The Thanksgiving and Black Friday effect on @YouTube #analytics

First - I hope all Americans enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday and enjoyed Black Friday too!

The First Thanksgiving
Image source: Wikimedia Commons.

The Learn with Dr Eugene O'Loughlin YouTube Channel is viewed by more Americans than by any other nationality. Since the channel was created, 1,520,896 of the total views (3,871,335) were from the United States according to YouTube Analytics - that's 39%. The next highest countries are the UK (11%), Canada (5.6%), and India (5.1%). Incidentally, Ireland accounts for only 1.3% of total views. So - any time the Americans have a holiday, there is a significant effect on the viewing figures. To show the effect on the learning and YouTube analytics I thought I'd share the figures for Thanksgiving here.

On Thursday 21st November, a week before Thanksgiving, 4,679 Americans tuned in to my videos - this is one of the highest daily totals from America ever on the channel. A week later on Thanksgiving Day, the figure dropped to just 999 - I guess that a delicious turkey meal with family and friends beats learning how to create a Gantt chart in Excel! On Friday 22nd November, 3,171 Americans tuned in - a week later on Black Friday the figure had dropped to 1,826. The line chart below (last two dots are Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday) shows a visual of these data:

Many thanks to the 2,825 Americans who got up from the Thanksgiving table and skipped shopping on Black Friday to learn something from my channel. Here's a breakdown of the number of views from the top 20 States for both days:

California	362 (13.0%)
Texas	226 (8.0%)
Florida	214 (7.6%)
New York	195 (6.9%)
Illinois	122 (4.3%)
Pennsylvania	105 (3.7%)
Georgia	98 (3.5%)
New Jersey	98 (3.5%)
Virginia	97 (3.4%)
North Carolina	91 (3.2%)
Massachusetts	81 (2.9%)
Ohio	72 (2.5%)
Michigan	68 (2.4%)
Arizona	66 (2.3%)
Maryland	66 (2.3%)
Minnesota	55 (1.9%)
Washington	53 (1.9%)
Indiana	52 (1.8%)
Colorado	50 (1.8%)
Wisconsin	49 (1.7%)

All data from YouTube Analytics as of 1st December, 2013.

The lowest figures were two each from Wyoming and Vermont. As far as I know, YouTube figure out where you are from by your computer's IP address, so these data above should be reasonably accurate. Also according to YouTube, 44% of these views were from people in the 44-54 years old age group. I know this to be a less accurate estimate as profiling is used in part to determine age.

God Bless America, and Keep Learning!