Social Blade
{{short description|American social media statistics website}}
{{Infobox website
| name = Social Blade LLC
| logo = Social Blade logo.svg
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| screenshot = Social Blade Homepage Screenshot.png
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| caption = Homepage of Social Blade on March 13, 2025
| url = {{URL|https://socialblade.com/}}
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| type = Social media analytics
| founded = {{start date and age|2008|02|08}}
| location = Raleigh, North Carolina United States
| registration = Optional
| language = English
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| author = Jason Urgo
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Social Blade (sometimes spelled SocialBlade) is an American social media analytics website. Social Blade most notably tracks the YouTube platform, but also has analytical information regarding Twitch, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Trovo, Dailymotion, Mixer, and DLive. Social Blade functions as a third-party API, providing its users with aggregated data from these various social media platforms. Jason Urgo is the CEO of Social Blade.
History
Jason Urgo, the CEO of Social Blade, launched the website in February 2008, to track statistics for the website Digg.{{cite web|last=Urgo|first=Jason|url=https://socialblade.com/blog/nine-years-of-socialblade/|title=Nine Years of Social Blade!|work=Social Blade|date=February 8, 2017|access-date=December 27, 2018|archive-date=February 26, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200226140523/https://socialblade.com/blog/nine-years-of-socialblade/|url-status=live}}{{cite web|url=https://socialblade.com/info|title=All About Social Blade|work=Social Blade|access-date=December 27, 2018|archive-date=February 25, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200225124235/https://socialblade.com/info|url-status=live}} In 2010, the website switched to track YouTube statistics. In October 2012, Social Blade became an LLC. In 2014, Social Blade launched consulting and channel management services.
On October 24, 2018, Social Blade started a popular live stream to show the subscriber difference between T-Series and PewDiePie in an online competition.{{Cite news|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/26/pewdiepie-is-youtubes-most-subscribed-channel-hes-about-be-dethroned/|title=PewDiePie is YouTube's most-subscribed channel. He's about to be dethroned.|newspaper=Washington Post|language=en|access-date=7 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190108045910/https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/10/26/pewdiepie-is-youtubes-most-subscribed-channel-hes-about-be-dethroned/|archive-date=8 January 2019|url-status=live}} In April 2019, the stream regularly had 900 viewers and led to a large increase of Social Blade's subscriber count.{{cite web|url=https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/04/the-dumbest-race-on-the-internet-is-finally-over/|title=The Dumbest Race On The Internet Is Finally Over|date=April 1, 2019|access-date=April 11, 2019|last=Walker|first=Alex|publisher=KoTaKu|archive-date=April 14, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190414142206/https://www.kotaku.com.au/2019/04/the-dumbest-race-on-the-internet-is-finally-over/|url-status=dead}} To accompany the attention in April 2019, Social Blade pulled an April Fools' joke where they allowed users to change the subscriber counts and ranks to ridiculously high numbers.{{cite web|url=https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/april-fools-hacked-social-blade-altered-pewdiepie-t-series-pages-506738|title=April Fools' or hacked? Social Blade features altered PewDiePie and T-Series pages|date=April 1, 2019|last=Porter|first=Matt|access-date=April 11, 2019|language=en|archive-date=August 5, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200805215042/https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/april-fools-hacked-social-blade-altered-pewdiepie-t-series-pages-506738|url-status=live}}
On December 14, 2022, Social Blade confirmed a data breach of 5.6 million records which was uploaded to BreachForums two days prior.{{Cite web |last=Kovacs |first=Eduard |date=2022-12-16 |title=Social Blade Confirms Breach After Hacker Offers to Sell User Data |url=https://www.securityweek.com/social-blade-confirms-breach-after-hacker-offers-sell-user-data/ |access-date=2025-06-01 |website=SecurityWeek |language=en-US}}
Twitter Removal Controversy
On March 13, 2025, Social Blade updated their website to a more modern version, in the process removing statistics of Twitter, Trovo, Mixer, Dailymotion, and DLive. The site received much controversy about the removal of Twitter analytics. Social Blade later responded to this controversy claiming that they were no longer allowed to use the cheapest API option of $200 per month, and that they should be using the Enterprise package.https://x.com/SocialBlade/status/1900589770671071518
Data collection and other functions
