The 20 Most-Watched TED Talks to Date

TED:

TED is dedicated to ideas worth spreading. And that leaves many wondering exactly which ideas have been spread the most widely in the six years that TEDTalks videos have been available online. Here, a list of the 20 most-watched talks on all the platforms we track: TED.com, YouTube, iTunes, embed and download, Hulu and more.

From education to brain function to inspiring messages to techno-possibilities, this list represents quite a breadth of topics.

1. Sir Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity (2006): 13,409,417 views
2. Jill Bolte Taylor‘s stroke of insight (2008): 10,409,851
3. Pranav Mistry on the thrilling potential of SixthSense (2009): 9,223,263
4. David Gallo‘s underwater astonishments (2007): 7,879,541
5. Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense (2009): 7,467,580
6. Tony Robbins asks Why we do what we do (2006): 6,879,488
7. Simon Sinek on how great leaders inspire action (2010): 6,050,294
8. Steve Jobs on how to live before you die (2005): 5,444,022
9. Hans Rosling shows the best stats you’ve ever seen (2006): 4,966,643
10. Brene Brown talks about the power of vulnerability (2010): 4,763,038
11. Daniel Pink on the surprising science of motivation (2009): 4,706,241
12. Arthur Benjamin does mathemagic (2005): 4,658,425
13. Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing your genius (2009): 4,538,037
14. Dan Gilbert asks: Why are we happy? (2004): 4,269,082
15. Stephen Hawking asks big questions about the universe (2008): 4,153,105
16. Jeff Han demos his breakthrough multi-touchscreen (2006): 3,891,251
17. Johnny Lee shows Wii Remote hacks for educators (2008): 3,869,417
18. Keith Barry does brain magic (2004): 3,847,893
19. Mary Roach 10 things you didn’t know about orgasm (2009): 3,810,630
20. Vijay Kumar demos robots that fly like birds (2012): 3,535,340

Compare and contrast how the 2012 list of the most popular talks stacks up to the 2011 list, written on the fifth birthday of TEDTalks videos.

(HT:  Nathan Bingham)