No, not that kind of race! In the race to attract the largest online video viewing audience, Usain Bolt dug deep for a stunning late surge, blowing past the heavily favored Michael Phelps in the last few days of the 2008 Olympic games. By the time the dust settled, Bolt cruised to victory, surpassing an astonishing 13.2 million aggregated views to Phelps' against-anyone-else-this-would-have-taken-the-gold 9.7 million views.
What's most impressive about Bolt's viral viewing victory is that he was a virtual unknown when the Olympics opened. Indeed, Visible Measures was able to identify just 61 video clips related to Bolt that had accumulated less than 2.9 million views. By comparison, at the same point, Michael Phelps was already well on his way to becoming a viral video star, with 163 placements and nearly 4.6 million views.
However, by the time the closing ceremonies had rolled around, Phelps had won an unprecedented 8 gold medals and Usain Bolt had not only crushed the field in three of the premiere sprinting events, he did so while setting three world records and crossing the finishing line in, er, style. And the Internet video audience had a chance to vote with its mouse, propelling household-name Michael Phelps to impressive 112% video growth.
But he was no match for the newcomer Usain Bolt, whose viral viewing audience ticked up sharply with each race he won. By the time of the closing ceremonies, Usain Bolt's online viewing audience had shot up 363%. The fastest man on earth indeed.
| August 8, 2008 | August 28, 2008 |
| Michael Phelps | Usain Bolt | Michael Phelps | Usain Bolt |
| Views | 4,569,492 | 2,857,319 | 9,707,493 | 13,224,878 |
| Placements | 163 | 61 | 268 | 224 |
| Comments | TBD | TBD | 15,259 | 17,328 |
Source: Visible Measures Viral Reach Database
And that's the power of viral video, which is defined by this type of consumption: audiences around the globe can now see their favorite athletes in action again and again, enabling them to send spectacular moments to friends, empowering them to embed world-record-breaking races on their blogs, and more.
This data was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 95+ million Internet videos from 100+ video-sharing destinations. Check out our Viral Reach Database section to learn more.
As you might imagine, we're looking at some other interesting Olympic comparisons and would love to know what you think. As always, comments are encouraged!
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Post updated on 8/29/08: the data presented here was refreshed on 8/29 to reflect the latest data from our Viral Reach Database. All numbers that were uploaded are now presented in italics. The chart was also added.