If you’ve ever made your way across the endless wasteland that is YouTube, chances are you’ve come across a variety of seemingly “stuck” videos. They have thousands of likes or dislikes while seeming to have a mere 301 or similar number of views. YouTube user numberphile has tracked down the reason behind it. And there’s a good explanation: YouTube verifies anything above 300 views to their strict standards of legitimacy. But why is 301 so popular rather than 300? That traces back to an errant less-than-or-equal-to sign used in the code to count the views. It’s a bit more complicated than that, sure, but ultimately a single decision made 301 become a number of note on the internet.
(via Viral Viral Videos)
- Japan recently imposed some strict copyright law
- YouTube has some strange copyright issues of their own
- YouTube turned seven this year and is still trucking
