@Jeremy – I think the absolute number of views do matter and serve as an important rule of thumb for a space that is still emergent and clamoring for the attention of advertisers. It’s the kind of eye catching stat candy that helps bring attention to what’s going on and makes great publicity.

@ Gonzo – Although we too talk of “engagement” a lot (and you’ll see we are not short of ideas on how to use “interactive”, LOL) we still struggle for a robust definition of the term. And whatever definition for engagement we arrive at, absolute views will still matter especially for significant brands because of the marketing efficiency of reach, i.e. will your brands want a “fraction of two million” and spend lots of dollars with you if that is only a drop in the ocean for them?

One aspect not discussed is the consistency of views, to separate the one-hit wonders from the consistently popular. Perhaps this may not be the place for that? I’d love to hear some other people drop some numbers … how many views make a hit?

Deleted: The Game

500,000 views for Lisa Nova is pretty much par for the course, but for an unknown, it’s a coming out party smash hit. Hmmmm….

I’d say a real “hit” is 1 million, no matter who you are. Vote McKay. (he’s funny)

As Seth Godin says it’s not how many but who that’s most important this day in age. Would you sooner have 1,000,000 people see your video who enjoyed it but didn’t comment, share, or bookmark your video, or 100,000 who loved it, commented, shared, and bookmarked it? I would personally sooner have the latter of those two.

Ad dollars in the short-term would be better with the 2,000,000 eyeballs (1,000,000 viewers x 2 eyeballs/viewer) consuming the content, but over the long-term if you can build an engaged and passionate viewerbase those eyeballs will be far more rewarding both from a personal and business perspective.