26 June 2008

50 million TEDTalks viewed, more on the way

This week, we're thrilled to announce the 50 millionth view of a TEDTalks video. To keep up with the growing demand, we're making a significant expansion of our publishing schedule, with a talk now being released every weekday.

“This is an important milestone,” says TED Curator Chris Anderson. “TED’s mission is to spread ideas, and we’re now doing that on a scale that was unimaginable two years ago. It’s clear there’s an appetite out there for big ideas and meaningful stories.”

TEDTalks are distributed under a Creative Commons license in multiple formats, on multiple websites, to reach the widest possible audience. Our 50 million views come from TED.com, iTunes, YouTube, and many other venues. (Nearly half of the views come from outside the US.) The most popular talks now draw millions of viewers each.

“It’s absolutely thrilling to watch a talk go viral, because it means the idea is flying on its own merit,” says June Cohen, Executive Producer of TED Media. “We’re providing a platform by which our generation’s most gifted thinkers, creators and storytellers can find a broad audience -- and speak to them in their own words, on their own terms.”

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Discuss Blog Post

Vince Vitale – July 8 2008

I am concerned that all the new TED talks I've received lately have been video in mp4 or m4v format, even though I am subscribed for both audio and video talks. This dramatically decreases their utility to me. I like to listen to MP3 TED talks on my way through the day, and I am not going to sit and watch them. The proper balance is to have them all posted both ways: MP3 audio and m4V Video, so people can choose.

I might add that MP3 is clearly the ubiquitous compression standard and usable by everyone, regardless of their player. All other compression standards exclude a part of the intended audience.

Please be considerate of your audio-preferred members. Vince
Alan Tupper – June 26 2008

Congratulations!

As the distribution of TED Talks grow, I would suggest submitting them to Bittorrent. This could really help folks share the videos, and thereby spread the ideas faster.