Billboard Top 100 now includes YouTube in formula

by · February 25, 2013

I wanted to share this story I heard over the weekend. For the first time in its history, this week the Billboard “Top 100” chart is incorporating YouTube views as a part of the formula for measuring the popularity of music. You can listen to the audio from NPR below.

This means that Billboard is acknowledging what we already knew — people don’t just get their music from the radio or from a purchased album/download. Online content consumption is here to stay.

We’ve come a long way from “Friday Night Videos”

If you haven’t yet heard of “Harlem Shake,” let me first welcome you back to planet earth from wherever it is you’ve been the last few weeks. The storyline is becoming familiar by now: a song by an obscure DJ surfaced in this video and the clip was quickly replicated across the interwebs (and uploaded on YouTube). Suddenly the song (or 30 seconds of it) was everywhere, and Billboard took notice.

Students love to discover new music online

And now, as my gift to you … what may be the best version of “Harlem Shake” (or at least one of my personal faves).