inaccurate - but offensive, especially to those that can follow calculus - probably better than a lot of 'professional' engineers.
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The one good thing here is that Dave will take comments on board - and act as he sees fit.
... which works for me.
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That will scare away many viewers. Most of his viewers are hobbyist, not professional designers
good video work Dave :-+ has something for Everyone into electronics in some way. :popcorn: here's some free Art Dave! if its ok with Universal Pictures. ;D
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I find TastyPC quite informative, I'm not much into PC gaming but I enjoy the style and technical prowess demonstrated.
https://youtu.be/l-i5LgakaDQ
Wow, that was boring.
Indeed, but despite the boredom you suffered, it achieved 360k views for some reason.
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Indeed, but despite the boredom you suffered, it achieved 360k views for some reason.
I think there were two reasons. Really, from what I've seen looking for some videos about powerful PCs typical gamer interested in hardware just needs a healthy dose of cleavage and videos of hardware running in case looking like 13 year old's wet dream (liquid cooling adds 25% views). Maybe sometimes info that it runs Crysis 5 in zillion fps in 16000x9000 resolution;)
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Indeed, but despite the boredom you suffered, it achieved 360k views for some reason.
I think there were two reasons. Really, from what I've seen looking for some videos about powerful PCs typical gamer interested in hardware just needs a healthy dose of cleavage and videos of hardware running in case looking like 13 year old's wet dream (liquid cooling adds 25% views). Maybe sometimes info that it runs Crysis 5 in zillion fps in 16000x9000 resolution;)
Do not forget in RGB LED lighting... preferably all over the place. That distinguishes the discerning gamer from the common man.
Not illuminating the cleavage with RGB LEDs is a major opportunity missed... :-DD
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Indeed, but despite the boredom you suffered, it achieved 360k views for some reason.
How much % of the video has to watched before YT counts it as a view?
(yet, I wonder if somebody watches up to last second in case there is some 'interesting' surprise)
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Do not forget in RGB LED lighting... preferably all over the place. That distinguishes the discerning gamer from the common man.
Not illuminating the cleavage with RGB LEDs is a major opportunity missed... :-DD
I agree. There are electronic subjects that the general population is interested in
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Just wanted to share this.
The reality of doing (what I think is good) design videos "everyone" says they want to see.
I am currently studying EE and not only do I enjoy all of your content, but I have learned so much! The design videos especially, it's great to see someone who's worked in the industry for quite a while go through the design process. Please don't let the lack of "quick" views gains deter you from doing these kinds of videos in the future! :-+
EDIT: Removed image from quote Oct. 21, 2016
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I find TastyPC quite informative, I'm not much into PC gaming but I enjoy the style and technical prowess demonstrated.
Wow, that was boring.
Indeed, but despite the boredom you suffered, it achieved 360k views for some reason.
Her accent? ;) :-DD
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You say this a lot and it drives my crazy. "Everyone" complains about this, "Everyone" said to do that. It drives me nuts.
Relax, I'm just trying to convey some stats to people who keep requesting a fundamentals friday / design video, usually also including the comment "it'll be massively popular" or some such.
They aren't necessarily as popular as you might think.
Totally understandable. But number of views has no real connection to value. I can go find YouTube videos that have millions of views that offer no real value at all, just appealing to the lowest common denominator. Like the stupid prank channels and such. On the other hand, excellent lectures by university professors are usually around 3K views, yet they are invaluable, imo.
I appreciate any video that teaches me something. Yeah, I indulge in lowest common denominator stuff, but the videos I enjoy the most are the ones that I can learn from. I don't expect the fundamentals videos to be all that popular, but I do appreciate the time and effort you take to make them. Between you and Uncle Doug, I've learned more about circuit design and signal flow than I ever would have otherwise. :-+
I guess it's an individual thing. I see the internet as having the world's information at my fingertips and try to take full advantage of it and educate myself on as many things as I can, where it seems most people just want mindless entertainment. I like mindless entertainment, but I like learning things more. ;)
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... and Uncle Doug
This is really funny, and since I do not know Uncle Doug, I do not know if he is serious or not in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9hZRLbI6BU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9hZRLbI6BU)
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... and Uncle Doug
This is really funny, and since I do not know Uncle Doug, I do not know if he is serious or not in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9hZRLbI6BU (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9hZRLbI6BU)
"Dripping with vintage vibe." :D
Yeah, he's joking. He likes to interject little bits of humor in his videos. I'm guessing this was in one of his other vids and he did a separate upload for it, kinda like Techmoan with the puppets. This is the first I've seen this, thanks for sharing it.
