I’ve written many times about what separates a good online-video contest from the myriad of failures. I’d like to add an important attribute that has been demonstrated recently by GoDaddy: listening and adapting.

GoDaddy broke one of The Cardinal Rules of a good online-video contest by providing a meager first-place prize and even less for “runner’s up.” As I often remind marketers, my personal incentive to enter a contest is driven by the “runner’s up” prizes, since I’m a rare winner and serial runner’s up (Butterfingers, Oreos, Panasonic, etc).

Jared (the King of Online-Video Contests, rivaled by his queen, SlatersGarage and his court jester ZackScott) tells the story of how his note to GoDaddy helped prompt the Internet hosting leader to up its prize from a paltry $3K to $100,000.

Jared wrote GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons via the titan’s blog, and urged him to “up the ante.” The quick response from Parsons: “Dear Jared, I hear you. I’m on it. Bob”

Days later, Jared got a note from a GoDaddy employee:

the prizes were increased as follows:  First place = $100,000, Second place = $50,000, 3rd place =$25,000 — then some other great prizes (hardware, software, camcorders, etc.) for an additional 10 places.  Landing page changes at www.godaddy.com/contest to reflect this update are forthcoming — which I expect later today.

So, Jared – thank you for your feedback!  I am anticipating your submission as along with your peers.  I am coordinating the contest — so please send additional comments my way.  If you are good with it, I’d like to brainstorm with you ways to announce the winners.

The change is non trivial ($175K in total prizes), but more impressive is a big company listening to a subject matter expert, and adapting quickly. This earns the company more equity (albeit unmeasurable) than any Superbowl commercial. Click image below to see that, indeed, the contest has raised the stakes as promised:

GE launched a health campaign today on YouTube that is part of trend toward softer advertising that, I believe, will have better long-term dividends even if it’s hard to measure.

GE is taking a lightly branded approach to promoting health and wellness by sponsoring a “Healthymagination” challenge among people on YouTube. There’s very subtle branding from GE, and no “drive to healthymagination.com” play. In fact the company is not trying to build a microsite, and is aggregating commissioned videos on Howcast’s YouTube channel. Now millions of people will watch and participate in health-challenge videos by iJustine, Alphacat, Rhett & Link, Smosh, me and other YouTube people with large followings.

This is about as far from an intrusive yet measurable pre-roll advertisement as you can get, but GE’s brand will now be associated with health — broadly across a number of demographics.

Okay I doctored this banner with the faces of YouTubers. But click to see real channel.

As someone participating in this health challenge, I am certainly biased. So let’s look instead at Pfizer’s YouTube homepage advertising “takeover” in January, which was centered around videos the company commissioned about health and fitness. The promoted brand (Chantix for smoking cessation) was present but not “in your face.” The insight that may have spawned this approach? Smokers aren’t exactly going to dive into a video channel about quitting.

In a current campaign with a similar “hands off” approach, Rhett and Link’s I Love Local Commercials campaign was sponsored by Microbilt. But the video series is a celebration of cheesy local ads for small business (Microbilt’s target). There’s no forced messages about how Microbilt offers credit, debt collection or background screening to small businesses. People can get excited about cheesy commercials or health (especially when a charity benefits). But it’s hard to get jazzed about debt collection, smoking cessation or light bulbs. It’s the same reason I used Mr. Complicated to promote Clear Point (who cares about staffing technology?).

Brian Bradley, MicroBilt’s EVP of Strategy & Emerging Markets, acknowledges it’s hard to put an ROI on programs like this (parenthetically I addressed this topic on Tuesday at a marketing conference, and here’s the deck).

“Although the initial work that lead to “I Love Local Commercials” was very spontaneous, it is part of a body of work at MicroBilt focused on building awareness and establishing thought leadership across market segments, ” Bradley told me via e-mail. “So that our traditional marketing and sales efforts are more successful.” Bradley said, for example, that if his sales people call a business prospect who hasn’t heard of MicroBilt, they can quickly find out it’s a real company.

It’s tempting for us marketers to force our brand so we can realize (or assume) a near-term ROI. But sometimes the most effective long-term strategy is to have a gentle presence while something bigger, more interesting, and more entertaining takes center stage. This is more instinctive to corporate communication or public-relations people, but they’re generally without budgets to sustain even small pilots like these.

