Is anyone OK with the new thumbnails and titles?

[AxelRantila]

7 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

And it's not like the other channels you're subscribed to aren't doing the same.

Some channels I subscribed to make silly thumbnails yes. However, they are much more reasonable and far from as cringe worthy as Linus' thumbnails

[LinusTech]

2 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

The younger demographic is clearly what is driving this trend of crazy over the top thumbnails and clickbait titles. They love that kind of stuff in general. So of course, younger ones are going to have more of it.

 

This is one of the reasons why I don't believe I'm part of the target LTT demographic anymore. Their target demographic has seemingly shifted from say 16-30 to say 8-14.

 

As usual there's a lot of discussion in this thread about "feelings" - feeling like content in the old studio was better, feeling like we're targeting a younger demographic, feeling like we don't have passion anymore, feeling like we've prioritized quantity over quality..

 

My life runs on facts, not feelings.

 

Fact: We don't produce more videos than we did 4 years ago and we don't intend to increase our upload frequency this year. So... If we're prioritizing quantity over quality we're pretty shit at it.

 

Fact: The Windows 9 video (I'll focus on this one since it's a new video made with the new writers that is getting crapped on) was more thoroughly benchmarked and researched than almost anything else we've done this year. It took one of the new writers days to ensure we got it right because performance differences between operating systems aren't always simple to measure and we wanted to make sure we were appropriately guiding people.

 

Fact: It delivered exactly what we set out to deliver. It contained all the information you need about a community mod called Windows 9. Then it went a step further once we discovered there were some issues that would make the mod impractical for most people and included a handy guide on optimizing your Windows 10 experience.

 

Fact: Everything from writing to hosting to editing was completed to a level of thoroughness and professionalism that eclipses the vast majority of what we produced "back in the old office". Build guides and Scrapyard Wars obviously have better production values, but those are HUGE projects and only come once in a while. Windows 9 is what we strive to do with a normal daily release.

 

Fact: Software videos have performed horribly for us throughout our history with one exception - the 5 things you never knew about Plex video - where we experimented with a more click-bait style topic and title.

 

Fact: Considering all those other facts, we dressed up a high quality piece of content with a cancerous thumbnail and enticing title because by the time we've invested so heavily in a piece of content, it is a BAD DECISION to "feel" like we're "too good" to draw in viewers by whatever means are necessary in the current YouTube ecosystem.

 

The revitalize your laptop video absolutely could/should have been better, but put your feelings about that one video aside and look at facts. Are our videos "bad" or have your interests shifted? Have OUR interests shifted? Have the tech industry's interests shifted?

 

What does "bad" even mean to you? Does it mean only kids want to watch it?

 

More facts incoming. We've seen nothing to indicate a demographic shift. Here are screen grabs straight out of my dashboard for last year and this year:

 

 

So I don't want any of this to come across like I don't read/appreciate/factor in viewer feedback. I *do*. It drives me to make myself and my team better.

 

It just isn't the only factor.

 

I have a lot of things to consider - many of which the average viewer has no way of knowing about. Maybe a video is in order about this shift.

[Squibbies18]

To be honest i have absolutely no problem with the new videos and to be honest it's a pretty petty thing to be getting upset about, as long as the content and the video itself is good then WHO CARES?  

[en1gMATIC]

I'm 13 and ive watched linuses videos for a while. I don't feel like the content has shifted to become "more interesting" to me at all. I find the videos he made in 2011 were just as good and not really better or worse than the ones he is making now, with the sole complaint that I wish he would still do unboxings

[LAwLz]

40 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

Fact: We don't produce more videos than we did 4 years ago and we don't intend to increase our upload frequency this year. So... If we're prioritizing quantity over quality we're pretty shit at it.

Well.

1) You have. In the last 4 years you have created TechQuickie and ChannelSuperFun. Now, depending on how you count "4 years ago" you might include TechQuickie but at the very least you have the Superfun videos on top of your other things these days. Not saying that's a bad thing, but the "we don't produce more videos than we did 4 years ago" is not exactly true.

