Understanding viewer engagement of video service in Wi-Fi network

With the dramatic growth of online video services and video traffic, video service providers and network operators have keen interest in improving viewer engagement. Viewer engagement is mainly influenced by four aspects: service quality metrics (e.g., rebuffer time), network quality metrics (e.g., physical-layer data rate), video content (e.g., video length) and viewer demography. Previous works only partially consider some of these factors due to limitation of the dataset. In this paper, we develop an experimental platform with more than 50 self-deployed routers in our university campus, collecting information regarding all four aspects of engagement-related factors. Correlation and information gain analysis show that different viewer groups and video content types have different engagement patterns. Furthermore, we analyze each factor’s significance in determining viewer engagement. Finally, we propose to build personalized models to better predict viewer engagement, with bootstrapping customized models for new viewers. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.