This is a quick summary of what VOD Clickstream is and how we’re able to offer such powerful insights into the streaming sector.
A number of companies offer free plug-ins and services in return for being able to track which sites users are visiting. These users have opted-in to have their activity logged, and all the data is anonymised.
All of their clicks, and some other actions, are added together and become ‘The Clickstream’.
We have over 610 million data points all relating to the largest subscription VOD platform in the world. This allows us to know what people have been watching, when and how.
There are many strengths to the data. It’s independent, global and far-reaching. It’s the clearest picture anyone’s had, outside of the platforms themselves.
There are also some drawbacks to this approach. It’s only for desktop and laptop users (which is about 25% of the platform’s global audience), it’s for a fixed period of time and we don’t have demographic information on audiences.
But in the absence of any meaningful data coming from the streamers, this is the best we have. And it’s incredibly revealing. We have compared our data to all the public statements the platform has made over the years about audience behaviour and the Clickstream tells the same story.
This project is a collaboration by experts from a number of fields. Film analysts and doctors of theoretical physics have worked together to make sense of this ‘big data’.
It’s a sad fact that there is more publicly available data on how things work in deep space than on streaming platforms. Hopefully, we can help redress this balance and improve everyone’s knowledge of how video on demand works.
If you want to know more, have a read of the following: