Do ratings matter? A completely unscientific look at YouTube

This is completely unscientific (i may look into it more in the coming weeks) but after trawling through YouTube for some songs and events to listen to whilst in the fountain of fun that is my work, i decided to check out how useful the ratings actually are. I have found them close to useless and really have to know what i'm looking for (or waste time previewing the first 10 seconds).

The issue seems to be that so few people actually rate or make a comment and the percentage that vote seems to be fairly constant no matter how many people view a video. What is interesting is that for videos involving an individual doing something visibly difficult (such as in sports) more people seem to vote and comment (again more analysis would need to be done but i looked at quite a few beyond that below and it was fairly consistent).

Now, you can argue that the point of user generated content is that the Wisdom of Crowds effect means that small numbers of the crowd voting builds an emergent validity to the data. So in Wikipedia few contribute relative to those who read. However, it's much easier to click to rate or make a throwaway comment on a youtube post (i'd say 1/3rd of these comments are arguments!) - therefore i'm not so convinced that what works for Wikipedia (where you typically need to have some level of knowledge about the subject) will work for other user collaborative systems.

I don't know who is rating, but may of the comments are argument between members who disagree with what has been said. Not sure if you can rate multiple times.... but if 1 in 500 random people made a comment on my music tastes i'm not sure it would really mean anything to me. The problem is that you really need to have some knowledge of the background of that person before you can guage the value of the comment (if that 1 person was Brian Eno it may make a difference to me!). In a single click to rate, the meaning is almost pointless to a flaw - i'm not sure rating should really even be in there. Perhaps when something has been very highly rated by a high % of people who view it there may be something in it, but otherwise it really skews what you look and - and probably what others look at too. If only 1 in every 250 people with "bad taste" (relative to me - imagine the other 249 have "good taste") vote for a pointless video, it will be one of the top videos on YouTube.

Anyway, here are a few measurements i made on viewings in YourTube. Notice that sports videos that capture individuals doing cool things are as popular as Larry Page and Steve Jobs videos... and us tech folk are well versed in rating systems and form a fairly niche market.

Larry Page speaks at the AAAS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_3OCq_vTWM
24,036 Views
95 Ratings
43 Comments
0.004% (1 in 250)

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA
604,988 Views
2493 Ratings
410 Comments
0.004% (1 in 250)

Coldplay - Yellow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI8I6qcxWyU
1,491,143 Views
4238 ratings
1756 Comments
0.003% (1 in 333)

U2 - One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFWPeVfWB9o
712,553 Views
1429 ratings
422 Comments
0.002% (1 in 500)

Perfect Day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrGT-CSmBZg
686 Views
2 Comments
2 Ratings
0.003% (1 in 333)

Carlos Santana & Mana
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrGT-CSmBZg
118,134 Views
188 Ratings
65 Comments
0.0016% (1 in 625)

Featured items...

Obama Girl vs...McCain Mama? (#6 most subscribed)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86HEv_Wtyj8
25,104 Ratings
65 Ratings
69 Comments
0.0026% (1 in 386)

Speed Stacking - Nearly World Record (first in sports category)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U951R_r-3fM
73,805 Views
549 Ratings
1323 Comments
0.007 (1 in 134)

NBA Finals Lebron Etch A Sketch (sports cat)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYM__s3R5q0
1,464,610 Views
7442 Ratings
7543 Comments
0.005% (1 in 197)