
Video views vs Time Viewed
How does view count correspond to time viewed?
Example 1. Here is a table of statistics per month, gathered from the JWPlatform analytics, from one of our clients.
Month | Video Views | Time Viewed | Time per view
November | 286 | 1.75 h | 0.37 min
December | 409 | 2.57 h | 0.377 min
January | 253 | 89 min | 0.35 min
February | 135 | 54.6 min | 0.4 min
March | 77 | 1.87 h | 1.45 min
April | 27 | 52.1 min | 1.9 min
All the videos are automatically generated and approximately 30 - 40 seconds (0.5 - 0.7 min) in length. From November 2014 to February 2015, we had 0.3 - 0.4 min per video view. But now the things are changing: view count is descending and time viewed is ascending, hence the ratio is more than one minute per video view.
Approximate number of videos created along these months:
December | 88
January | 37
February | 37
March | 57
April | 36
Example 2. Another client shows 203 video views for April (April 3 to May 3), corresponding to 3.74 hours viewed, which leads to 1.1 min per video, though videos are all 30-38 sec long. So this is not limited to one account.
Finally, questions.
- Why such an inconsistency?
- If a user opens the webpage with player, plays the video, then plays it again - does JWPlatform count one view or two?
- Which of the two numbers (views vs time viewed) is more reliable/accurate?
Thank you!