The results may not show up in website visits, instant purchase, and awareness/recall studies. But I would argue that test/control or pre/post qualitative studies (while being cost prohibitive for these case studies), would indicate that target customers have higher favorability of these brands. I don’t think pre-rolls and banners could do that alone.

And isn’t that what separates the AIGs from the Disneys?

How much do YouTube stars make each year? Oh for goodness sakes. Just like my same 5 YouTube videos (see right column of channel page here) represent the majority of my online views… It seems that most of WillVideoForFood’s blog traffic comes from people searching for how much YouTubers make.

We YouTube “Partners” (or “stars” as I hate saying) are all contractually forbidden to share our revenue. But I’ve given hints and clues over time. For those of you who Googled your way here, I’m both a marketer/advertiser and a creator/YouTuber, so that gives me two lenses into this Da Vinci-Code like mystery. Davinci made me think of “Da Bears.”

I’d estimate there are have at least a few dozen YouTube Partners earning $100K per year. That’s great money if you’re in your 20s or 30s and have minimal costs in production or overhead (like 4 kids and a horrific mortgage). But it’s a rounding error for a professional content creator or network.

To calculate a particular Parner’s income, here are some tips:

• You basically take the Partner’s total views for the month, multiply it by a fraction of a penny, and you have a rough idea. TubeMogul’s Marketplace shows some of the most-viewed people (and their monthly views). But remember: the most-subscribed are not necessarily most-viewed and vice versa. YouTube doesn’t give a hoot how many subscribers you have (although that certainly helps drive views, but increasingly it seems less powerful than being a “related video”). In general, the commercial content is getting more daily views but the amateurs have a lock on subscribers.
• Most ads are placed by advertisers based on total 1K views, but some is on a per-click basis (CPC text ads placed by Google Adwords/Adsense). Google/YouTube is usually paid by an agency or media buyer a CPM (cost per thousand, say between $5 and $25 dollars per thousand views), then shares some of that with the creator. This can be highly misleading, because:
  • Some views earn nothing (if they’re embedded and no ad follows it).
  • And increasingly advertisers are paying a high premium for specific content they commission, target, or hand select. Sometimes this might average a few bucks and others it might be much higher… $25 CMP was the published rate of InVideo ads and I know of specific integrated campaigns that command a higher premium from YouTube. Yey!
• Another confounding variable: potty-mouthed creator turns away advertisers. So watch the ads on your Partner for a while. Are they premium InVideo ads with accompanying display (square) ads? Or are they garbage Adwords/Adsense ads?
• The text ads may SOMETIMES be paid on a per-click basis, which can make them fruitless or profitable depending on people clicking and buying the advertiser’s product (the latter must occur, or a savvy advertiser will quickly stop the campaign that’s raping them of click dollars and not generating business). I was telling my YouTube buds to turn these off because they’re ugly and don’t make much money, but a few of them gave me a stern stare like they knew otherwise. So whatever… maybe they make money and maybe they don’t. I don’t get a breakdown on them, and they’re still ugly.
• Then you have to factor in “sponsored videos,” where a YouTuber promotes a product or service for a flat fee (or variable based on views) via Hitviews or related companies. That can easily be more than YouTube shells out per month for ad sharing. The going rate here is incredibly wide: from $1K to $20K and higher per video.

So in conclusion:

1. Do your own math using monthly views on TubeMogul and assuming some CPM (cost per thousand), but recognize YouTube takes a cut and some of the advertising inventory isn’t sold or is driven by keyword Google adsense text thingies. Maybe the creator/partner gets a few bucks per thousand views and maybe more or less.
2. Use some of the assumptions above to calibrate your estimate if you’re trying to peak into the W-9s of your favorite “Stars” like Fred. There are now dozens of popular YouTube people that make a full-time living on YouTube revenue, and I’d guess a lot of $50K-$100K per year people. I am not among the full-timers. With a family of 6, I gotta have a day job too. But Shaycarl, Sxephil, Charles Trippy, Michael Buckley and many more… they’re full-time at this. If I was making the bucks I’m making via YouTube after college, I’d probably go full-time too. Fred? Let’s just say he’s got college covered, or a nice nest-egg.
3. Before you get excited (or jealous), it’s a long haul to cashville. And if you start with the hope of making money, you’re doomed. You need to LOVE it, and be extremely patient as the road to loads of views is tougher to climb, and requires an ass-load of persistence. Start as a hobby and “just keep swimming.”
4. Finally, there are two forces at odds that impact the sustainability of this revenue for YouTube amateurs. First, we’ll probably see continued competition from more professionally-produced content that fetches higher ad dollars because it feels safer to squeamish media buyers (see, I’m not calling them all dense anymore… only the ones that don’t read this vlog). But the good news is that dollars are projected to grow dramatically. Currently, as a marketer, I’d argue that YouTube is selling itself short.

