TubeMogul’s blog did a nice summary of the online-video sites it feeds, and provides user feedback about the site and monetization status (whether you can make money on the sites). You can also read the “Zagat’s”-like report as a PDF. Thanks to Mark from TubeMogul for bringing this to our attention.
Category Archives: metacafe
“What Not to Wear” Host, Clinton Kelly, Insults Nalts’ Crocs
Well I’ve been ridiculed about my Crocs before by such YouTube folks as Nutcheese (see this hysterical clip after the YouTuber caught a shot of my orange Crocs in a video).
But this takes the cake. Now Clinton Kelly, fashion guru and host of TLC’s “What Not to Wear,” is telling me they’ve got to go. Check out this footage on Metacafe from when he dissed me yesterday after one of his fashion appearances (see on YouTube). Don’t ask how I got into his limo, please. It’s such a long story.
So I’m eBaying these cute little Crocks that have been seen in countless online videos and traveled the country. Bid before October 5 at http://crocs.ofnalts.com/
The Best Tool for Uploading Your Video to Multiple Video Sites
Nearly 9 months ago I begged for an alternative to uploading my videos manually to multiple websites. But shame on me. I’ve been uploading to dozens of sites for nearly two years, and we’re talking about nearly 500 videos. So that translates to several thousand times of doing the mundane “title it, describe it, tag it, upload, and wait.” Rinse, repeat.
Solutions have gradually developed, and all but one of these is free. So why have I waited until today to change this forever?
- Very few credible solutions have emerged in this space until recently. I’d even spoken with developers to create a custom web-based application that would focus on simplifying uploads and cope with site-specific criteria (monetization requirements). The potential here is enormous because content-creators would make that site a regular stop, which would give power to the tool to permit less popular sites to receive content.
- Most of my recent videos have been YouTube-specific and I’ve let my presence on other sites fade. Still, there are always a few that could have life beyond YouTube. And when I focused on Revver and Metacafe I made decent money for a short period. Ultimately my Revver and Metacafe dollars have dwindled as Revver views are low and few of my videos have hit the criteria for revenue-sharing on Metacafe.
- Ultimately I’ve distrusted non-credentialed “uploader” applications because of the risks I may take. Do they keep a copy of the video, and what rights might they assume on them? More importantly, the mystery company owns YOUR passwords of each video website. Do you want them being able to change payment preferences in your Revver, Metacafe or YouTube settings?
It’s time to overcome this fear.
I’m starting with what appears to be the leader in the space: TubeMogul. I neglected to mention them in a recent post that sited two players, and I heard from you WVFF readers and from the company.
So here’s the current landscape of players. I am not brave enough to try them all, and in some cases I list the “deal breaker” that turned me away.
Pros: Hands-down winner of the space. Registering and password process made me feel safe.- Cons: Limited sites supported: YouTube, Metacafe, MySpace, Yahoo, Revver, AOL Video, DailyMotion, BrightCove. Interface was frustrating because the process of defining the sites to monitor is very different from identifying the sites for uploading. This required me visiting each of the sites for various information at different stages: e-mail, password, URL of my video page.
- Note: The site asked if I wanted to store the passwords, so I’m hoping I won’t need to teach it again. The status feedback hasn’t yet changed on the videos I uploaded an hour ago.
- Pro: Simple interface, good analytics, easy to add account to site via interface.
- Con: Too few sites supported – deal breaker until developed. They are exclusively allowing Google Video, Metacafe, MySpace, Revver, Veoh, YouTube. Typos on site and lack of contact information also made me weary to try.
- Pro: Nice interface from developer that seems legitimate.
- Con: Deal breaker: You need to remember your passwords, because they’re used in the “session” but not databased. This may have been to quell concerns about sharing passwords, but it seems like I’m just as vulnerable for password theft whether it retains them or not. And it’s a huge inconvenience.
- Pro: By uploading on Veoh, you can also add Google Video, MySpace and YouTube to the sites that receive the video. This is, to my knowledge, the only video site that provides that unselfish functionality.
- Con: Veoh is supposed to be a revenue-sharing site, but I haven’t made a penny on it in the months and months I’ve tried it. It’s frustrating to even try uploading directly to Veoh on that basis. Not a deal breaker but seems like a waste of time.
