The reality of design videos

[broz]

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? 

[strangersound]

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.

[ez24]

...  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:

[strangersound]

...  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:

"Dripping with vintage vibe."

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

[Syntax_Error]

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

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.*

[ez24]

Ever seen Brian Douglas' videos on Control Systems Lectures? They're fantastic.

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

Thanks

[metrologist]

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...

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...

[Brumby]

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.

[EEVblog]

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.

[EEVblog]

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.

[EEVblog]

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.


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.

[b_force]

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.

[Brumby]

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.

[zapta]

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.

[EEVblog]

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.

[dexters_lab]

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!

[EEVblog]

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.

[Barny]

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.

[Fgrir]

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.

[metrologist]

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...

[ChristopherN]

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.

[b_force]

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.

[EEVblog]

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...

[EEVblog]

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? 

[Brumby]

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.