Krishnan and Sitaraman (2012)
Contents
Source Details
| Krishnan and Sitaraman (2012) | |
| Title: | Video Stream Quality Impacts Viewer Behavior: Inferring Causality Using Quasi-Experimental Designs |
| Author(s): | Krishnan and Sitaraman |
| Year: | 2012 |
| Citation: | Krishnan and Sitaraman, Video Stream Quality Impacts Viewer Behavior: Inferring Causality Using Quasi-Experimental Designs, (2012). |
| Link(s): | Definitive , Open Access |
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| About the Data | |
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| Data Type: | Primary data |
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| Cross Country Study?: | No |
| Comparative Study?: | No |
| Literature review?: | No |
| Government or policy study?: | No |
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Abstract
The distribution of videos over the Internet is drastically transforming how media is consumed and monetized. Content providers, such as media outlets and video subscription services, would like to ensure that their videos do not fail, startup quickly, and play without interruptions. In return for their investment in video stream quality, content providers expect less viewer abandonment, more viewer engagement, and a greater fraction of repeat viewers, resulting in greater revenues. The key question for a content provider or a CDN is whether and to what extent changes in video quality can cause changes in viewer behavior. Our work is the first to establish a causal relationship between video quality and viewer behavior, taking a step beyond purely correlational studies. To establish causality, we use QuasiExperimental Designs, a novel technique adapted from the medical and social sciences. We study the impact of video stream quality on viewer behavior in a scientific data-driven manner by using extensive traces from Akamai’s streaming network that include 23 million views from 6.7 million unique viewers, who watched an aggregate of 216 million minutes of 102 thousand videos over 10 days. To our knowledge, our work is the first to provide evidence that video stream quality causally impacts viewer behavior.
Main Results of the Study
- Viewers start to abandon a video if it takes more than 2 seconds to start up, with each incremental delay of 1 second resulting in a 5.8% increase in the abandonment rate.
- A moderate amount of interruptions can decrease the average play time of a viewer by a significant amount. A viewer who experiences a rebuffer delay equal to 1% of the video duration plays 5% less of the video in comparison to a similar viewer who experienced no rebuffering.
- A viewer who experienced failure is 2.32% less likely to revisit the same site within a week than a similar viewer who did not experience a failure.
