When you do live shows again

[Tom Fones]

David,
I haven’t been following this well.
feel free to get nerdy.
We will all learn something.
Cheers

[David Herrick]

Okay, thanks, Thomas. This part can go on the DVD extras for “S Number: The Movie”.

Once upon a time, Jung mentioned that the Please Mr. Postman video had reached a million views in six months, and JP wondered whether that meant that there must constantly be people watching it at all times. So…

I asked how many times one person could watch a roughly four-minute video in six months if they did nothing else. That amounts to dividing six months by four minutes, which gives about 64,000 views: well short of a million. But if 16 people were watching simultaneously, you’d get 16 times as many views, which yields a total of slightly over a million.

So if 16 people did nothing but watch Please Mr. Postman over and over for six months, that would add up to the actual number of views. And it doesn’t have to be the same 16 people throughout: any 16 people at any given time would produce the same result. That’s how the S number is defined. It doesn’t necessarily mean that that many people are watching the video at all times, but it’s an average number of simultaneous views over the lifetime of the video.

For any video, once you have its length, its lifetime, and the total number of views, you can calculate an S number in the same way. And if you don’t plug in any specific numbers but just call those factors L, M, and V, then you pretty much have derived the magic formula.

The factor F (the fraction of the video that is actually viewed) is not something that I can realistically estimate. But clearly if people aren’t watching the whole thing, then the viewing time is shorter, which decreases the likelihood of simultaneous viewing. I just take F=1 (i.e., the whole video is viewed) for the calculation and let everyone scale the numbers down by whatever factor seems reasonable to them.

[Jung Roe]

Hi David, that is brilliant! You also through your explanation just illustrated how beautiful a mathematical equation can be. I think an Einstein or GodeI talk explaining one of their formulas would follow a path like yours. I for one would be very interested in seeing and following your thread on top ten viewing videos from your formula along with Lynn’s on going thread he has graciously been doing too.

As for the viewers who would not watch an MLT video through to the end, I think they should check themselves for a pulse! LOL. 🙂

Just going off on a tangent for a second, David, have you seen the 2005 to 2010 TV series called “Numbers”? They had it on Netflix in Canada. If you haven’t you should, it’s quite amazing, about a detective (played by Rob Morrow of Northern Exposure fame) and his younger brother who is a prodigy genius mathematician professor who get’s called upon to help solve criminal cases using math. It’s like the Sherlock Holmes series. I highly recommend it if you can find it, I think you will like it. 🙂
https://youtu.be/pCkiFvyiR_k?t=1

[Tom Fones]

Thanks guys

[David Herrick]

Thanks again, Jung. I’m thinking I’ll post the first update at the beginning of the month. It looks like we’re on track for a bit of reshuffling in the standings after just ten days!

I agree that MLT videos are hard not to watch in their entirety, but there are probably some people who click on them accidentally and immediately back out, or some people who just want to revisit particular moments.

I heard about Numb3rs when it aired, but I never watched it. Some of my math teacher colleagues raved about it and recommended it to their students. I may give it a shot if I can find full episodes.

I like that illustration in the clip about the unlikelihood of winning the lottery. Someone once said that a lottery is a tax on the mathematically illiterate.

[Bill Isenberg]

This is so cool. Thanks so much for this lesson everyone. I am like Jacki, not to good with the math on my end but in my career at my job it is a must. I have to laugh when I was in school taking Algerbra I said I will never use this , but HELLO….I am …LOL…This was a great learing process guys, so intresting and Jung your the man my friend with your breakdown for us lay people…Thanks and my favorite is Lola, love that song and they way the Mona Lisa Twins do this song is so awesome.

[Jacki Hopper]

For the record, I’ve always been and remain a Visual Learner/ Concrete Learner, thus probably why Math , related stuff I’ve never understood, always will struggle with, my brain just can’t grasp those concepts, not that I’m stupid, I jyst can’t honestly grasp any of that stuff, I cannot process it… I learn best by lots of detail in visual, concrete means, thus why I’m good at poetry, drawing, trying to pkay an instrument by ear and watching how it is done…etc… If I cannot visualize a concept, then pretty much all hope is lost with me…lol????

[Rick Twomey]

With all this math equation business going on there is one song that has been left out…Drive My Car…has well over 5 million views…in fact is the only one with over 5 million…..how does it not make the Top 10 list…….and Jacki I’m with you …lost in the numbers…. the way I figure it is the more times you watch the video the more views it’s gonna have ……..I do have a legitimate question…what constitutes a “complete” view….simply the end of the song or after the “commercial” promo that MLT has after each song…..if its after the commercial then I suspect the girls are being robbed of a ton of views because not everybody is going to wait for that promo stuff to finish before clicking on another song .