I love his stuff on old tube amps and those type of circuits. If you go through all his videos on tube amp circuits and design and can't trace a tube amp circuit afterwords, you should get another hobby. I literally would feel comfortable doing a refurb on a tube amp after taking in his lessons. What seemed like a lot of voodoo is actually pretty simple...especially compared to the teardowns and circuit flows Dave breaks down. Two different schools, of course. Dave being more new school and Doug being more old school.
He's a retired teacher and his students were definitely blessed to have had him, because he's really good at breaking things down and making them easy to understand. He's done a series on capacitors and one on resistors (and how they relate to audio circuits) that were multi part and went into great detail.
Uncle Doug: https://www.youtube.com/user/Stratosaurus1 (https://www.youtube.com/user/Stratosaurus1)
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I'm a hobbyist and I'd love to see control theory (or application) videos. Many hobbyists with no formal education in calculus have googled Laplace transforms, z-transforms, Taylor series, etc. (I have.)
Ever seen Brian Douglas' videos on Control Systems Lectures? They're fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/user/ControlLectures (https://www.youtube.com/user/ControlLectures)
Not implying this is what you need to do, Dave. You operate a wildly successful blog and forum. You are doing it right. I'm only adding a data point that nonprofessional, amateur hobbyists do exist that eat up the theoretical stuff *when presented by a talented, likeable and capable speaker.*
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Ever seen Brian Douglas' videos on Control Systems Lectures? They're fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/user/ControlLectures (https://www.youtube.com/user/ControlLectures)
Interesting
Here is his web site and his method of funding. For either $1 a month or $1 you can get his ebook. I like this.
https://konoz.io/BrianDouglas (https://konoz.io/BrianDouglas)
Thanks
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I think to some extent, you are confusing demographics. A proper design video might get a very high percentage of your primary audience (i.e., us). That's good, right? Face it, your content has a relatively limited audience base. If you click-bait the general populous into watching one of your vids, you have a much larger audience base, so even if a very small fraction come to watch, just once, you get big numbers.
You want big numbers, just make porn videos.
Or, use more 'sex on a stick" type stuff on your thumbs. I'm sure you can even make that relevant, if not somewhat literal...and I don't mean YOU licking your probes... :-DD
So think about that, if all of "us" will watch every one of your vids, and want more, more of a specific thing, and we eat it all up, you will have flat viewing rates.
Put something of controversy or with extra flash, we're all still in, but you catch a small bit of the huge fringe as well.
speaking loosely of course...
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I would think click-baiting is a rather short-sighted approach, especially for a channel appealing to a specific interest group. Regulars would soon become disillusioned if the content didn't back up the bait. I would expect it to result in creating doubt in the value of watching further videos and you would end up being worse off.
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How much % of the video has to watched before YT counts it as a view?
(yet, I wonder if somebody watches up to last second in case there is some 'interesting' surprise)
I believe this is youtube's secret, otherwise people (or bots) who are paid to view videos would know exactly how long to leave it.
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You say this a lot and it drives my crazy. "Everyone" complains about this, "Everyone" said to do that. It drives me nuts.
Relax, I'm just trying to convey some stats to people who keep requesting a fundamentals friday / design video, usually also including the comment "it'll be massively popular" or some such.
They aren't necessarily as popular as you might think.
Totally understandable. But number of views has no real connection to value.
I never said it did.
I wish I could say that views don't matter, but if I said that I'd be lying, and so is any other Youtuber, I guarantee you that.
Are views everything? No, of course not, if they were then my content would be very different to what it is.
