Testing AI Video Preferences in an Arizona Park

[AZ_2021]

As Google Maps has increased their focus on videos this year, a hot topic among Local Guides is whether portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) videos are preferred by the AI and which get more views. The discussion ensued on Google Maps Videos: Vertical, Horizontal or Both post by @MarkAuchincloss

@MortenCopenhagen was able to conduct anexperiment for this with 2 locations in Europe, and he noticed that the views on landscape videos surpassed those of portrait videos. I decided to test this in the US to see what the results would look like and if perhaps they’d differ. Here is an overview of how I went about it, and the results.

The How

I visited 3 “virgin” locations in Gilbert Regional Park, as shown below: Pickleball Court, Basketball Court, and the Fishing Pier. (“Virgin” meant these locations did not have any reviews, photos, or videos yet). At each spot, I took a photo, portrait video, and landscape video. I made sure to stand in the same spot/ angle while taking the shots, and kept each video to the exact same length of 4 seconds. All videos were filmed at the same day and hour.

The videos were uploaded in randomized order. (Shoutout to @AdamGT for that idea and the idea to go to a “virgin” spot.)For example, for the Basketball Court, I uploaded the portrait video prior to the landscape video. For the Fishing Pier, I did the opposite.

For the next 8 weeks, I tracked the views every Sunday for those 3 locations.

The Results

Cumulatively over 8 weeks, you can see for 2 out of the 3 locations (Basketball Court and Pickleball Court), landscape videos had the most views in total. The results echo that of which Morten noticed in his test for the European market.

Below are the 3 other charts that show the tracking of views by week for the portrait and landscape video for each location. The orange line shows the views for landscape, whereas the blue line shows the views for portrait.

Similar to the chart above, for 2 out of the 3 locations (Basketball Court and Pickleball Court)- while portrait videos initially had the lead in views, it was eventually eclipsed and overtaken as landscape videos had the lead in views. I checked again today May 7th, and this trend continues with those 3 locations.

In addition to what Morten and others have already astutely shared in the aforementioned articles, I wanted to share my thoughts on why landscape videos got more views. I believe, although we prefer portrait videos as social media has conditioned us to favor viewing in portrait for short videos (think TikTok or Instagram), the AI could prefer landscape due to a wider angle that allows it to perceive that more of the place is being shown.

How about you fellow local guides? Have you done a similar test in your region? If so, have you also noticed similar results?

[AZ_2021]

Tagging you my friend @TravellerG as you requested.

[MortenCopenhagen]

Interesting, @AZ_2021

Thanks for testing. A few comments:

Getting thousands of views is well done.

Can your upload order explain why the tall fishing pier video got more views than the wider video?

I agree that your wider videos are more information-packed than the tall videos (where a lot of “empty” sky is shown.

I speculate that wider videos could be preferred also because videos often are shown in a square format on Google Maps. And I believe that the automatic cropping from landscape to square format is safer compared to the tall videos. Simply because most camera movements are horizontal and not vertical.

Thanks for sharing this

Morten

[MarkAuchincloss]

@AZ_2021 thanks for the mention. Fascinating article inspired by @MortenCopenhagen masterful analysis, backed with bags of empirical evidence, I’m impressed. Thanks for adding to the much needed discussion on directional change & future role of portrait vs landscape videos.

[AZ_2021]

Thank you my friend @MarkAuchincloss for your kind comments as always. You made my day.

[AZ_2021]

@MortenCopenhagen Thank you for taking the time to read. I love your thought-provoking questions that give me things to think about. For now, the random order was just to make sure that it wasn’t the order of upload that determined view count.

Good point too for the reasoning behind landscape. Love your observations and how you mentioned landscape is safer due to the square cropping.

[TravellerG]

Hello my dear friends, @AZ_2021 and @MortenCopenhagen ,

I read the thread carefully but - a great mission.

And as rightly mentioned by fellow LG @MarkAuchincloss , you have proved with impirical evidence - thanks.

