YouTube’s New ‘Trends Map’ Is Really Cool

YouTube offers a diverse array of tools for its creators, and a new addition to the arsenal will help answer burning questions like ‘How do viewing habits change by age?’, ‘What are women watching as opposed to men?’, and ‘What does Des Moines, Iowa think?’. YouTube has launched a Trends Map that allows users to break down popular videos by region, age, and gender.

The top video in each location (whether in terms of shares or views) is easily visible on the interactive map. Currently, most of the US has given the most views to a fight at a water polo match, but a few regions prefer a cool ad from a nonprofit called Fundacion ANAR. Unsurprisingly, the areas that viewed the nonprofit ad more than the fight are typically liberal areas: New York, the Pacific Northwest, and college towns like Charlottesville, Columbia, Austin, and Madison.

The two videos also present a striking gender breakdown, with women watching the ad in most regions while men watch the fight. Makes sense to me. Boys will be boys.

The audience for specific TV shows can be seen when sorting by shares, with young men sharing clips from Family Guy, young women sharing clips from Glee, and old farts all over the country choosing True Blood.

As you can see, the Trends Map can lead to several minutes of fascinated clicking, if you’re into this sort of demographic stuff. Creators everywhere should use this data, not only to help with geotargeting methods, but to simply get an idea of who watches what (and to remind them to always press record during a water polo handshake line).