How’s that? About as specific I can be without breaking my contract or confidence from my friends.

I know some of you peeps know more than I do, so feel free to comment below anonymously or not. Da bears.

Welcome WVFF Guest Blogger
Larry Kless

2009 proved the power of video and social media can change the world.

We experience the Presidential Inauguration with millions of friends on Facebook. We read breaking news stories from citizen journalists on Twitter. We saw live as-it-happens video on YouTube hours before the stories reached our televisions and the standard reports by traditional news agencies were read.

More than any other year 2009 saw the rise of video as one of the most effective communication mediums in world history.

Virtually, every aspect of video is now included in business. From concept, scripting, storyboards, production, editing, encoding, storing, managing, distributing, syndicating, tracking, analyzing, etc… Content producers, media companies, small and medium-sized business all have the same opportunities to build their business and become online video publishers like any major corporation.

2009 also saw a shift in how we do business, from the personal to the virtual, in boardrooms, in our living rooms and especially,  from our mobile devices; which will soon do everything and anything we can imagine.

The stresses of the 2008 economy saw businesses cut their travel budgets, so it was no surprise that after more than 20 years videoconferencing found its resurgence as, “the next big thing” and video became the vehicle for our conversation.

TelePresence became a household word. Powered by Cisco TelePresence Solutions nonstop marketing efforts, IP video chat, WebConferencing, collaboration and live video streaming moved to the forefront as many businesses and media companies looked for ways to connect people and their team members to broaden consumer markets and publishing.

In 2010 I predict the most important area for video marketing and publishing will be the value video brings to the rate of return, ROI. Analytics will be big! It is how we measure and track performance, but it’s not going to be just about numbers, it’s going to be about engagement and reach.

Since “views” is what ultimately drives revenue we will see the emergence and demand for a standardization metric in both the industry and in business. We will also see an increase in social media metrics focused on search, discovery and optimization.

It is no longer enough for companies to deploy video solutions, business will need to engage in the communities where their audiences are through a variety of social networks. Conversation tools like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube will help marketers extend their reach and promote their brands.

Video is now part of the strategy within the ecosystem of marketing, and not just part of online marketing, but it must be part of everyone’s overall business plan.

Finally, in 2010 we will see more focus on high quality content, storytelling and a Smart Video Business Model (SVBM) will emerge to help foster that growth.

Read Larry’s WebBlog
Website: Online Video Publishing
Larry’s Vator News Channel
On Twitter @ LinkedIn

This video shows Hank Green (with his lesser known 3rd Green brother) announcing VidCon, taking place July 9-11, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. Here’s the official VidCon website.

For those of you familiar with the Vlogbrothers (John and Hank Green), I don’t need to tell you what an enormous connection they have with the vibrant and growing community of online-video. They’re funny, smart, and selfless; this week they’ll be orchestrating another “Project for Awesome,” where they encourage fellow video creators to make a video about a charity… to “reduce world suck.”

So it wasn’t surprising that they’ve attracted the “Who’s Who” of online video… literally the most-viewed and most-subscribed video creators of YouTube and beyond. Also- if you know Hank and John, you’ll know that the admission price is to cover costs, and proceeds are for charity. These guys aren’t interested in making money, but these events cost a lot to do well. So I’ve got little sympathy for those few dozen people who feel a price tag is “anti-community, man”- sing that tune to your waitress at IHOP, kids.

For you online-video industry people who are less familiar with the community side, I have one piece of advice. Attend. If I could only attend one conference this year, it would be this one.

There will be a series of professional tracks covering advertising, marketing and production. But of course you can see the “brains” of online video at any conference. This one you’ll see the brain and the heart. And you really don’t know online-video until you’ve seen the heart… watched the most-viewed amateurs interacting with the fans… seen the groundswell of enthusiasm about a medium that’s changing people’s lives… see the friendships among the talented people (and me).

