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Ethan Zuckerman

How big is YouTube? It's a hard question: it took us almost two years to solve it. But now we know, and we've published a big paper in the Journal of Quantitative Description: journalqd.org/article/view/406

And here's a blog post from me explaining why this is an interesting question and a little bit of what it took us to answer it: ethanzuckerman.com/2023/12/22/

Expect lots more from me on YouTube and what it means to study the long tail of the internet - the quotidian web - when I'm no longer knocked on my back with COVID.

How big is YouTube? It's a hard question: it took us almost two years to solve it. But now we know, and we've published a big paper in the Journal of Quantitative Description: journalqd.org/article/view/406

And here's a blog post from me explaining why this is an interesting question and a little bit of what it took us to answer it: ethanzuckerman.com/2023/12/22/

22 Dec 2023 at 17:30 | Open on octodon.social
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Gaëtan Leurent

@ethanz
Nice work!

Do you have an estimate of the YouTube data storage size?

22 Dec 2023 at 23:46 | Open on mamot.fr
Andrés

@ethanz
Hi, sorry, probably a dumb question:
billion = 1000 million?
Billion = million million?

22 Dec 2023 at 23:50 | Open on fosstodon.org
Sam Alder

@ethanz very cool to see some answers on this question. I wish the companies would just be more transparent but I guess that would be bad for capitalism or something.

23 Dec 2023 at 0:26 | Open on mstdn.ca
Ethan Zuckerman

In 2021, Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci and I released a free book, An Illustrated Field Guide to Social Media. In 2024, we'll be releasing a revised edition with MIT Press... and you can help us shape the new book, article by article: publicinfrastructure.org/2023/

6 Nov 2023 at 18:01 | Open on octodon.social
DJM (freelance for hire)

Hi @ethanz - in the "Countries/Regions" section, nothing on the African continent as a whole? From Facebook's FreeBasics to disinformation, from ubiquitous Whatsapp use to mobile as the main way to access the "Web", through social media... social e-commerce during the first Covid lockdown, the battle(s) for the submarine cables, scammers, etc.
There's IMHO a lot to explore...

6 Nov 2023 at 18:52 | Open on masto.ai
Erlend Sogge Heggen

@ethanz I was hoping to see sections for:
- Network effects; lock-in; credible exit
- Identity
- Protocols

6 Nov 2023 at 23:09 | Open on writing.exchange
Erin Kissane

@ethanz A section on manipulation (various rotations on the idea—platforms acting on users, open and covert third parties including companies, influence orgs, and nation-states acting on users and platforms, users acting on platforms) would be extremely welcome.

8 Nov 2023 at 18:10 | Open on mas.to
Ethan Zuckerman

Thanks to decisions made by Elon Musk and others, the internet is becoming unknowable - it can't be studied, can't be reported on, and it's very bad news for democracy. This month's column for Prospect (UK): prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/t

1 Nov 2023 at 20:31 | Open on octodon.social
Ethan Zuckerman

Competition for Twitter is good. Threads, thus far, is not - my quick take on the newest entry to the social media menagerie: ethanzuckerman.com/2023/07/07/

8 Jul 2023 at 2:18 | Open on octodon.social
🐙🐇🐝Pointed Sarah🐞🐡🐧

@ethanz to be honest I think the second point, about the feed being algorithmically flooded with influencers, is so serious that it could singlehandedly prevent the app from having any influence on twitter at all. if this is anything like what their vision for the app is long term, it also causes me to question purely on content grounds whether this thing would provide value to the fediverse. if activitypub on threads were launched tomorrow, it would be like an advertising nuke going off, because that's all threads produces right now

@ethanz to be honest I think the second point, about the feed being algorithmically flooded with influencers, is so serious that it could singlehandedly prevent the app from having any influence on twitter at all. if this is anything like what their vision for the app is long term, it also causes me to question purely on content grounds whether this thing would provide value to the fediverse. if activitypub on threads were launched tomorrow, it would be like an advertising nuke going off, because...

8 Jul 2023 at 2:41 | Open on mathstodon.xyz
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