But like it or not they do have impact on a content producers morale, the willingness to continue to that type of content, and also technical matters like continued elevation in the youtube ranking system that has snowball (or reverse) effect on the success of your channel.
I've said this before and I'll say it again. As a content producer it can be a bit disheartening when you put a lot of work into a video you think is good and you think people will enjoy, and you think it's what people have been asking for, but then it gets not many views compared to some easier video you didn't think was nearly as good or worthwhile.
Take for example the weekly Fundamentals Friday's videos series I started. Some were very popular and some were not popular at all. And when you put a lot of work into a video perhaps expecting at least thank you comments, but instead mostly get people just asking "can you do this this or that" etc, then perhaps you might start to understand why the motivation to continue to do those videos diminishes somewhat.
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I think to some extent, you are confusing demographics. A proper design video might get a very high percentage of your primary audience (i.e., us). That's good, right?
Nope, you'd be wrong.
Because my channel was never intended to be, and was not built on tutorial or design videos, I have a very diverse audience, and this is evidenced by that stats across practically all of my tutorial videos.
Take for example my Opamp tutorial, by far my most popular tutorial video with an insane 572,000 views, and the tutorial video I get the most thanks for.
(http://i.imgur.com/clHVzZb.png)
Where did all those views come from?
Was it from my core audience of subscribers? Nope, it only got about 50k views or so in the first few months which was pretty average for one of my videos at the time, nothing special at all.
The views came from continued upping in the magic youtube search engine algorithm over time, which ironically is dependent partly upon the number of views I get per day on average, the interaction, the thumbs up etc. And of course, mostly because it's opamps, a very basic and widely searched topic.
i.e. >85% of those views came from search and youtube suggested, not from my subscriber base.
If I went and did a series of videos over the next few months of some niche hard core tutorial topic (possibly PID control as mentioned), and it was the most brilliant content ever, the views and my channel would go down the toilet. Well, it wouldn't be that bad, but I hope you get the drift.
In fact if I did nothing but tutorial videos for the next 6 months it would be the same fate.
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Sorry to ask Dave, but is it really ONLY about numbers? :'(
If so, that would make me pretty sad.
It's also about what a certain group likes to see, or just maybe what you would like to do yourself (hopefully).
With all the respect, but otherwise it's nothing more than a pop band that just produces ready to eat chunks for the bigger market.
Of course it is up to you, but some videos just naturally have more viewers than others.
Works the same in a company, but if you do it well, you can still have the fun projects next to the projects that fills up your bank account.
I personally would be proud of 'only' these 23k viewers. I am pretty sure these are (close to) your core fans.
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Sorry to ask Dave, but is it really ONLY about numbers? :'(
If so, that would make me pretty sad.
People often bewail the monster that is "the numbers" and while I can understand the sentiment, I cannot endorse it without a caveat or two...
The bottom line is, if a certain type and structure of videos generates an interest metric of 10,000 and another generates an interest metric of 25,000 - which do you think indicates a greater general interest?
If Dave is using numbers to help assess his efforts, then I don't find any fault with that. While taking notice of comments is of some value, very few people leave them, so adjusting your style based on those alone would be inappropriate. You'd just be bowing to the loudest voices - and not necessarily serving the majority. Numbers, however impersonal, are a reflection of the whole audience ... interpreting them is the skill.
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If Dave is using numbers to help assess his efforts, then I don't find any fault with that.
Unless if he is complaining about 'bean counting' types while becoming one. Can't have them both.
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Sorry to ask Dave, but is it really ONLY about numbers? :'(
If so, that would make me pretty sad.
I tried to explain that above, was it not clear?
It is most certainly not just about the numbers.
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Sorry to ask Dave, but is it really ONLY about numbers? :'(
If so, that would make me pretty sad.
i doubt it, but only a small fraction of viewers interact directly with a creator and give some kind of feedback, be it in a youtube message or joining up on a forum like eevblog or whatever. So the stats are the only insight into who is watching, it's all there is to fall back on. You can hardly blame someone for trying to get the most out of what they do by looking at the numbers.
