@Rednewt74 you said “when I am at home, under explore, I mostly get posts from Guides that I am following”. I’ve been testing this over the past week and none of the Explore posts seemed to be on my “following” list, but I’m examining each author to determine if they appear to be local or tourists - adding the local ones to follow. Still trying to identify other Local Guides in my country and entice them to join the Top100 Leaderboards.
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@AZ_2021 If this 75% measure by @Rednewt74 can be used as a standard, I just checked mine and found that that my Top 3 videos accounts for over 75% of my video views. That’s 10% of my videos, because I only have 30.
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@tony_b , I have about 160, so my top 10 is only about 6%. I believe it’s pretty similar for my photos. That’s why I could delete thousands of photos earlier this year without affecting my numbers. Every time I look at @MelTG 's or @Mikeinthefalls views per photo I’m just blown away. But I am quite happy with the improvement of my Views per photo and per video. To my surprise I recently hit 2 million video views.
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@tony_b ,
Please keep me posted on how this goes. I think it’s a great idea. I have found a couple that I believe are in my area, but it is hard to be sure.
You have some great numbers on your video views @Rednewt74 .
I have fooling around with @abermans idea of 2 and 3 second long videos , I find it works better on outside POI’s frontage. I don’t believe it’s long enough for interior shots or foodie shots. Only been doing it for a week, my highest one is 3,300 views not earth shattering but it would be my number video in 4-5 months, still playing with it. I don’t have featured video like @tony_b does yet, but I have noticed 2 POI’s with a video as #1 here locally. So it has started in Canada. we had better be prepared.
Here is the POI I mentioned that has the video , I am not impressed. Best Cannabis store in Port Hope On.
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@TerryPG ,
Thank you. I agree with you about super short videos not working as well on food and interiors. A video in first place is still a rarity. I have had one, but the POI had very few photos.
I noticed that @Mikeinthefalls star video (8 sec exterior pan) for this restaurant (not on my pc to do full link) is #1 with 300,000 plus views already. Generally, I haven’t thought it makes sense for them to put a video first, however Mikeinthefalls video does work just as well as a storefront photo. I have started doing some storefront vertical pans; I will have to go back and see if any are in first place.
TerryPG, have you tried using the stabilization edit available in Google photos?
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@TerryPG I just did an update on my tracking spreadsheet, and videos are now presenting more shocking variations than photos.One video which emded the month at 2,808 is now at 10,049 views, an increase of 7,241 in a week, which is more than the total views of most of the other videos in my list. That video isn’t a #1 on the POI, but it is the only video there. (Seems to be #10 actually, so just barely in on the “featured photo” list).
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@TerryPG ,
Did you notice that the video is the only video on poi?
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@tony_b it is great that you have one that is taking off. I hope it keeps going!
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@Rednewt74 @tony_b @TerryPG @AdamGT
Trying to understand the logic of video featuring and total number of views is just as mind boggling as it was for photos.
I have ~2800 videos uploaded in the last 2 years but clearly most of those uploaded in the past have not tracked much viewers attention.
Videos uploaded in recent months are very acting oddly. Clearly, videos are being featured more frequently (as claimed in my post) with few cases even at 1st position. The logic to why video would be featured vs. photo (in many of my uploads both taken from the same position) is unclear and seems almost random.
Not all videos are welcomed - I did a quick test of uploading a “same product video” for 10 locations (think the type of promo materials starbucks upload across their shops) and that did not generate the expected results - e.g. those videos did not feature or generated high views.
On the other hand single video of food in specific restaurants, still seem to be doing statistically well in getting featured and views.
The number of video’s views as noted in some cases also does not seem to relate to the typical views of photos or popularity of the location.
I tried (a super) popular location with direct collection of videos share - none of them got picked and they generated <100 views in a week (so likely can be removed soon).
I tried the combo of popular (very) location in London + Provisioned full review + photos AND videos… that seem to hit a jackpot.
Not sure if this will last but in one week it hit:
Video#1 37k views (2nd featured)
Photo#1 51k (3nd featured)
The odd thing is 2 UNFEATURED videos are clocking (ahem) 63k views and 70k views (!).