The informal YouTube gatherings — like 7/7/7 — have brought hundreds and even thousands together in various cities, but this one’s actually organized and planned. So it’s likely to be a huge event. Book your hotel early, friends.

If you’re interested in speaking slots, panels or sponsorships (imagine how many videos your logo can show up on, and how many millions of times it will be seen), let Hank know or shoot me a note (I’m volunteering to help on the professional side). Much of that will be formalized by the end of January. In the mean time, follow VidCon on Twitter.

What’s on your RSS or what sites do you visit related to online-video and marketing? Please comment below, especially in the likely event I missed something. I’ll update this, and you and I can find this post again by searching the word “FARTY,” which unlikely appears elsewhere here. I could be wrong.

Yes it’s time again for a round-up of some must-read blogs & peeps related to online video, marketing social media, and the shizzle.

Here’s the problem about finding good websites and blogs about online video. If you add “online video” to a search query, you’ll get a lot of videos about marketing. And the social-media space is just too damned cluttered. Any idiot can write an article about that. I like the writers that touch on the intersection of online-video and marketing, and don’t stray too far into the self-indulgent world of traditional entertainment and advertising, the desperate starving filmmakers overproducing episodic content, and boring crap about technology providers.

Most of these peeps are smarter than me, but I actually spend most of my day marketing and making videos… not a journalist or professional speaker (although I’m doing more and more… someone help me figure out how to charge to speak please). So although my content will give you great secret or bore you to death, at least it’s mostly practical.

• Kelly Samardak covers MediaPost’s Just an Online Minute
• Daisy Whitney does New Media Minute and This Week in Media (I was on it Monday and will be on again next week). She has good hair.
• Shira Lazar brings us CBS’s new “On the Scene” bringing CBS from 2002 to 2010.
• WillVideoForFood (this blog) is written by career marketer and most-viewed YouTube kid Nalts. It’s for marketers and creators, and people that don’t take themselves too seriously. Oh did I tell you I finally got a book deal with Wiley & Sons so I can’t procrastinate the book I’ve been promising for 3 years?
• ReelSEO is a killer blog about SEO, online video, and marketing.
• Steve Garfield is to vlogging what Adam Curry was to podcasting. He’s got a book coming out, but sadly I got axed from the cover.
• David Meerman Scott is to digital marketing what The Secret is to self help, and he’s got a blog.
• Liz Gannes and the NewTeeVee peeps run the definitive new-media site, which fills the void left by The Daily Reel. Remember Felicia Williams?
• Need to know what videos are hawt right now? See Viral Video Chart (select 7 day).
• TubeFilter tracks series and episodic content.
• TilzyTV does the TVGuide thing for the web. The bro’s know the biz.
• Pete Wylie left, but FierceOnlineVideo goes on.
• Metacafe’s former content lead writes EyeView (and since he’s a WVFF commenter he gets a gold star)
• eMarketer has nice public stats and charts that are eye-candy for people trying to change the world.
• Jack Myers is a TV guy with a close eye on new media. The dude is the Trump of the space.
• Tim Street is all about marketing & video with a background doing promos for shows.
• Ford’s social media guru Scott Monty runs his own blog about social media.
• Steve Hall’s AdRants is always good for a laugh and criticism of advertising.
• YouTube has a business blog you probably didn’t know exists.
• Advertising Week has some nice coverage in its digital section. Abbey Klaassen reports well, and does a nice 3-minute show I TiVo, and Bob Garfield doesn’t hold punches.

If I missed you, take a cue from Uncle Nalts. Shamelessly self promote below. Unless your blog is about cats.

Man that headline will sell. Truth is, I am very careful about NOT revealing confidential information on this blog that I learn from Google employees, as a YouTube partner, or through my conversations with industry colleagues or creators.

But most of this is public now, or based on educated assumptions topped with a saucy tabloid-like flare. On a similar note, YouTube’s Business Blog published a refreshingly transparent POV about some YouTube myths recently. Did you know that 70% of Ad Age top 100 marketers ran YouTube campaigns in 2008?