2) Prioritizing quantity over quality does not mean you need to ramp up the amount of videos you make. You have quite a few times said that you have had to rush videos, or that you were out of ideas and just had to upload something. I get that you religiously want to follow your "1 video a day" scheduled and I am sure people would be in an uproar if you missed a day, but that is still "prioritizing quantity over quality". You would rather upload one bad video just to meet the quota for the week, instead of making a better video (or "raising the average quality of your videos that week" or however you want to measure it).

 

53 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

More facts incoming. We've seen nothing to indicate a demographic shift. Here are screen grabs straight out of my dashboard for last year and this year:

Oh come on Linus... Do you honestly believe your average viewer is a 30 year old man? Just look at the meetup from 2015. The average age seems to be around 15.

Since you seem to like facts, let me tell you another fact. People under the age of 18 lie about their age on the Internet. "Yes I am over 18" is most likely one of the most common lies these days.

But your example doesn't really prove much. You're comparing the last 3 months of data vs data from 2016, which is quite heavily weighted towards the latter end of the year (because your channel has grown and thus you have more views at the end of the year compared to the beginning). How about you go 3 years back and look? Not that it would matter that much either since like I said, people lie about their age all the time on the Internet, but it would be a bit less misleading than just looking at data that's mostly ~half a year old.

 

 

Side note: Damn that is a really large divide between male and female viewers. Reminds me of when @Drak3 said that you should assume there's a 50/50 split between males and females on the forum... That seems to indicate that it's more like a 95:5 split, which is way more in line with what I've assumed.

[LinusTech]

8 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Well.

1) You have. In the last 4 years you have created TechQuickie and ChannelSuperFun. Now, depending on how you count "4 years ago" you might include TechQuickie but at the very least you have the Superfun videos on top of your other things these days. Not saying that's a bad thing, but the "we don't produce more videos than we did 4 years ago" is not exactly true.

2) Prioritizing quantity over quality does not mean you need to ramp up the amount of videos you make. You have quite a few times said that you have had to rush videos, or that you were out of ideas and just had to upload something. I get that you religiously want to follow your "1 video a day" scheduled and I am sure people would be in an uproar if you missed a day, but that is still "prioritizing quantity over quality". You would rather upload one bad video just to meet the quota for the week, instead of making a better video (or "raising the average quality of your videos that week" or however you want to measure it).

 

Oh come on Linus... Do you honestly believe your average viewer is a 30 year old man? Just look at the meetup from 2015. The average age seems to be around 15.

Since you seem to like facts, let me tell you another fact. People under the age of 18 lie about their age on the Internet. "Yes I am over 18" is most likely one of the most common lies these days.

But your example doesn't really prove much. You're comparing the last 3 months of data vs data from 2016, which is quite heavily weighted towards the latter end of the year (because your channel has grown and thus you have more views at the end of the year compared to the beginning). How about you go 3 years back and look? Not that it would matter that much either since like I said, people lie about their age all the time on the Internet, but it would be a bit less misleading than just looking at data that's mostly ~half a year old.

 

 

Side note: Damn that is a really large divide between male and female viewers. Reminds me of when @Drak3 said that you should assume there's a 50/50 split between males and females on the forum... That seems to indicate that it's more like a 95:5 split, which is way more in line with what I've assumed.

1. We used to also produce 3-4 NCIX Tech Tips per week. Factoring that in, our production is lower than before.

2. Fair point, but the only reason we have trouble making the 6 per week is that we're putting more into them. I could easily bang off 6 unboxings in an afternoon the way I used to and go fishing. The only reason we're rushing on a Friday is that we made better videos than we used to on Monday-Thursday.

 

As for the demographics, I've never gone back that far, but it was pretty enlightening. We're skewing much more heavily towards older viewers. Looks like some people - not necessarily the ones that show up a fan meetup because they have jobs and stuff - are appreciating the increased production values.