So unclear how these view are generated.
Another odd case:
Storefront video which I uploaded only 3 days ago for a restaurant is clocking 26k views (!).
The main featured photo of the location (by the owner - which means likely never changed) clocked 2.5m views in 2 years (so roughly 3.5k per day).
Oh, and my video is NOT featured.
So how in the world?
Elementary, my dear Watson? NOT!
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No @Rednewt74 I didn’t even know about a Stabilization edit. I will check out this evening. And yes I noticed it the only video.
Editing this because I found and tried the stabilization button. What a huge difference, game changer. Thank you rednewt.
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You too are also getting some good numbers @abermans Either way Videos ARE the future and we will I believe be ready for it.
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Great numbers @tony_b I too have a similar one that seems on fire, not quite as good as yours. Question did you see that particular video on Explore at all?
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@TerryPG , I’m glad to help. I should mention that you can lose a little resolution when using stabilization, because it crops in on the image a little in order to make the processed image fill the screen. I looked, but got mixed info on whether your Samsung 12 shoots in 4k.
I’m so glad everyone is talking about video and how it is going for them
Take care,
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"Not all videos are welcomed - I did a quick test of uploading a “same product video” for 10 locations (think the type of promo materials starbucks upload across their shops) "
Can you link to an example or explain more what you mean? I’m not familiar with this idea.
Thanks,
To the usual suspects: @abermans ,@tony_b, @TerryPG, @AZ_2021 , @JustJake
I recently stumbled across a guide that is posting a ton of videos right now. When sorted by date and you search for “0:” you immediately get 77 hits.
He is Jeff Morris, Level 8 . 78,091,632 photo views with over 700 videos . He seems to shoot video at every poi.
Like us the views range widely, but here are two examples.
The classic pizza reveal a month ago with 23,113 views
A food pan followed by a pan of the view from the table , 2 weeks ago and 48,433 views.
I’m not saying I think he is doing anything we aren’t, but I thought you’d be interested in seeing what someone else is doing.
Please, if you have a video that is doing well, share a link so we all can see. While it still seems hard to understand why certain videos (even ones that aren’t very good) catch the AI’s eye, I firmly believe that the more you watch, the more you learn.
When I was helping with getting people into the Food/video challenge, I made a list of about 20 videos that I thought would do well in the challenge. I’ll be curious to see if any of them come out on top. I wonder if the judges have some way to run them through the AI to see what it would choose.
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Not that I’m aware @TerryPG
When I posted that video I was hardly aware of Explore or what it was all about.
But today I finally made a positive connection. Checking on the last two POIs where I made mixed contributions, the video was ahead of the photos in each case, a thing that was unheard of a few months ago. Quickly switching over to the Explore tab, the first item at the top of the list was my recent video.
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Wow that’s amazing @Rednewt74 to see Jeff Morris’ focus on videos. That’s an impressive amount of views, and it seems to show that food videos are the most popular- seems from what you shared, top 2 were of food. 
Yes, I will definitely keep an eye on any other videos I have that are doing well besides the one listed on Adam’s Star Video Album. Seems though my star video was of a museum. I don’t have many videos of food itself(just a few), since I usually just do take-out and bring it home to eat. (I prefer being able to watch a nice movie while eating).
I will have to try to eat in more and get those food closeup videos; those seem to be the key to getting more views and seem more impactful to users as shown by the views.
Love to hear as well how you were helping others in this Video challenge and continuing to do such detailed analysis.
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Wow love to see that @tony_b . It’s interesting to see how the top 3 videos of yours got 75% of the video views. I noticed that too, how my top one eats up a pretty big portion of my video views too.
Love how Rednewt pointed this out.
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@AZ_2021 ,
I too usually do take out . So here is what I do.
At night it can be hard to get a good storefront photo, but I try. I try not to shoot video in very low light.
Before grabbing my food, I do some interior video pans. Then when I get home i do some closeup video pans (moving around the food) or some overhead and moving in shots. I try and minimize the fact that I’m not at the restaurant. If it is pizza, having someone open the box (the “reveal”) while moving in for a close up works well .
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