I would like to share some information:

On February 1st (2023), I attended a physical meeting at Google"s Mumbai office with almost 20 Googlers from different parts of the world. The two prompts which were heard there were:

1. Videos are going to be preferred over stills in the coming years

2. Vertical videos are going to be preferred in future, as more mobile users are using vertical shooting…

Of course, I have been shooting most of my videos in landscape mode only.

I’m trying to get the Google Newsletter with the vertical videos notes.

Regards

[TerryPG]

Got to agree with what @TravellerG says here, Although I still prefer Horizontal videos , But And its a big But we should all learn how to take videos, Hope it doesn’t happen, But videos may replace photos in the future.

[AZ_2021]

Love to hear from you @TravellerG

You always leave such thoughtful and supportive comments.

Wow, that is amazing you were able to meet with Googlers and found that videos will be preferred in the coming years.

Thank you for sharing your findings.

[AZ_2021]

@TerryPG Thank you for sharing my friend. That makes sense.

PS. I like your new profile picture. Everytime I see it, I think of Albert Einstein.

[TerryPG]

Thank you my friend @AZ_2021 I think.

[TravellerG]

Hello dear friends, @TerryPG & @AZ_2021 ,

Here is the screenshot of the circular mail from Google, which was published close to Jan 26th 2023.

There are quite a few discussions happening in the open forums (Google Search) too.

[TravellerG]

Hello my dear friends @AZ_2021 & @TerryPG

Yes, there are changes going to happen to favour the Portrait Mode on mobile & videos as the propriety - maybe Google can use these videos later for their products.

Kindly spare a few minutes to see THIS video at 1:03 minutes - an immersive view of Google Maps.

In the same way, these videos may make immersive views in future - who knows?

Yes, our Terry Ji’s DP surely reminds us of the famous scientist Albert Einstein… he…he…he…

Regards

[AZ_2021]

Love to hear your laughter @TravellerG

Wonderful share as always. I will watch the video as well.

[TerryPG]

Very interesting video, I do believe those of us that adapt and change first will have a great advantage on posting what Google A1 likes and prefers and what the public like to see.

And by the way I am in @AdamGT "s words ( a much better looking bloke than that**German renowned Physicist)

[TravellerG]

Most welcome my loving friends, @AZ_2021 & @TerryPG .

Yes, I agree with our Terry Ji… Let us get ready for the changes…

[AZ_2021]

Too funny my friend @TerryPG I love that quote that you used- “a much better looking bloke”

[photoslinger]

@AZ_2021 Awesome work! Thank you for taking the time to share your findings! Would you consider updating us with the latest view counts a couple of more times in the near future? Curious if the algo will eventually select a new preferred orientation.

[AZ_2021]

Great idea @photoslinger

I will make a note to check back on this in a few weeks and post updates.

[Rednewt74]

Thank you @AZ_2021 , for taking the time to do such a detailed test.

Video will be the future of media for Google Maps because this is what Google wants. I’m really not crazy about the idea, but I have put up about 20 videos, and so far they haven’t done well.

I must say that the ‘hero shot’ of food in the Google video does look pretty good.

My primary hobby is shooting video of live music and content for our local access TV station; I am not a pro by any means, but I am fussy about what video I put out. I know I’m a pretty shaky videographer, so I use a tripod or a gimbal a lot. I don’t relish having to pull one out at every POI I’m shooting at (of course I wouldn’t).

I edit my photos before I upload them, I expect I’d want to do that for videos as well.

Like everyone else I shoot video in landscape for other purposes. I’d had assumed that Google Maps would want vertical video, but as others have pointed out it’s not a great look for outdoors.,

I noticed in the video on immersive routes that the video image starts out vertical, but then they zoom in and became landscape.

I have been experimenting with combing stills and videos to create videos for Maps. I use Capcut and I’m finding it fairly fast.

Here are links to couple of them. I’d love to hear if anyone thinks this approach might have value.

St. Margaret of Scotland Church

Filmore Glen State Park