中国邮电高校学报(英文版) ›› 2017, Vol. 24 ›› Issue (3): 58-69.doi: 10.1016/S1005-8885(17)60212-7

• Networks • 上一篇    下一篇

Analyzing the dynamics of online video popularity

欧阳书馨,李辰宇,李学明   

  1. 北京邮电大学
  • 收稿日期:2016-10-21 修回日期:2017-06-27 出版日期:2017-06-30 发布日期:2017-06-30
  • 通讯作者: 李辰宇 E-mail:lichenyu@126.com
  • 基金资助:
    中国111项目

Analyzing the dynamics of online video popularity

  • Received:2016-10-21 Revised:2017-06-27 Online:2017-06-30 Published:2017-06-30
  • Supported by:
    111 Project of China

摘要: Given the large volume of video content and the diversity of user attention, it is of great importance to understand the characteristics of online video popularity for technological, economic and social reasons. In this paper, based on the data collected from a leading online video service provider in China, namely Youku, the dynamics of online video popularity are analyzed in-depth from four key aspects: overall popularity distribution, individual popularity distribution, popularity evolution pattern and early-future popularity relationship. How the popularity of a set of newly upload videos distributes throughout the observation period is first studied. Then the notion of active days is proposed, and the per-day and per-hour popularity distributions of individual videos are carefully studied. Next, how the popularity of an individual video evolves over time is investigated. The evolution patterns are further defined according to the number and temporal locations of popularity bursts, in order to describe the popularity growth trend. At last, the linear relationship between early video popularity and future video popularity are examined on a log-log scale. The relationship is found to be largely impacted by the popularity evolution patterns. Therefore, the specialized models are proposed to describe the correlation according to the popularity evolution patterns. Experiment results show that specialized models can better fit the correlation than a general model. Above all, the analysis results in our work can provide direct help in practical for the interested parties of online video service such as service providers, online advisers, and network operators.

关键词: online video service, online content popularity, popularity evolution pattern, early-future popularity relationship

Abstract: Given the large volume of video content and the diversity of user attention, it is of great importance to understand the characteristics of online video popularity for technological, economic and social reasons. In this paper, based on the data collected from a leading online video service provider in China, namely Youku, the dynamics of online video popularity are analyzed in-depth from four key aspects: overall popularity distribution, individual popularity distribution, popularity evolution pattern and early-future popularity relationship. How the popularity of a set of newly upload videos distributes throughout the observation period is first studied. Then the notion of active days is proposed, and the per-day and per-hour popularity distributions of individual videos are carefully studied. Next, how the popularity of an individual video evolves over time is investigated. The evolution patterns are further defined according to the number and temporal locations of popularity bursts, in order to describe the popularity growth trend. At last, the linear relationship between early video popularity and future video popularity are examined on a log-log scale. The relationship is found to be largely impacted by the popularity evolution patterns. Therefore, the specialized models are proposed to describe the correlation according to the popularity evolution patterns. Experiment results show that specialized models can better fit the correlation than a general model. Above all, the analysis results in our work can provide direct help in practical for the interested parties of online video service such as service providers, online advisers, and network operators.

Key words: online video service, online content popularity, popularity evolution pattern, early-future popularity relationship