 

 

Looks like we're heading in the right direction IF the objective was to attract older viewers, which it isn't. That's just one of those silly "people on the Internet" things where content creators are judged based on the perceived age of their audience. Who cares.

[WMGroomAK]

6 minutes ago, LinusTech said:

1. We used to also produce 3-4 NCIX Tech Tips per week. Factoring that in, our production is lower than before.

2. Fair point, but the only reason we have trouble making the 6 per week is that we're putting more into them. I could easily bang off 6 unboxings in an afternoon the way I used to and go fishing. The only reason we're rushing on a Friday is that we made better videos than we used to on Monday-Thursday.

 

As for the demographics, I've never gone back that far, but it was pretty enlightening. We're skewing much more heavily towards older viewers. Looks like some people - not necessarily the ones that show up a fan meetup because they have jobs and stuff - are appreciating the increased production values.

 

 

Looks like we're heading in the right direction IF the objective was to attract older viewers, which it isn't. That's just one of those silly "people on the Internet" things where content creators are judged based on the perceived age of their audience. Who cares.

I would say based on your last two posts that from 2014 to the end of 2016, you are seeing about 140 million views additionally a year, although there is not really enough data sets yet to make any long term statistical analysis... Assuming (big assumption) you do continue a linear growth, you should break 500 million views a year this year.    

 

Just have to say Good Job to that!

[LinusTech]

27 minutes ago, WMGroomAK said:

I would say based on your last two posts that from 2014 to the end of 2016, you are seeing about 140 million views additionally a year, although there is not really enough data sets yet to make any long term statistical analysis... Assuming (big assumption) you do continue a linear growth, you should break 500 million views a year this year.    

 

Just have to say Good Job to that!

Thx mang

[Misanthrope]

1 hour ago, LinusTech said:

Looks like we're heading in the right direction IF the objective was to attract older viewers, which it isn't. That's just one of those silly "people on the Internet" things where content creators are judged based on the perceived age of their audience. Who cares.

I don't believe the full impact of the "clickbait" and "Shit thumbnails" change (Not that I share that opinion, just naming them for the sake of this point) can be seen yet. I think that it would take more time before any significant drop off you rarely see an immediate exodus or huge shift in target audiences and it's far too soon to draw conclusion.

 

But again, this is assuming you give credit to the criticism then justify it by saying it works: Too soon to call but also the criticism just doesn't seems to be valid to me: Impulse viewers seem to care about the topic (i.e. they care it's about Ryzen, clickbaity or not) and most loyal viewers take a while to just shift their viewing habits and drop off or renew interest.

[Kaose]

On 07/03/2017 at 8:25 PM, Ethan Meskin said:

i dont really mind or even care

i didnt notice

[AlwaysFSX]

5 hours ago, LinusTech said:

 

As usual there's a lot of discussion in this thread about "feelings" - feeling like content in the old studio was better, feeling like we're targeting a younger demographic, feeling like we don't have passion anymore, feeling like we've prioritized quantity over quality..

 

My life runs on facts, not feelings.

 

Fact: We don't produce more videos than we did 4 years ago and we don't intend to increase our upload frequency this year. So... If we're prioritizing quantity over quality we're pretty shit at it.

 

Fact: The Windows 9 video (I'll focus on this one since it's a new video made with the new writers that is getting crapped on) was more thoroughly benchmarked and researched than almost anything else we've done this year. It took one of the new writers days to ensure we got it right because performance differences between operating systems aren't always simple to measure and we wanted to make sure we were appropriately guiding people.

 

Fact: It delivered exactly what we set out to deliver. It contained all the information you need about a community mod called Windows 9. Then it went a step further once we discovered there were some issues that would make the mod impractical for most people and included a handy guide on optimizing your Windows 10 experience.

