Thursday, December 4, 2014

Gangnam Style music video 'broke' YouTube view limit

The music video for South Korean singer Psy's Gangnam Style exceeded YouTube's view limit, prompting the site to upgrade its counter.

YouTube said the video - its most watched ever - has been viewed more than 2,147,483,647 times.

It has now changed the maximum view limit to 9,223,372,036,854,775,808, or more than nine quintillion.

Gangnam Style became a worldwide hit when it was released in 2012, largely due to the surreal video.

How do you say 9,223,372,036,854,775,808?

Nine quintillion, two hundred and twenty-three quadrillion, three hundred and seventy-two trillion, thirty-six billion, eight hundred and fifty-four million, seven hundred and seventy-five thousand, eight hundred and eight.

YouTube's counter previously used a 32-bit integer, which is a unit used to represent data in computer architecture.

This means the maximum possible views it could count was 2,147,483,647.

On 1 December, it posted a statement saying: "We never thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer... but that was before we met Psy."

The second most-watched video on YouTube - Baby by Justin Bieber - lags behind Gangnam Style by more than a billion views.

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