Avoiding Van Halen Fatigue on YouTube

More than 100 million U.S. users watch an average of 68 videos each on YouTube every month, according to comScore. How can YouTube get them to watch just a few more?

It’s a challenge that YouTube’s engineers are zeroing in on as they try to unlock more revenue from the online video juggernaut. While one group of engineers are hard at work building new ad offerings and formats, another is focused on making sure that people don’t just watch one video when they come to the site. They watch two, or three or twenty.

The two initiatives are related, of course. The more time people spend on the site, the more ads they’ll see and click on. “As a general statement, we believe that the best way to grow revenue on the site” is “to do a great job growing traffic on the site,” said Shishir Mehrotra, YouTube’s director of product management for advertising, who had been working on Google’s (GOOG) early-stage effort to sell TV ads before he was recruited over to YouTube last year.

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