 

Fact: Everything from writing to hosting to editing was completed to a level of thoroughness and professionalism that eclipses the vast majority of what we produced "back in the old office". Build guides and Scrapyard Wars obviously have better production values, but those are HUGE projects and only come once in a while. Windows 9 is what we strive to do with a normal daily release.

 

Fact: Software videos have performed horribly for us throughout our history with one exception - the 5 things you never knew about Plex video - where we experimented with a more click-bait style topic and title.

 

Fact: Considering all those other facts, we dressed up a high quality piece of content with a cancerous thumbnail and enticing title because by the time we've invested so heavily in a piece of content, it is a BAD DECISION to "feel" like we're "too good" to draw in viewers by whatever means are necessary in the current YouTube ecosystem.

 

The revitalize your laptop video absolutely could/should have been better, but put your feelings about that one video aside and look at facts. Are our videos "bad" or have your interests shifted? Have OUR interests shifted? Have the tech industry's interests shifted?

 

What does "bad" even mean to you? Does it mean only kids want to watch it?

 

More facts incoming. We've seen nothing to indicate a demographic shift. Here are screen grabs straight out of my dashboard for last year and this year:

 

So I don't want any of this to come across like I don't read/appreciate/factor in viewer feedback. I *do*. It drives me to make myself and my team better.

 

It just isn't the only factor.

 

I have a lot of things to consider - many of which the average viewer has no way of knowing about. Maybe a video is in order about this shift.

Sounds like it's just catering to the general idiot on YouTube instead of trying to educate them in a fun manner. Bit of a difference there.

 

$.02

[mmaatt747]

6 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

Oh come on Linus... Do you honestly believe your average viewer is a 30 year old man? Just look at the meetup from 2015. The average age seems to be around 15.

 

Although you have some valid points, don't confuse or even compare the meetup turnout to viewer base.  I seriously doubt the desire to meet/hang out with the LMG crew is something the older viewers (myself included I'm 38) are at all interested in.

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, mmaatt747 said:

Although you have some valid points, don't confuse or even compare the meetup turnout to viewer base.  I seriously doubt the desire to meet/hang out with the LMG crew is something the older viewers (myself included I'm 38) are at all interested in.

True - I personally wouldn't go to the meetup, even if it was local. Not something that really interests me. Maybe a LAN party, but even then, I usually have better things to do with my time

[Mr.Humble]

On 7. 3. 2017 at 9:23 PM, LinusTech said:

We are out of options.

 

It's a business decision, not one that was made because my personal feelings make me want to make silly faces in our thumbnails.

 

The cold hard reality is that if making a goofy face drives 15-25% more click through on a video we would have made anyway, then that extra few minutes of effort on something that already has MANY hours invested in it is a no-brainer.

 

It's generated lots of complaints, but look at it from my perspective.. What do I do that DOESN'T generate lots of complaints? Do any of you even remember the uproar over the name of the WAN Show when it was renamed from "Livestream"?...

 

Everyone will get used to it, and we'll continue having (by far) our best year ever for viewership and growth..

 

https://socialblade.com/youtube/user/linustechtips

 

I think @LinusTech is being Lienus again, he probably does have some deep dark urge to make silly faces on thumbnails and he forces others who work at LMG to do it

[NumLock21]

Ok, this is getting ridiculous

 

#LinusGhostRiderTips

[jeffmeyer5295]

The Thumbnails don't bother me, I come for the content in the videos, not the thumbnails lol.

 

On a side note, just @LinusTech's involvement in this thread and communicating with the community is HUGE for me. Great job on the channel and I am excited to see you guys continue to grow.

[NumLock21]

1 hour ago, jeffmeyer5295 said:

The Thumbnails don't bother me, I come for the content in the videos, not the thumbnails lol.

 

On a side note, just @LinusTech's involvement in this thread and communicating with the community is HUGE for me. Great job on the channel and I am excited to see you guys continue to grow.

Idgaf as well.