- Pro: Best diversity of sites. Supports: AOL Uncut Videos. Youtube, Google Video, Bolt, Putfile, Metacafe, Yahoo Video, MSN Soapbox, Myspace Video, Revver, Livevideo, Stupidvideos, Break, Brightcove, Grouper, Zippyvideos, iFilm, Veoh, Flurl, Blip.TV. $1 trial and downloadable application may simplify storing and using (although does present challenges for traveling uploaders).
- Con: $19.95 is a deal breaker when there are free alternatives. Lack of company contact information and poor grammar on website makes me fearful to even try it.
Bottom line:
VideoMogul wins for easy upload features and strong statistic monitoring (its origins). The site is free, and fairly intuitive (although the user interface could use some simplifying). Ideally I’d like to set up my upload and monitor sites once, and then have a simple interface for each time I post or review statistics. I’d also value alerts for when a video happens to move. For example, if my Revver video got more than 100 views, my Metacafe video made it into the hermetically sealed “Producer Rewards” program, or I made my first penny on Veoh.
Floating Hand Seeks Revenge on Poor Video Rater
We creators don’t take offense to poor ratings. But sometimes our body parts do.
Watch in horror as this video creator’s hand removes itself and pursues revenge on someone who ranked its owner’s video poorly. This type of reaction is fairly typical of users of Metacafe, since ratings determine a video’s eligibility into the profitable “Producer Rewards” program.
This video was created, using Adobe After Effects, by a graphic artist in Israel named Eran Solomon. He posts on Metacafe as Teasider.
Candid Camera, Amateur Style
When my “Bored at Mall” was featured on Break.com I was reminded how much people like real reactions to staged situations. It’s what made Candid Camera, Punked and “Trigger Happy TV.”
This weekend we did two similar videos, which are currently topping the list of most discussed and highest rated comedies on YouTube (see image below). It began when my nephew’s friend, Spencer, showed up at our house eager to make a video. He’s been watching my videos, and volunteered to do practically anything.
So on Saturday, we took Spencer to the library with a fart machine (see “Farting in Public” on YouTube, Revver or Metacafe). Thanks to Brad Aronson for inspiring this prank. If you select “more” below you’ll see the dozens of honors it has at the moment, including top-rated comedy of the day today (as decided by viewers).
Hundreds of viewers fell for Spencer immediately, so he showed up for more on Sunday. My patient wife watched the kids while we took Spencer to the center of town — where he posed as a talentless caricature artist. (see “Ugly Caricature” on YouTube, Revver or Metacafe). It was fun watching people react to receiving a stick-figure caricature from the hopeless illustrator.
What’s even more fun is watching how different people respond. For instance, most kids reacted immediately to Spencer’s fake farts. But adults tried diplomacy. And few wanted to insult Spencer’s art skills, so they mostly pretended to like his drawings. A few even gave him tips. I just sat there giggling behind the camera because I’m a grown-up adolescent.
If Spencer’s parents permit, we have more plans for the guy that reminds many of a G-rated version of the “Man Show” kid. I’m hoping he’ll wear a chicken suit and reluctantly hand out fliers for his dad’s new fast-food chicken restaurant. Pipistrello has already volunteered to play his angry dad, who gazes from a distance as Spencer quietely tells people the chicken has simonella.
P.S. I try to provide posts to YouTube, as well as to sites that share advertising revenue with me (Revver and Metacafe). YouTube is fun because you can read the crowd reactions. But if you’re going to post a link to these, I’d obviously prefer Metacafe or Revver… since YouTube still doesn’t pay.
What Video Site Pays Best? blip.tv Winning on Mashable Poll.
What video site pays you the best? Visit this post from Mashable for details, and you may see blip.tv winning by a long shot. The focus is on the raw $ per views. Keep in mind that I’d take a significantly lower payment per view (average seems to be .05 to 1 cent) in exchange for lots of traffic. Even if I was paid $1 a view it wouldn’t do me much good if the video was never seen. And since I’m no ZeFrank I need the site to help me get exposure.
By the way- I love tips on stories like this. Please send them to kevinnalts at gmail.com with all cap subject. Most importantly, please let me know how you’d like to be credited (name and URL). I’m often reluctant to credit because I don’t know if people want it or not.
This one courtesy of Klim.
Metacafe Appoints New CEO
Metacafe today announced that it has appointed a new CEO.
Erick Hachenburg, who led casual-games leader Pogo.com before assuming responsibility for Electronic Art’s global online strategy.