Here are the secrets the YouTube PR folks won’t reveal:

"I've got a secret" -Cindy Brady

1) YouTube is Monetizing Fewer than 9 Percent of Its Videos. But Who Cares? Kudos to Jason Kincaid for doing fancy math to figure out what percent of videos YouTube is monetizing (meaning the site is making money instead of paying to stream and bleeding money). The answer was 8.5%, which is close to AdAge’s 8.7% estimate (CNN Money claims 13%). Of course, monetizing could mean shitty lil’ penny banner buys, decent InVideo sponsorships, homepage takeovers, or premium rev-share deals. It’s long been rumored to be 3-5 percent monetization, but let’s get real. Google could turn that number to 100% by simply running Adsense indescriminately on each page. So I’d be less concerned about the percent than the profitability.

Thanks to YouTube my videos are seen 200-250,000 times a day (yey, Uncle Google). That wouldn’t happen any other way, and I’m only hoping the biz-dev folks enhance the average profit per-monetized video before it bothers chasing the impossible-to-monetize-well long tail. This is happening as we speak with new revenue boosting options.

If I got a penny per view, I’d earn $730,000.00 this year. I’m not, mkay?

2) Algorithms Squashed the Editors. Almost nothing you see on YouTube is by accident… or an editor anymore. While YouTube editors once possessed more power than most network executives (creating instant celebrities by homepage feature pixie dust), the model is now driven almost exclusively by relevancy and economics. Recently, YouTube announced content creators and small advertisers can get their videos promoted for a fee… and not just against search results. Editors continue to serve some role on the “spotlight” pages and community relations, but are not the Titans they were in 2006 and 2007. That said, we still love them deeply because our love was unrequited. Especially when they put us on Partner showcase pages.

Google-Data Robots Eat YouTube Editors' Brains for Fuel

3) YouTube Still Plays Favorite, and especially for “TV Shows.” Lately, YouTube has worked hard to pimp its “shows,” a collection of retro TV that lost its charm faster than Bazooka loses its taste. Ba-boom. There also are some YouTube partners that live on the home-page (CommunityChannel), the recommendation section for new registrants to YouTube, or are “micro-featured” everywhere. We don’t know whether the editors are doing this, or the algorithms are saying: “these guys are good YouTube-addiction starter drugs.” But we do know that if a human does have any input to this “favoritism,” the person is probably really smart, attractive and has good breath. Man I’d like to meet ‘em!

4) It’s All About Your Relatives: Not Keywords and Viral. Think viral-views is the engine behind YouTube? Wrong. It’s about having a steady daily audience (like many, but not all, of the top 100 most-subscribed) and having your videos appear as a related video to popular videos… in other words, via ad, editor or algorythm, getting next to watched videos. Just like being next to a pretty girl makes you look cooler.

A visit to YouTube is often a chain reaction. You start to watch one video, and several related videos draw you deeper. Metacafe was once the master of this, and now YouTube is drawing upon its data-oriented parent, Google, to facilitate what I call the “video roach motel” model. This will get better with time, as we move from “title, tag, description” as being the view driver, to that mystical thing called “relevancy.”

What’s relevancy? I’ll give you two examples: if someone searching Google returns instantly after clicking on a result, that page is penalized on the rankings. Presumably it wasn’t what the searcher wanted. On YouTube, if a video is poorly rated and/or is viewed for a percentage that’s far below average for its total duration, it will eventually be penalized. Example two: on Amazon, there’s a high correlation between Wayne Dyer and Dr. Seuss book purchases, then those two books are related. The machine is getting smarter based on universal behaviors and your own preferences. Soon enough, my audience will be a smaller percent of YouTube but hopefully larger and more appropriate. That’s because we’ll see more of “people who like Shaycarl may also like Nalts.” (And although I may not be as funny or cute, I’ll look thinner to those viewers).

Neither of these models requires indexing the content, mind you. So in theory a video could be relevant to you without the algorithm even knowing what’s being spoken (remember years ago we thought all video would be transcribed to facilitate SEO… and that we’d be driving space cars by now?).

5) YouTube May Not be Hurting, But it’s Hungry. Google was the first to abandon banners and move entirely to a bid model. But YouTube, in a Yahoo-like move, has blitzed in past few months with homepage takeovers. Folks, there’s no reason for ads to represent 50% of the site’s homepage (above the fold) unless you’re trying to show fast revenue. It’s not Googlesque (even if CNN Money maintains that Google hearts YouTube). Of course the rice-sized brained media buyers are using this precious space to simply drive awareness instead of engagement: most of the homepage takeovers are for films, and there’s usually nothing more than a trailer to compel interaction.

