In this web content, the author discusses the challenge of determining the size of YouTube and the limitations researchers face in obtaining accurate denominators for social media platforms. They highlight the use of undocumented APIs, such as YouTube’s “Inner Tube,” to guess random URLs and collect video data. The author also mentions the team’s effort to analyze random YouTube videos, including language representation and video recommendations. They provide insights into the growth of YouTube, the distribution of views, and the importance of studying the long tail of user-generated content. The author acknowledges the ethical considerations surrounding the publication of discovered videos and expresses the importance of publishing high-level data on large user-generated media platforms.
https://ethanzuckerman.com/2023/12/22/how-big-is-youtube/