Underviewed: Searching YouTube Using Default Video File Names
September 23, 2014 6:31 AM   Subscribe

Underviewed: Searching YouTube Using Default Video File Names
Most every camera or mobile device uses some kind of default naming convention (iPhone: IMG_1234.MOV, GoPro: GOPR1234.MP4). This site searches YouTube for those default file names, and serves up videos that have a low number of views. Because these videos still retain their default file names as titles, it's unlikely that they've shown up in any searches. And it's very likely these videos haven't been seen by all that many people.

With the volume of videos available on YouTube, this project felt like a nice way to search out the lesser seen, the videos at the other end of the "viral video" spectrum.

I built this site as a way to learn Bootstrap and Angular, and also as a way to learn more about the YouTube API. It was a really fun project, from both a learning and building perspective. I hope to add more file formats over time.

At several points during the development of this site, I lost a lot of time just using the site and browsing through videos. Which I guess is a good sign. I hope you have fun looking around, as I know I certainly have.

PS: If anyone knows the default video file name that's used by an Amazon Fire phone, I'm all ears.
Role: Developer + Designer
posted by avoision (9 comments total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
This project was posted to MetaFilter by me3dia on September 25, 2014: Unviral

This is great. But you are ruining my workday as I get sucked into these people's lives.
posted by Argyle at 6:43 AM on September 23, 2014 [1 favorite]


I found a zero view video! Super fun project.
posted by mathowie at 9:36 AM on September 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


This is also ruining my work day. It lead me to this (2 views!) prank vid from what looks like Afganistan.
posted by bonobothegreat at 12:02 PM on September 23, 2014 [2 favorites]


I clicked on mathowie's link and found a zero view video also -- but shouldn't it have more than zero views now?
posted by yohko at 3:59 PM on September 23, 2014


To hear that I'm ruining work days is totally making my day. Thanks so much for the kind words.

My favorite video I encountered today: this Little League moment, featuring Elijah and Brandon.

yohko: The site is just displaying what the YouTube API returns. I tried looking around, and my best guess is that the view counts are only updated once a day.
posted by avoision at 8:28 PM on September 23, 2014


The quotes at the bottom are a very nice touch. Well done!
posted by joecacti at 6:23 AM on September 25, 2014


I like this!
First one I saw: kitten!
posted by cp311 at 10:34 AM on September 25, 2014


Love this.

It would be awesome to be able to view the videos in a limited size preview on rollover to help separate the noise from the signal.

Some high minded artist might want to set up a kiosk and just play these in random order 24x7. MOMA loves that kind of shit.
posted by bobdow at 11:09 AM on September 25, 2014


I was about to start a subreddit but someone else made one first! I populated it a bit :)
posted by LSK at 4:28 PM on September 25, 2014


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