Do The Numbers Tell A Story?

It would be dangerous to assume that numbers alone can tell us how Season 2 of Lonelygirl15 is going. It is well established that the account that a Lonelygirl15 video is posted on can make a huge difference. Views can also be affected by the frequency of video releases, the icon, the title and exposure on YouTube and other media etc.. It is also known that the view count changes quite quickly during the first few weeks of a video release. With that said, here are the view numbers for Season 2 videos that were released on the Lonelygirl15 account and have been out for 4 weeks or more.

Tailgating
Views: 38,694

Secrets Revealed
Views: 111,327

Robbing the Cradle
Views: 54,604

I Like Being Me
Views: 44,253

Decision Time
Views: 113,160

Go For It :)
Views: 86,227

What Happened???
Views: 68,211 (+ 292,000 views on MySpace)

Is This The End?
(+ 161,000 views on MySpace)

Shadow of Death
Views: 548,207

Revealing My Secret
Views: 228,084

Typically in Season 1 a "good video" on the Lonelygirl15 account could reasonably expect to have 150,000 views or more. With that in mind it seems clear that the show, at least in terms of views, has not fully returned to its former glory since the loss of Bree. Its early days in Season 2, but we would like to hear from you on how you think the show is going. Leave a comment below with your thoughts.

EDIT by QtheC: most vids have a few thousand views on MySpace - I added two that had much larger views due to front page promotion / extended episodes.
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QtheC said...
Generally speaking, I like the Lonelygirl15 characters, and enjoy the Emma performances especially.

The story still seems a bit scatter-brained at times and lacking in suspense.

It seems like they are playing around with production / video-making techniques quite a bit ... that actually makes it look and feel as if it were made by the characters rather than a professional production company.

The sound quality / consistency has been better of late, and the last couple of videos (Daniel and Mallory sitting together, and Sarah in the bar drinking martinis) seemed a step up in visual quality / lighting.

Interactivity seems to have been deemphasized (probably due to the effort involved on the production side), but can't say it has had much of an impact.

They need better writing, a more compelling story, and need to take care with supporting actors.

Bree's charm is going to be hard to replace, but there are several areas that could be improved.

Maybe the Creators should reconsider getting someone to do a creative/organized ARG with some real fan involvement to get the core audience revved up again. What happened to that "We are Bees" PM? Is she still on the team?

Anonymous said...
I like the character development videos better that the run..run..run type that they always seem to feature. Why do they feature videos that only fans can understand? Overall considering their many flaws, they seem to do a pretty good job of keeping a large, but not huge, fanbase.