Like many other channels, my little channel gets 89% of it's views from non subscribers. It does seem odd when you make videos for your subscribers knowing that they will be a minority in terms of views, revenue etc but it's those subscribers who are most likely to comment and influence what you might do in the future!
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Like many other channels, my little channel gets 89% of it's views from non subscribers.
About 50% of my daily views come from non-subscribers.
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I have no Youtube account because I have no reason to get one.
* The notification system is broken.
* The comment section is broken & full of trolls.
I think many other regular viewer watch without Youtube account.
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I'm actually impressed that you got 20K+ views on a part 2 video on something as narrowly focused as multimeter design. I watched with interest because I have designed industrial T&M systems over the years and probably will again. If I hadn't been there and done that I don't think watching you optimize a set of shunt resistors would have kept me coming back for more.
In my opinion though, even if the views are lower on this type of video they are your key to survival. Whether someone watches the design videos or not, they give you a credibility factor that lets you rant about solar roadways and batterisers from a position of strength. You are not some random troll looking for products to bash, you are out there to educate people about electronics. I know I wouldn't sit and watch you open your mail for an hour if I didn't think you were.
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I think to some extent, you are confusing demographics. A proper design video might get a very high percentage of your primary audience (i.e., us). That's good, right?
Nope, you'd be wrong.
Because my channel was never intended to be, and was not built on tutorial or design videos, I have a very diverse audience, and this is evidenced by that stats across practically all of my tutorial videos.
The op-amp video seems to be a bit of an outlier, but of course I am making broad assumptions. Your top 10 video rankings are Teardown, Tutorial, Entertainment, Teardown, Buying Guide, Tutorial, Teardown, Tutorial, Setting up a lab... so teardown and tutorial videos. :-// guess you'd have to normalize all the data and figure out the view rate.
I bet you'd smash your all-time-high video views if you'd get Marina Orlova to be your sidekick, or you could just rely on the raw content to draw views (discounting the elephant, of course). But I digress and you're right, I likely wouldn't even watch a hardcore vid on PID control. Brian Douglas has a short intro vid on that (I didn't watch) and it has 400k views. Hmmm... Now that subject is getting more interesting to me.
BTW, I think aVe was trying to make a point about his videos. Not sure what for, but his point was that even though he destroys a several hundred dollar piece of gear, amortized out to each viewer it's just pennies for the education they receive.
There's something else to consider and that is the value of loss-leaders...
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I think design videos are very good for a relatively small audience. I would guess you could attract a lot of viewers over many years (think university students). There are topics that are taught in every EE class around the world, every year.
You could try to add more description text to videos like that, I think that could attract more viewers.
I watch almost every video, going thru your site. You could add a newsletter that informs users about ne videos, but I guess that could be done thru Youtube.
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Sorry to ask Dave, but is it really ONLY about numbers? :'(
If so, that would make me pretty sad.
I tried to explain that above, was it not clear?
It is most certainly not just about the numbers.
Well, not really to be honest.
So what if less people watch it?
What is wrong with just doing something for fun?
Or doing something for a small group of people who highly appreciate something like this?
Besides it is not about the absolute numbers, but everything as a whole.
I know as a freelancer myself that you sometimes need to do things just to show yourself, even if it is for free.
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So what if less people watch it?
What is wrong with just doing something for fun?
I've said countless times that my channel is about me doing whatever I want at any given time, usually "just for fun". That is the essence of my channel.
Or doing something for a small group of people who highly appreciate something like this?
That's exactly what I've done countless times.
I think some people are taking this thread the wrong way...
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BTW, I think aVe was trying to make a point about his videos. Not sure what for, but his point was that even though he destroys a several hundred dollar piece of gear, amortized out to each viewer it's just pennies for the education they receive.
Did I miss his post here? :-//
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I've said countless times that my channel is about me doing whatever I want at any given time, usually "just for fun". That is the essence of my channel.
Works for me.
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BTW, I think aVe was trying to make a point about his videos. Not sure what for, but his point was that even though he destroys a several hundred dollar piece of gear, amortized out to each viewer it's just pennies for the education they receive.