CNN Money suggests all is zen-like between YouTube and Google. Hey, even if YouTube captured as much as 1 billion in annual revenue, that’s 1/30th of what Google does. Meh. So if YouTube bleeds a few hundred million to run itself ($83-$350 million in infrastructure/hosting alone, and — who knows — $250 million to maybe $500 million in a year), who cares as long as it has strategic long-term value?  Online video is white hot, and it’s just a matter of expediting the future and reducing the blood loss. Of course, all of this is speculation, and Google/YouTube aint talking.

6) Why YouTube Can’t Discuss Real Profit/Loss. No, YouTube doesn’t want you knowing about its economics, but I have 3 words for the curious: stop asking, idiot. YouTube can’t over or understate financials, yet journalists whine about the company’s decision to not publish profitability (or even costs or revenue specifics). Imagine the channel conflicts disclosure would create! If it’s horrible, YouTube has dimished street credibility with media outlets, downstream distribution partners, and advertisers… not to mention shareholders. If it’s schweet, then it attracts copyright attorneys like watermelon at a picnic. But should YouTube reveal case study ROIs (with permission of advertisers) to legitimize the medium to marketers? Uh- yeah. Glad you asked. I give YouTube a D minus on this.

7) Steven Chen’s Latest Contribution. YouTube won’t likely be issuing press releases about Steven Chen, who has continued to vanish from the public light. But thankfully, Chen disintermediated his employer and shared his latest project — which includes a golf swing. Hey, he’s got billions in the bank. What would you do? Probably build a coffee bar. Or buy the car you’ve saved up for since 2005. For nostalgia, check out Chen when Google bought in.

Shit. This post took me hours of time I could have otherwise spent trying to, um, make money. At least there will be a few comments from the back row. Right?

Before we armchair quarterback Geico’s YouTube spend today, let me share a secret story. The names will be changed to protect the innocent.

An extremely popular YouTube star (let’s call him Spiffy) last fall mentioned something fascinating to me in private. A major consumer-products good brand (let’s call them “Yummy Snack”) paid him handsomly to create an enteratining video incorporating Yummy Snack. A member of the Yummy brand team had shared the success story at a conference I attended, but left something critical out. It seems Yummy’s agency hadn’t asked Spiffy to post the entertaining/promotional Yummy video on Spiffy’s channel!

The talented Spiffy voluntarily posted it on his channel, and THAT was the Yummy video that popped. Not one posted by Yummy Snack on some branded YouTube channel page. Not because media dollars drove views. I thought that Spiffy’s generous move was so cool, I’ve decided not to call out Yummy’s agency on this horrible oversight.

YouTube might have saved Yummy, but can you blame them? Google is more concerned about selling media dollars than tipping off agencies to the organic power of a star’s audience.

YouTube doesn’t make money when a promotional video goes viral… only when there’s an ad buy.

I like to think agencies have learned something in the past year, so it’s sad to find history repeating itself even today. Geico insurance purchased the expensive YouTube homepage spot to boast its ”Gecko & Numa Numa kid video,” which prerolls (without audio). Today’s ad spend cost the Geico more than you or I make in a year, and Gary Brolsma (NumaNuma), the online-video sensation, isn’t posting the video on his own channel concurrently.

Are you kidding me? Much of the value of the YouTube stars is his or her embedded audience. Most stars have fans that will propel the video to the top of the “most watched” and “highest rated,” and share it with friends (assuming it doesn’t suck).

As an example, if Fred made a video endorsing Poprocks, his video would get million of views. If the agency posted it — even with some advertising dollars promoting it — it would get far less.

For a moment, let’s put aside the debate about Geico’s agency associating itself with the NJ kid who is mostly a “one-hit wonder” lacking a recurring audience.  Numa only has 35K subscribers and his recent videos are fetching just a few thousand views. Even so, Numa dual posting the video would certainly attract views for an ROI that’s as good as any media spend. The agency gets credit for driving homepage views to its own ”Its the Gecko,” channel instead of Numa Numa’s… but one can’t help but wonder if there’s a longer vision for that branded channel or if it was an afterthought.

