Data comes in all shapes and forms. In most cases, individuals initially think of data as statistics, numbers, and text. At this particular stage of big data management, video is on the back burner. But should we begin focusing on utilizing big data for videos?

YouTube – Endless Hours of User Uploaded Videos

Why should businesses or companies be interested in video? YouTube, one of the most popular websites on the Internet, allows users to upload personal videos, movie clips, TV clips, music clips, blog clips, and short videos. YouTube has released statistics about video usage that you may find interesting. 

• Each month, YouTube receives over 800 million unique visits.
• Each month, there are over 3 billion hours of video being watched.
• Every minute, 72 hours of videos are uploaded.
• YouTube received over 1 trillion views in 2011.

What about the social media aspect?

• Every day, over 500 years of YouTube videos are watched on Facebook.
• Every minute, 700 videos get shared on Facebook.
• Every week, over 100 million people like, share, or comment on a YouTube video.

Don’t Forget about Video!

Big data for video is still in the early stages. Most companies are overlooking what could be a substantial asset to their company. Rebecca Jacoby, CIO and SVP of Cisco, is telling individuals not to forget about video when it comes to big data. Jacoby says they “most often use video data when they’re looking to bring new information to an argument that outside experts can provide…if you rely on video, you have a totally different level of trust established around that relationship,” she said.

“A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words”

Who knew that a small phrase could have such a powerful meaning? “A picture is worth a thousand words” simply means “a picture that tells a story as well as a large amount of descriptive text.” From the big data standpoint, we should take this meaning to heart. A video is but a picture in motion. If there is so much information that can be gathered from a picture, why couldn’t we do the same thing with video? So, what exactly can be gathered from a video? The great thing about videos is that every video is done by a real individual. An individual with ideas, desires, interests, wants and needs, and it is being publicly shared for anyone to see. Depending upon the video, companies use big data to test certain factors and they can also see where the user is located, videos posted, date and time of posting, what type of clothing they are wearing, what technology they use, what social sites were used to share the video and other beneficial information. Videos are becoming more popular with users and social networks. A user can watch a video for demonstrations, fashion advice, news, product reviews and other topics. With the ease and simplicity of video usage, statistics show that video popularity is rising at an accelerating rate. As more users are beginning to use videos, companies would be wise to start noticing this trend and the possibilities that it brings.

Big Data for Videos: Can it be done?

Right now, there are currently no applications to analyze videos because data management tools are currently working with text files or other file formats. Can analysts find a way to analyze videos to collect and understand data in the same way that it is done with big data management systems today? If so, do you think video data will be in the near future?