Did I miss his post here? :-//
He's referring to a recent teardown of an expensive hairdryer. If you don't follow AvE you probably didn't catch it.
That's a fair comparison though: you've opened up far more expensive things on camera. Bonus: they work when you put them back together, too. ;D
Tim
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Yeah. I assumed Dave is aware of aVe and what he does. No need to see the specific video...
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Yeah. I assumed Dave is aware of aVe and what he does. No need to see the specific video...
Just had to see it - 780k views in less than a month ! Wanted to see how the other half lives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-vJxez9UF8)
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Well, that's not the video where he gets DTE about it.
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Well, that's not the video where he gets DTE about it.
What do you mean by "DTE"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTE
Do you mean he is using Dithioerythritol ?
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I guess the stats speak for themselves, but I'd at least like to offer some anecdotal encouragement of sorts. Just so you know there are those if us that LOVE your design/instructional videos.
There are two specific videos that have been pivotal for me as a hobbyist. I came into the hobby designing vacuum tube guitar amps. This requires a decent fundementals knowledge to get good results, but it is a pretty niche part of electronics, and it left the vast majority of the field a mystery to me. An intimidating mystery to be exact.
So I stumbled onto the "Hack a vacuum fluorescent display" video. Mind you, up till now, digital was considered completely out of my reach by me. I'd just convinced myself it was something I'd never understand. But here was this guy making it look easy, yet not dumbed down. Long story short, within weeks I was doing good projects with microcontrollers. That video was the catalyst to a whole new world for me.
The other video I want to cite as a specific source of inspiration is actually a video series. The "design a bench power supply" series is the EEVBlog at its best. One of the difficulties of a hobbyist is having learned all these building blocks circuits, but not really knowing how to build a quality product. That series completely took the mystery out of building a pro quality project as opposed to just "something that works".
I realize you can't cater to the minority and be as successful as you have been, so I mostly post this so that when you DO do design videos, you know they are being appreciated.
Keep up the good work, and thanks!
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So what if less people watch it?
What is wrong with just doing something for fun?
I've said countless times that my channel is about me doing whatever I want at any given time, usually "just for fun". That is the essence of my channel.
Or doing something for a small group of people who highly appreciate something like this?
That's exactly what I've done countless times.
I think some people are taking this thread the wrong way...
Again, I am very sorry I am totally lost.
Maybe it is just me, but I am missing totally the point of having this topic and discussion? :-//
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Based on a quick analysis of the last years video theres not much in it... If I tidied this data further to remove some of the obvious anomalies the difference in views numbers would be even smaller...
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/the-reality-of-design-videos/?action=dlattach;attach=266991;image)
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The anomalies being videos such as battershite debunks which have generated higher than average views for obvious reasons.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/blog/the-reality-of-design-videos/?action=dlattach;attach=267015;image)
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All of which matters not, because as Dave rightly states he does what he wants/feels like :)
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You say this a lot and it drives my crazy. "Everyone" complains about this, "Everyone" said to do that. It drives me nuts.
Relax, I'm just trying to convey some stats to people who keep requesting a fundamentals friday / design video, usually also including the comment "it'll be massively popular" or some such.
They aren't necessarily as popular as you might think.
Look. You already know the next design or fundamental Friday video will not be popular in general. But it will serve some nerds. The nerds will watch and will have fun. Your latest design video, the last multimeter one where you have eliminated everything and left just a handful cheap components - PRICELESS. For a nerd. Don't do it for profit, do it for the nerds. Then do a high end scope tear-down and a mailbag featuring some mammalian protuberances for profit.
BTW, thanks for doing this channel. Been following from the start.
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I've said countless times that my channel is about me doing whatever I want at any given time, usually "just for fun". That is the essence of my channel.
And that's what I love about your channel, it's entertaining and informative at the same time. The way YouTube should be... "Make YouTube Great Again!!" my vote's for you Dave :-+
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Dave,
Please keep up with the design videos, I learn a ridiculous amount of engineering whenever I translate them for my website (sent you an email about this ages ago, it's not available yet because I also create a PDF file summarizing the key aspects of the information provided).
Keep it up and thanks for the knowledge.