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Nov 11, 2012

Users Start Giving Up on Streaming Video If It Takes Two Seconds to Load

The faster the Internet gets, the less patience we all have with even the most insignificant of waits. A new study shows that a mere two second delay is enough for many people to give up and move on.

According to the recent study, based on 2.3 million views by 6.7 million unique users, users will start abandoning "short" videos after two seconds, and that 20 percent have moved on after five seconds. As far as the study is concerned, "short" equals "less than 30 minutes," so you can probably imagine the migration happens even faster when you're talking about a one or two minute clip.

This mass buffering exodus isn't the same across the board however. A user's patience also depends on the type of network they're using. Fiber, Cable, and DSL users are all pretty similarly impatient, but mobile users are far more likely to wait around staring at the buffering animation like a chump, which isn't all too surprising.

Where do you stand on the Internet video waiting game? Does two seconds sound like an instant, or more like an eternity? More here.

5 comments:

Outcast said...

I don't feel like I'm surprised by this because I know buffering can be annoying but two seconds is very impatient in all honesty, seems like there's a drawback to all this faster internet these days!

MRanthrope said...

wow. that sounds ridiculous on paper but then I realized I'm probably guilty of the same thing. eating my cereal waiting for vids to load on youtube....I get pretty testy.

Observer said...

Sounds about right. Have been trying to avoid this with my videos.

Check out the latest one and see if it keeps you attention.

MechwarriorOnline

Atley said...

They used to call it the microwave generation, where food should only take 30 Seconds to cook, Now they will probably change it to the "4G LTE" generation or something. but I tend to skip things if they take more then 7 seconds to load. haha

Tim said...

I remember waiting minutes for a picture to load, I am so glad it is much better.