There are many ways to assess whether a video has potential to go viral.

The first thing to do is to check when a video was uploaded to YouTube:

Here’s an example:

This video was uploaded to YouTube back in May and recently added to VideoSlush. Unless a catalyst happens (the video gets featured on YouTube, gets linked to from a big site, etc), it won’t get enough Views to push the price up.

Look what happened to its price after it was added to VideoSlush:

“Windmills of your mind” had over 6400 Views (Blue Line) when it was added to VideoSlush.

The Views by Hour bar chart shows that the video is gaining between 1 to 30 Views per hour. Some hours don’t have data, because YouTube doesn’t update every hour.

Price (Green Line) steadily declines because the video isn’t getting enough Views to push Price up. Once Price gets in this state, it’s almost impossible for it to shoot back up.

One of the biggest lessons here is that videos newly uploaded to YouTube have the potential to get discovered and take off rapidly, while older videos that never took off usually continue to languish in eternal doldrums. Anything over 2-3 days is “old” in the online video space! Remember, all bets are off if an older video gets featured on YouTube or gets linked to from popular sites.

This simple tip should help you avoid losing some Slush!