iQiyi scraps view counts to improve popularity gauge

Chinese video streaming provider iQiyi Inc has removed its view count feature in favor of a more comprehensive evaluation system to gauge videos' popularity, as it works to improve user experience and combat click farming.

Liu Wenfeng, chief technology officer at iQiyi, said the new system, called heat index, was based on diverse measures of viewer behavior, such as user interaction and shares on social media.

"We have adopted artificial intelligence technologies to calculate the heat index, which will track user feedback, video content quality and the performance in the current market. These multidimensional indicators will improve recommendations for viewers," Liu said.