Ideal length for web video
“For a two-week period, we measured viewed-seconds for a sample of 188,055 videos, totaling 22,724,606 streams, on six top video sites (due to partnership limitations, we cannot disclose which sites). Limitations of this approach include the fact that we are only studying short-form content….YouTube was not included (although many of the videos in the sample mirror identical videos on YouTube).“ tubemogul
Nothing too surprising about the numbers. They seem to support the notion that “shorter videos work better on the web”. But that conclusion depends on us using a metric that is based upon “complete views”. If we count only viewers who watch the entire video then a shorter video will always have “more viewers”. To retain even half the viewers the video has to be under a minute – 30 seconds would be even better.
But supposing we add another metric – say “minutes watched”.
Going from the chart:
1000 people watch a one minute video, 464 are likely to finish – minutes watched 464
1000 people watch a two minute video, 237 are likely to finish – minutes watched 474
for a 3 minute video – 484 minutes
for a 5 minute video – 471 minutes watched
for a 30 second video – only 330 minutes
Ideal run-time for web video 2.5 – 4 minutes.
A hard metric to measure, for instance how do you classify people that clicked on a video just to see if it was the right video they were expecting and then perhaps clicked straight away?
I think your research is, admirable, but seriously flawed. Simply because you failed to measure the entertainment/information value of clips being tested. I’d be keen to see a list of the content you measured. I have no doubt the online attention span is under 8 seconds. But if somebody has something interesting to say, with something interesting to see, you can even hold my attention. And I have one very short span.
I reckon your ideal web video length at 2.5-5 minutes is still too long. I’ve been around video production for a few years and anything over 3mins for a corporate type video is seriously stretching it! As you say it is also heavily dependant on the type of video, for eg. i’ll happily watch a 3min music video i like or a 23min documentary on something I’m interested in but generally won’t watch something I have no interest in for more than 30seconds!!