Gangnam Style' Achieves 500 Million Views, Dubbed As 'The Future'

By JONATHAN HICAP, Manila Bulletin

MANILA, Philippines - Korean rapper Psy has set another milestone when "Gangnam Style" achieved 500 million views on YouTube.

With this, "Gangnam Style" has become the third most viewed video on the website's history.

As of today, the viral song, which was uploaded last July 15, has accumulated 522 million views.

Justin Bieber's "Baby," uploaded on Feb. 19, 2010, is still No. 1 with 791 million views while Jennifer Lopez's "On The Floor," uploaded on March 3, 2011, is second with 611 million views.

With its No. 3 ranking, "Gangnam Style" has eclipsed Eminem's "Love The Way You Lie" and LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem."

On other YouTube charts, "Gangnam Style" is the No. 1 most liked video with 4.35 million likes and No. 1 "top favorited" video and the No. 3 most discussed video with 2.36 million comments.

With the phenomenal rise of "Gangnam Style," Google chief executive officer Larry Page described it as "the future" of YouTube.

"So I was just, the recent video of horse dancing, came in style. I have been watching, its 400 million views now – 500 million. And that kind of thing to really just put the switch, turn it on, get a worldwide distribution and sort of – almost without doing any work, if you are a provider of this content is an amazing thing," he said, according to a transcript from Seekingalpha.com of Google earnings conference call.  

He added, "And I think that’s how we see the future, we’re just kind of continue to grow that. It is going to be available everywhere on your mobile, on your TV, on your desktop wherever you want. It’s going to keep track of the kinds of things you’re interested in and really provides you an amazing experience, and provide a great experience for the advertisers, true view is exploding, which gives us high quality ads from an end user standpoint, because they can skip some if they want."

"Gangnam Style" maintained its No. 2 position on Billboard Hot 100 for the third straight week.

After touring Australia last week, Psy is currently in the US to do promotions and make appearances.

Last Oct. 20, Psy performed along with Ellie Goulding and Rita Ora at the "97.1 AMP Radio Presents: AMP Radio's Halloween Masquerade" at the House of Blues Los Angeles.

Link to my original article: http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/378172/gangnam-style-achieves-500-million-views-dubbed-as-the-future