Arik Czerniak, co-founder and former CEO, will remain on the executive management team to focus on strategic product issues and partnerships. I interviewed Czerniak for a recent article for The Daily Reel. Very often a founder will hold onto a company long after it has outgrown his entrepreneurial skillsets, so Czerniak’s passing of the reigns is an interesting one.
One could argue the company is establishing a new CEO to make itself more marketable for sale. Metacafe recently announced a U.S. headquarters and expanded executive team. Alternatively, as BloggingStocks predicts, this could ice rumors of Yahoo acquiring Metacafe.
Metacafe is the largest independent online-video site — attracting a global audience of more than 17 million unique viewers consuming 550 million page views every month (comScore, December 2006).
Superbowl Commercials Online
Today is the first post-Superbowl day where people have easy universal access to all of the commercials. Do you suppose anyone is working today?
YouTube is inviting people to rank their favorite Superbowl ads. What stood out for you?
Someone submitted them all the Superbowl commercials to Metcafe as well. Now THAT’S some time on your hands. Or hop over to USAToday to vote for the ads.
The consumer-generated ads include:
- Doritos cashier lady
- Doritos spicy, cheesy, bold, smooth
- Chevy car commercial (concept was user-generated)
JumpCut is featuring some of the amateur-made Doritos ads that didn’t win. Check out the Mousetrap one. Very funny.
This Video is Fake
Here’s one man’s depiction of typical reactions to online videos (note- explicit language included).
He spoofs the many moronic comments that videos attract. His parody is around some of the themes of Metacafe’s comment audience, but many of these are universal truths to video comments:
- That’s boring
- That’s fake
- You suck
8 Wishes for Online Video
Paul Sanchez — biker, video junkie, PR machine, blogger, and maddman — has started an 8-wishes “tag chain” thingy. He’s asked me and other bloggers to post our 8 wishes and pass along the task to others. Parenthetically, Paul’s first wish was granted, as he recently interviewed Kinkos founder Paul Orfalea.
So let’s be clear that if I really had 8 wishes, they’d be focused around my wife and family, world peace, end of poverty and injustice, etc. However I’m focusing these strictly on online video.
- Amateurs develop niche audiences that can economically sustain themselves. That’s what this blog is about. Many of us make videos for fun, but would love to jump into it full time. Currently there are really only two ways to do that. Develop a tremendous following such that advertising (via sites that share ad revenue) sustains you. This is proving to be very difficult so far. The alternative is to develop serialized content and attract one or more sponsors. We’ve done a couple videos for Mentos (Sneaking Mentos into Theater and the recent Team Mentos with MediaMogirl). It would take a lot of these to cover my mortgage, but it’s a good start.
- Online video channels will compensate creators. If you had asked me a year ago, I would have almost guaranteed you that community would form around sites that shared ad revenue. This isn’t happening as fast as we all hoped. YouTube does not share advertising with creators, and sites like Revver, blip.tv and Brightcove are only effective if you have your own audience. None of these sites draws traffic like the big boys. Metacafe has both ad sharing and traffic, but it’s fierce competition to get seen.
- Advertisers will hasten their shift from interuption marketing to engagement marketing. Instead of building campaigns that push product, I hope they’ll more deeply engage in social media. The EepyBird Coke deal is a great example. Coke paid the comedic duos, and then drove views via Google Video. Advertisers are starting to realize that the the 60-second spot is dead, and they need to let go of scripted messaging to be viable in a demand-driven content world where they can skip ads.
- Online video accessible via any box. I hope that in 2007 we see more power to the explosive collide of television and online video. YouTube and Revver have deals with Verizon, and there is no shortage of models that bring online video to cable, television, media centers and portable devices. The more this happens, the easier it will be for content creators to find audiences and audiences to find niche content.
- Niche channels form. There are many of us that create content that is not necessarily mass market. But there are groups of people that love specific niches. YouTube facilitates this connection via subscriptions. In the past week I jumped from 400 subscribers to about 1200 on YouTube and these are people that have self-identified as being interested in my style. Others can RSS my content, but there’s no easy way to turn on the boob tube and surf some of my videos. I hope there will be soon.
- The letter V will be removed from the alphabet. You have to have a stretch wish.
- The networks will support an online-video show. This will provide mainstream visibility to online-video creators that have interesting content but can’t sustain their own show. We’ll see an SNL-style show that features an assortment of short clips from regular content providers. I want to be one of ’em. Remember how the Simpsons got its start as a segment of The Tracy Ulman show.
- My 8th wish is for 8 more wishes. Is that allowed?