Some people make $250,000 a year on Blip.tv, according to its affable CEO Mike Hudack (I’m a fan).
You can’t make $250,000 a year on Blip.tv, though. Sorry but you’re not talented enough. You know what? I’m sorry. Read my free eBook and give it a shot. Buy my book and give it a better shot. Go like it on GetGlue if you use it, or I’ll pee on you.
In a very interesting model, the producer of America’s Funniest Videos is bringing an archive of 1970s-present user-generated content to YouTube. And, no, Bob Saget and Tom Bergeron are not hosting, VHS players are optional, and the AFV brand isn’t involved. Thank God.
Instead Vin Di Bona (who, trivia here, used some of my 1980s clips in the trailers promoting AFV) is teaming with Phil DeFranco (Sxephil) and Toby Turner (Tobuscus) in what’s called CuteWinFail. Read about it on NewTeeVee if you actually want facts. The premise is that the audience decides if it’s cute, a “win” (victory) or “fail” (embarrassment).
Toby is one of few people who can pull off hosting this format with his manic delivery, clever writing and genuine nature. He celebrates the archaic clips without pandering to them… and avoids falling into the dangerous trap of Webjunk and Tosh 2.0, where the host snubs the content. Toby walks the fine line in a way that Phil probably couldn’t have done — simply because he couldn’t likely hide his contempt for the clips (but who among us can throw a stone?). Toby, on the contrary, mocks and celebrates the cheesy moments in what can only be called Tobuscumockercelebration.
I believe it’s one of the smartest collaborations between traditional media and YouTube, and far more likely to emulate the popularity of FailBlog than most production/network “fails” on YouTube. It’s also likely to get Phil and Toby on the big-boy radar since it has the credibility of AFV’s producer.
The biggest difference between “Cute Win Fail” and Failblog, of course, is that the clips are owned by the channel, so advertising is fair game. Poor FailBlog could be making several hundred thousand dollars (actually well more) if it was monetized, but it’s mostly “ripped” content. Di Bona’s production company (see NewTeeVee) owns loads of cheesy b-roll, and it would have been a horrible embarrassment to start uploading and monetizing it without Sxephil and Tobuscus vouching for it and putting it into YouTube context… and allowing it to be self aware of the “cheese” factor in a way that even the smooth Bergeron couldn’t have done.
In a YouTube binge, NewTeeVee writer Liz Shannon Miller is rounding up some major online-video news:
Now what else can Liz cover for YouTube week? Hmmmm… how about a YouTuber getting pulled over by the NJ po-po for videotaping a Geek Squad van? And (in a moment of slight embellishment) got a black eye a week later.
When it comes to new-media news today, lots of rivers lead to the ocean. Steve Rubel (Micropersuasion) told me about this phenomenon two years ago when we hired him to speak at Johnson & Johnson, but now I’m seeing it first hand.
So in effect, you’re the fog. The rest of us are just shaping it.
Hold on a second- that’s a cool quote. I have to go write it down. Okay I’m back.
The first NewTeeVee Pier Screening of 2008 is themed “pilots,” (as in pilot episodes of web series not airplane fliers, dumb ass).
Judges include Martin Sargent (Internet Superstar), George Strombolis (YouTube) and Marie Drennan (San Franscisco State University).
Who will play the roles of each judge on the made for TV drama based loosely on the screening competition? Here are our votes.
In a move so brilliantly self promotional that I myself am in awe, TubeMogul ranked the top 40 most-viewed users. This is a delicious marketing tactic because (a) we popularity whores cannot resist bragging rights on this, and (b) if you want to pull a “whose your daddy” on me, you have to use TubeMogul. Now I’ve been a TubeMogul fan before TubeMogul existed. I was spending hours a day uploading to multiple sites, and hating every second of it. When my YouTube views took off, I stopped uploading routinely to the wealth of other sites that got paltry views but provide access to long-tail viewing. TubeMogul solves this for me. If I get no views on yourstupidvideosite.com, at least I don’t have to manually upload or confront that sad fact daily.
So here’s the list of famous people that aren’t yet as popular as me. Wowza.
I boast playfully about my popularity in this video (which also addresses recent allegations that I abuse animals for video entertainment). Mind you that TubeMogul is measuring creator stats based on videos that flow to YouTube and other popular sites via Tubemogul’s upload tool (which captures downstream data as well). The larger media properties have two arms tied behind their back on this ranking.. First, they may choose to upload directly to some sites and circumvent Tubemogul.com. Second, many of them are selective about distribution. Does HBO want to provide content to a website that is a potential competitor and doesn’t share advertising revenue?
Interesting stuff, and the ego role I play in this video is really just a mask worn by a child who fears for the end of a nice era.. one where amateurs with low production costs can, even for a moment, rival larger media plays.
P.S. This post was edited this morning once Ambien wore off. You really shouldn’t blog on Ambien.
I was one of the most active Revver creators soon after the video site launched two years ago (see “Getting Rich on Revver“), and paved the way for ad-revenue sharing with creators. This very blog was an offshoot of an unofficial Revver blog called Revverberation.
So I’m saddened to see that Revver sold (according to NewTeeVee) for under $5 million to LiveUniverse (if I had any money to invest I would certainly have put it into Revver in 2005 before taking a risk with popular but revenue-lite YouTube). Revver, according to NewTeevee’s Liz Gannes, had raised $12.7 million from Comcast, Turner, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Richards and William Randolph Hearst III. In a report earlier this month, CNET News.com cited sources who said the beleaguered Revver was asking for between $300,000 and $500,000 and the assumption of the company’s debt, which the sources said was in the $1 million range.
Founded by Brad Greenspan (who founded MySpace), LiveUniverse operates multiple sites, including video-sharing service LiveVideo. CNET reports that ” Revver’s staff, which is half the size it was in 2006, was ecstatic to hear that the company was saved and that they would not be broken up or moved, according to two Revver employees.” No official word from Revver, and the Revver blog (which has been quiet for days) hasn’t yet mentioned the firesale.
It was only a matter of time before Revver sold, because it has struggled as a third-tier video site with a compelling model but little traffic. I made $2600 on my videos, but that number has been largely flat as distribution was minimal and ad-premiums went from profitable end-frame ads to bottom-feeder text ads. Payments have been issued late (see Revver Forum post) and rumors floated that Revver was paying creators on credit-card debt.
So the good news, dear Revver employees, is you still have a job for now. The bad news is that I’m not sure LiveUniverse is much more than an ad network, and a equally struggling site called LiveVideo (which has been on the decline according to Alexa stats).
