I’ve been trying for months to crack the Metacafe code. I’ve earned almost $4,000 but mostly from one or two of my videos. Meanwhile, Viral Video Czar Zack Scott has claimed more than $11,000 with his collection — about 10 of his videos have made it to the Producer Awards program. Yesterday he offered this advice in the WillVideoForFood comments section, and it’s postworthy:

Zack Scott:

Okay, here’s how to make a video work on MetaCafe. This method still leaves a lot of guesswork to the video creator, but this is how it is done:

1. Create and upload video.
2. Make sure your video has an accurate, yet attention-grabbing title and description.
3. It must then get a rating above 3.0 to be released to the viewers on the “front page” area.
4. If the videos on the very front page have above a 3.2, your video needs to be above a 3.2 to make it on that page. Likewise, if the videos on the very front page have above a 3.8, your video needs to be above a 3.8 to make it on that page. If your video makes it to the very front page and stays there for one or two days, it is very likely to break the 20,000 mark.
5. If you video is released but does not make it to the very front page, you still have a decent chance if #2 is followed properly and a lot of people are interested in it or comment on it.

That’s all I can say. Out of all of the videos I upload, I have several misses