YouTube receives almost half a million hours of video every day. The enthusiasm of users when uploading material is impressive, and it makes us wonder about the technical efforts needed to keep everything online. However, some videos stay there gathering digital dust, with zero views —not even by the person who uploaded them in the first place. Petit Tube serves as a showcase for those videos.
The Forgotten Videos of YouTube
More than a year ago, we explored the service Forgotify, aimed at connecting Spotify users with songs that have never been listened to even once. According to Forgotify's statistics, more than four million songs have not received a single play, and while not everything is good, I imagine there are several gems waiting to be discovered. Something similar happens with YouTube. On one of its official sites, the people responsible for the number-one video portal explain that users upload about 300 hours per minute, and that 60 percent of the views of each video come from another country. These numbers try to promote YouTube's diversity with a certain optimism, but just like Spotify, there are videos that have not been viewed even by the people who uploaded them.
What Petit Tube Does
With that in mind, Petit Tube appears—a "Forgotify for YouTube" that presents an unreleased video with "zero views". Petit Tube doesn't discriminate by date or duration, so you can find anything from two-second test videos to endless half-hour ads. What did I discover along the way? A brief quadcopter flight, promotional videos for cameras and used trucks, people swimming in a public pool, and several videos with serious errors. One thing I've noticed is that Petit Tube only gives each video a few seconds to load, and if it doesn't, it automatically moves to the next without delay.
Curious? Yes. Boring? Considering the results, quite. What Petit Tube achieves first is confirming why these videos have no views. Either their names go against any logical search, or their advertising profile is so obvious that it's natural to stay away from them. Another detail: Petit Tube made a couple of mistakes trying to present live streams as videos, although they were discarded immediately. The most interesting thing I came across was a wrestling match that was about to start. Who knows what you'll find.