Why on EARTH would Geico not pay Gary a few clams to post it on his channel? Even without a lot of daily views, Gary could have posted it on his channel concurrently, and gotten views by:

• Showing us a “behind the scenes” footage
• Featuring the video on his channel page
• Making the Geico spot a video reply to his big hit, where it would get residual views

I’d love to know if this was an oversight or a thoughtful decision because, for instance, Gary wanted more coin to distribute it than made sense for the agency. But absent that, it’s going to be my case study for being “half pregnant” on YouTube– smart enough to tap a star and invest in media, but not savvy enough to tap into the creator’s audience as well.

The lesson: It’s not smart for brands to tap into know YouTube stars without buying media, and it’s not smart to buy media without getting some “street cred” from a known YouTuber. It’s smart to do both. Who’s going to help brands figure this out?

(I’d like to use the case study I referenced at the beginning, but the star would get tainted by the agency for mentioning this slip and ”Spiffy” doesn’t deserve it).

Wired magazine reports this month that it’s the GPS revolution in 2009. Remember a decade ago, when we heard stories about how you’d be passing Starbucks and suddenly receive a text/sms offer via your mobile phone? Yeah, that and the space cars I’m still waiting on.

Well here’s a glimpse into the dangers associated with GPS-based (location based) text advertising. Jo and I depicted the sad reality as we see it. We’d be passing stores just to get the discounts retailers would use to lure us back. Mind you this isn’t a sponsored video, so the Borders, Starbucks and California Tortilla appearances are just to make it more realish.

I’m not sure if other countries have introduced this technology, but I sure can’t wait for it in the US. That’s what I love about those free 411 services. You suddenly get text junk mail. Eww. And how creepy would it be to have an advertiser know exactly where you are at a specific time. Here’s hoping for opt-outs.

I’m posting the blip.tv version first because it’s a bit better resolution:

And the YouTube version…

hot off the press…

A YouTube for All of Us
As a community, we have come to count on each other to be entertained, challenged, and moved by what we watch and share on YouTube. We’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to make the collective YouTube experience even better, particularly on our most visited pages. Our goal is to help ensure that you’re viewing content that’s relevant to you, and not inadvertently coming across content that isn’t. Here are a few things we came up with:

* Stricter standard for mature content – While videos featuring pornographic images or sex acts are always removed from the site when they’re flagged, we’re tightening the standard for what is considered “sexually suggestive.” Videos with sexually suggestive (but not prohibited) content will be age-restricted, which means they’ll be available only to viewers who are 18 or older. To learn more about what constitutes “sexually suggestive” content, click here.

* Demotion of sexually suggestive content and profanity – Videos that are considered sexually suggestive, or that contain profanity, will be algorithmically demoted on our ‘Most Viewed,’ ‘Top Favorited,’ and other browse pages. The classification of these types of videos is based on a number of factors, including video content and descriptions. In testing, we’ve found that out of the thousands of videos on these pages, only several each day are automatically demoted for being too graphic or explicit. However, those videos are often the ones which end up being repeatedly flagged by the community as being inappropriate.

* Improved thumbnails – To make sure your thumbnail represents your video, your choices will now be selected algorithmically. You’ll still have three thumbnails to choose from, but they will no longer be auto-generated from the 25/50/75 points in the video index.

* More accurate video information – Our Community Guidelines have always prohibited folks from attempting to game view counts by entering misleading information in video descriptions, tags, titles, and other metadata. We remain serious about enforcing these rules. Remember, violations of these guidelines could result in removal of your video and repeated violations will lead to termination of your account.

The preservation and improvement of the YouTube experience is a responsibility we share. Let’s work together to ensure that the YouTube community continues to thrive as a positive place for all of us.

The YouTube Team

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Brief Editorial:
by Zack Scott

1. Why should videos be demoted on profanity alone? Why not just hide them for people not logged in and are 18 or older?

2. Some of YouTube’s most popular stars…Bo Burnham, Charles Trippy, sXePhil, Chris Crocker, Mark Day, etc…(name as many as you want) all have used profanity.

3. The new thumbnail idea sucks. Now what if none of the thumbnails are good?

4. YouTube sometimes features videos with profanity.

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OK, now I finally understand YouTube’s “Stricter standard for mature content”

“Videos that are considered sexually suggestive, or that contain profanity, will be algorithmically demoted on our ‘Most Viewed,’ ‘Top Favorited,’ and other browse pages.”

They must not like sXePhil.