“Tell me what I should watch”: A customer value perspective of YouTube metadata

YouTube is increasingly being considered a lucrative means of earning money in addition to becoming popular among viewers. To gain these benefits YouTube content creators (YouTubers) need to first attract viewers’ attention to their videos and then persuade them to watch. YouTube metadata, such as the title, thumbnail, description, and keywords, can assist in achieving both objectives. This has been established in the current literature which shows, for example, that metadata optimizing can increase view counts. While these studies have demonstrated the end result of metadata optimization, they do not indicate why viewers respond to different characteristics of metadata in different ways. We contribute to the literature on marketing and consuming YouTube videos by examining, using Holbrook’s (1999) value typology for theorisation, how viewers experience the metadata and how these experiences contribute to the overall value creation process of watching YouTube videos. We employed an interpretive, qualitative research design in conducting the study, using focus group discussions with 21 young YouTube viewers as the data collection method. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Key findings were that metadata can both deliver value (efficiency) and provide signals about values delivered through the video (excellence and aesthetics). Further, the play value viewers get from interacting with the video is indirectly influenced by the metadata. We also identified that although viewers commonly expect some characteristics in the title and thumbnail, irrespective of their purpose of using YouTube, the importance of each differs when they seek information or entertainment gratification. Further, when value promises made by the metadata are not delivered through the videos, viewers respond negatively. Keywords: Entertainment gratification, Information gratification, Metadata optimization, Value, YouTub

A consumer culture perspective on the social shaping of an ‘unstable’ technological artefact: a Sri Lankan study of the mobile telephone

© 2010 Dr. Dinuka Thamali WijetungaTheories of social shaping of technology suggest that technologies develop in change processes comprising conflicts between social groups such as scientists, designers, commercial producers, users, etc., regarding the meaning and functions, and technological format of artefacts. They contend that over time the parties involved in conflict arrive at a consensus regarding these, at which point the technology is said to have become ‘stabilised.’ After stabilisation, the meaning and functions as well as the technological format of the artefact become taken for granted and do not change thereafter. However, stabilisation is a contested concept in literature. In addition, observations of technological artefacts in current society also suggest that at least some artefacts continue in an ongoing state of ‘instability’ without acquiring a single, stable set of meanings and functions, or a particular technological form. This research uses concepts of consumer culture to study this phenomenon and examines how marketers and users construct instability for an artefact. These processes are empirically explored in relation to advertising and use of the mobile telephone in Sri Lanka. The marketers’ role is examined through an analysis of press advertisements of a network operator, and the users’ role through focus group discussions with three categories of users – senior managers, urban youth, and rural youth. Findings show that both marketers and users construct instability for the mobile phone by assigning it different meanings in relation to different user identities. Further, changes of the artefact are fostered in attempts at improving life experiences – i.e. through marketers’ promises of, and users’ search for something ‘better.’ In constructing instability, both marketers and users draw on broad social discourses prevailing at global and national levels. Users also appear to be influenced by marketing messages, but display some degree of agency as well. Not all users are equally capable of instability construction; underprivileged users are constrained by systemic inequalities. These inequalities also appear to be objectified in the design of the artefact. The study contributes to technology research by introducing an ‘instability’ perspective, and by focusing on two social groups that are relatively under researched in empirical studies. It also contributes to consumer culture research in developing countries. In addition, there are some practical implications for advertising and branding, as well as for broader social policy