[David Herrick]

Rick, Drive My Car actually came in at #11, just a hair behind Till There Was You. What’s holding it back is the fact that it’s fairly short, which makes it less likely that there is overlap in the times that various people are watching it. (All that’s being calculated is the number of simultaneous views.) It might actually rejoin the top ten soon, as the numbers for the newer videos will probably decay faster than those for the older ones. Stay tuned!

I don’t know for sure, but I’m assuming that YouTube counts it as a view no matter how much of it you watch. But yeah, if you have to watch the whole thing in order for it to register on the counter, these numbers could be way too small. I imagine we have club members who know how that works. For simplicity I’m using the full length of the posted video, including the promos, in the calculation.

[Jung Roe]

Rick, David

In the case of Drive My Car, the size of M is a big factor why it rates at 11th.

In the formula, given S (simultaneous views) has an inverse relationship with M, the bigger M (number of months since the video was posted) is, the smaller S will inherently be compared to a video that was posted more recently (smaller M). So even though Drive My Car has 5 million views, it’s over a longer period of time, so simultaneous views will be smaller than Please Mr Postman that took only 6 months to reach 1 Million. Lots of factors to consider, but I think the length of time Drive My Car has been posted puts it behind the top 10, but as David points out it’s all in flux. In the long run, Drive My Car could over take many in the top 10 depending how it’s views continue to accelerate. It will be fun to see! 🙂 .

But I forsee the new originals coming down are going to super accelerate into the stratosphere when they hit the public realm!

If there is a way to graph these, it would be interesting to see the exponential trajectory of the top videos.

***************************************************************************************************************************
If V = the total number of views, M = the number of months since the video was posted, L = the length of the video in minutes, and F = the fraction (between zero and one) of the video that is assumed to be viewed, then the average number S of simultaneous views is given by

S = ( F * V * L ) / ( 43800 * M )

where 43800 (for those who are still awake) is the conversion factor between months and minutes, i.e., the number of minutes in a month.

[David Herrick]

Well said, Jung. Meanwhile, While My Guitar Gently Weeps is even older than Drive My Car, with a similar number of views, but it made the top ten because it’s much longer, which increases the chance of the views being simultaneous. It’s a tribute to both videos that they have maintained such high S values over such a long period of time.

If MLT stopped making new videos (heaven forbid!), the more popular older ones would probably gradually climb back up in the rankings, because the disparities in the ages would become less of a factor. But most likely any new cover of a well-known song will start at or near the top and displace the others before gradually percolating downward.

When the next new video appears on YouTube I may take data on it daily and look at the trend. Good idea, Jung! I’m curious as to whether the S number would peak immediately, or if it would actually rise for a few days during the period of discovery.

[Johnnypee Parker]

Nerd alert, it’s starting to make sense and getting more interesting. These numbers are impressive.
I imagine it might be a little overwhelming for Lisa and Mona. Remember how humble they were receiving their utube award? Thanks to all for tracking these stats and letting us count on you to make sense of it all, because if left to our imagination…

JP

The thought of sixteen people anywhere in the world smiling for the same reason at precisely the same time is kinda groovy ????

[David Herrick]

That last sentence is a really nifty way of thinking about it, JP!

Let me know when this is just getting too pedantic and sucking all the fun out of it, but “simultaneous” here just means that at any given moment sixteen people are at various points in viewing the video, but not necessarily in sync with each other.

[David Herrick]

Yay, we have a new video to analyze from the start! 12 hours after its release on YouTube, You Really Got Me has an S value of 32.4. We’ll see how that number evolves from day to day.

Updates: after 13 hours it’s 31.8. After 14 hours it’s 31.0. After 20 hours it’s 26.9. After 24 hours it’s 25.7. After 27 hours it’s 24.4. After 30 hours it’s 24.4. After 33 hours it’s 23.9. After 43 hours it’s 20.5. After 48 hours it’s 19.6.

So it looks like the number of simultaneous views peaked in the first few hours, before I discovered that the video had been posted. (“Curse my metal body; I wasn’t fast enough!”) This is supported by there being dozens of comments within the first few minutes, and that number dropping off rapidly with time.

[Jung Roe]

Thanks for doing that David. It should level off at some point, but I can see this one hitting 1M in short order.
As JP put it, the thought of 31.8 to 23.9 people all over the world smiling with joy at he same time for the same reason is wonderful.