Jakarta Globe – AFP, Dec 04, 2014
New York. Just how big a hit was “Gangnam Style”? So mammoth that the Internet literally wasn’t ready to handle it.
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| (JG Screen Grab of YouTube) |
New York. Just how big a hit was “Gangnam Style”? So mammoth that the Internet literally wasn’t ready to handle it.
YouTube
said that the 2012 song by South Korea’s Psy — accompanied by a
horse-riding-like dance that became a global sensation — this week reached the
maximum number of views that its counter had imagined to be conceivable.
The
video-sharing site shows that the official version of the video has had more
than 2.15 billion views — the equivalent of one-third of the world’s
population, although of course many people watched more than once.
The
problem: YouTube designed its counter with what is known in computer science as
a 32-bit integer, meaning that the maximum number of countable views was
2,147,483,647.
“We never
thought a video would be watched in numbers greater than a 32-bit integer,”
YouTube, which is owned by search engine giant Google, said in a posting on
Google+.
YouTube
engineers anticipated the problem and upgraded to a 64-bit integer. That means
that “Gangnam Style” or future mega-hit videos can now go beyond nine
sextillion views — a feat that, at least according to conventional wisdom, would
be impossible to break.
Related Articles:
Psy's 'Gangnam Style' sets YouTube record for 2 bn views (31 May 2014)
Gangnam Style passes 1bn views on YouTube (21 Dec 2012)
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