On its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page, Social Blade wrote that "in order to best scale our tracking to meet the needs of millions that use Social Blade, we pull data from YouTube's public API. This means that we're getting the same information you see on public YouTube channel pages, we just work to examine that data across multiple days and aggregate it into a display format that is useful to you."{{cite web|url=https://socialblade.com/youtube/help|title=Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)|work=Social Blade|access-date=December 27, 2018|archive-date=February 25, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200225123017/https://socialblade.com/youtube/help|url-status=live}} Social Blade is a website that contains subscriber predictions.{{Cite web|url=https://www.techtimes.com/articles/239933/20190320/pewdiepie-briefly-lost-top-spot-on-youtube.htm|title=PewDiePie Briefly Lost Top Spot On YouTube|author=Staff Reporter|date=2019-03-20|website=Tech Times|language=en|access-date=2019-03-26|archive-date=2019-03-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190326075800/https://www.techtimes.com/articles/239933/20190320/pewdiepie-briefly-lost-top-spot-on-youtube.htm|url-status=live}} Social Blade also provides real-time subscriber count updates.{{cite web|last=Dwilson|first=Stephanie Dube|url=https://heavy.com/entertainment/2018/12/pewdiepie-vs-t-series-live-subscriber-count/|title=PewDiePie vs. T-Series Live Subscriber Count|work=Heavy|date=December 17, 2018|access-date=December 27, 2018|archive-date=February 24, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200224000344/https://heavy.com/entertainment/2018/12/pewdiepie-vs-t-series-live-subscriber-count/|url-status=live}}
Social Blade has also been noted to work with content creators and YouTube multi-channel networks (MCNs) to help creators get partnered.{{cite web |last=Alexander |first=Julia |date=April 24, 2018 |title=YouTube networks drop thousands of creators as YouTube policy shifts |url=https://www.polygon.com/2018/4/23/17268436/fullscreen-socialblade-youtube-mcn-multi-channel-network-creators-monetization |access-date=December 27, 2018 |work=Polygon |archive-date=April 23, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180423221414/https://www.polygon.com/2018/4/23/17268436/fullscreen-socialblade-youtube-mcn-multi-channel-network-creators-monetization |url-status=live }}
Recognition
=Social media platforms=
An official YouTube Twitter account, @TeamYouTube wrote that "Please know that third party apps, such as SocialBlade, do not accurately reflect subscriber activity." Social Blade's Twitter account responded to that tweet, commenting "We don't make up data. We get it from the YouTube API. We rely on it for accuracy." Social Blade's community manager Danny Fratella suggested that YouTube content creators may notice subscriber and view count purges more due to a higher accessibility to data-tracking tools like Social Blade.{{cite web|last=D'Anastasio|first=Cecilia|url=https://kotaku.com/youtube-views-are-down-across-the-board-analysis-says-1790440740|title=YouTube Views Are Down, Analysis Says|work=Kotaku|date=December 23, 2016|access-date=December 27, 2018|archive-date=March 6, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200306200911/https://kotaku.com/youtube-views-are-down-across-the-board-analysis-says-1790440740|url-status=live}}
=Media outlets=
HuffPost wrote that "Social Blade estimates earnings for each YouTube channel based on the money generated for every thousand ad views. These estimates aren't exact. Instead, they create a minimum and maximum amount that a channel could be earning; in some cases, the range can be huge.{{cite web|last=Beres|first=Damon|url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/05/youtube-stars-money_n_6549906.html|title=YouTube Stars' Huge Earnings Will Make You Question All Your Life Choices|work=HuffPost|date=February 5, 2015|access-date=December 27, 2018|archive-date=December 20, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181220011840/https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/05/youtube-stars-money_n_6549906.html|url-status=live}} Social Blade's support services manager, Jenna Arnold stated that "the range is huge because the CPMs [cost per thousand views] vary SO much. They can be anywhere from $0.25 to $4.00 on average." Urgo has also commented on the $0.25–$4.00 per 1,000 views range, stating "these data points change from time to time and are not an exact science, but generally hold true for most channels.{{cite web|last1=Collins|first1=Ben|last2=Rosenblatt|first2=Kalhan|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youtube-shooter-repeatedly-posted-grievances-about-video-platform-n862791|title=YouTube shooter repeatedly posted grievances about the video platform|work=NBC News|date=April 4, 2018|access-date=December 27, 2018|archive-date=November 9, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109023730/https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/youtube-shooter-repeatedly-posted-grievances-about-video-platform-n862791|url-status=live}}
References
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Category:2008 establishments in North Carolina
Category:American companies established in 2008
Category:Companies based in Raleigh, North Carolina
Category:Google Chrome extensions
Category:Internet properties established in 2008
Category:Online companies of the United States