Tag Archives: poptub

book, Online Video

Brands Looking for Good Video Content Are Smoking Acid

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It’s very obvious to advertisers to buy media that interupts popular television shows. Supply/demand creates expensive spots for the Superbowl, and bargain prices for reruns of Full House.

But when branded entertainment became vogue, someone smoked bad acid and promoted a ridiculous concept. Get the sponsor before launching a show, and sell ’em based on the quality of the content. This assumes that agencies and video producers know what content will become popular and influential, (and worse yet that advertisering sponsors can). Wrong. Wrong. Who could have predicted ANYONE in the top 10 most-subscribed YouTube list? Who could have predicted that I’d be a most-viewed YouTube comedian, for crying out loud? And yes I know people don’t smoke acid, jerk.

GoDaddy took a sole sponsorship on “Internet Superstar” (a very clever show that’s now RIP). I loved the show, but I also recognize that — for reasons that elude me — audiences don’t flock to a well-produced show about the other video stars and shows. It similarly perplexes me that Pepsi-backed PopTub hasn’t yet developed a larger audience, but perhaps the “Entertainment Tonight of online video” defies the niche nature of online video (then again, I laughed when I saw magazines about the Internet, and some have survived).

Don’t get me wrong. I believe GoDaddy picked well with Internet Superstar, and that Pepsi found a good show on PopTub. But it’s easy and unwise to pitch an idea, get backing, and then search for an audience with the sponsor’s money.

I’d take a more pragmatic approach as an advertiser. I would promote via what people watch and not what “the suits” and focus groups predict will be hot. That means I’d partner with something as inane as Fred (assuming I felt confident that his bit had staying power). And if I found a brilliant concept (iChannel) that hadn’t garnered an audience, I’d let someone else fund their launch. As I said, online-video popularity is not about talent alone.

An exception, of course, would be Burger King sponsoring content by a known animator (Seth Mac Farlane) that is getting traction because audiences like Seth’s style, and BK is pumping it with ad dollars. And who wouldn’t rather watch “Seth sellout” rather than Burger King commercials on a Burger King YouTube channel?

But when a popular YouTuber spawns a spinoff channel, it often develops a quick following without ad dollars to pimp it or a well-known offline personality.

  • MrSafety‘s relatively new “Mean Kitty” channel is about to surpass me in subscribers.
  • What The Buck Show host, Michael Buckley, has an extremely popular channel where all he does is vlog.
  • Another spinoff (BamBamKaBoosh) amassed 50,000 subscribers in days without any videos — just because popular creators promoted it.
  • Show me an agency that has developed video content and garnered such a fast and loyal audience without promoting it (with ads that might be better served to sell their product not a lame show).

Now the power of being a sole sponsor is far greater than an interruption ad, and these programs shouldn’t be evaluated on a basis of total views but on the impact of the views (not CPM, folks, but Dynamic Logic pre/post awareness and attitude trackers).

I’d rather have a small product placement on the most popular YouTube channel than be the sole backer of an amazing show that’s in search for an audience. Even in branded entertainment, follow the crowds unless you’re extremely confident you can create your own.

book, Online Video

How Will The Mainstream Laggard Audience Navigate Online Video?

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maria sansone\'s showI originally titled this blog post, “PopTub: Does it Suck or Rock.” But then I realized PopTub is about a bigger issue. But first, let me set the context. Last Friday I wrote a post about PopTub and said I wanted to appear on it. Today that wish came true (see below). Now I just have to figure a way to appear on The Office, visit Hawaii and Australia, and meet Gene Hackman or Charles Grodin (a few more items on my “bucket list“).

Turns out I’m not the only fan of PopTub, but there are also quite a few that have a visceral, negative reaction. Perhaps the show is, for them, a personification of the commercialization of YouTube… a pretty host, good production values, sponsored by Pepsi, and Google supported.

From my perspective, there are 3 ways to react to what is inevitable: YouTube’s transformation from a video-sharing community to a major media player:

  1. Wine profusely. Blame anyone you can. Especially a person since YouTube will ignore you.
  2. Leave the site (returning to television, or diving into vloggerhead).
  3. Embrace the change, and grow with it.

The target for PopTub long term, I’d argue, is NOT hard-core YouTubers (as defined by how much time we spend and how participatory we are). The long-term target should be those who want to engage more deeply in online video, but are overwhelmed by the choices. This hosted format is something mainstream “lagards” (late comers) recognize. Indeed it’s Entertainment Tonight for the noobs joining YouTube.

PopTub is starting by calling attention to amateurs. And if  you’re an amateur, you only have a few ways to get discovered by a typical “grazer” of YouTube (namely, read my free eBook, get featured, or end up on the “top rated” section). Now there’s PopTub.

This mainstream crowd doesn’t have the knowledge or time to spend days and weeks learning the top creators and tricks for finding good stuff. The “grazer, laggard, noobs,” jump to YouTube because they received a link or because they’re searching for something specific. And then they boogie. YouTube is getting better at being a Venus Fly Trap for these folks, but it’s still not there yet.

Friends, the “top rated” section of YouTube proves that the “wisdom of crowds” doesn’t actually work yet on YouTube. The top videos are usually a video game video, an advertisement that spammed its way there via ViralVideoVillian.com, political propoganda, or one of a few amateurs that have such psychotically loyal fans (Sxephil, Whatthebuck) that they’d rate 5 stars a video of their poop gettig smeared on the wall.

Along comes PopTub with a bubbly host and a bunch of screenagers that are paid to scour the web for good videos. These folks even surf the “most recently added” section to find some of their pix (I’d rather work on Excel sheets). Who’s got time for that? I view it as a free service to help me find content that sucks less than my own.

So I see PopTub as another way for noobs to find good online-video content, and I welcome that service. We may not like all the videos it discovers, but I’ve found more creators via PopTub in the past weeks than I’ve found on featured videos in the past year. Don’t like the picks? Let ’em know.

And of course I’m not paid by PopTub for this (I never blog for compensation, and my sponsored videos are always indicated as such). I’m probably not unbiased because PopTub has features a few of my videos. But I co-hosted voluntarily beacuse I dig the show, and wanted to meet the producers and Maria Sansone. I even kidnapped her, you know.

Thoughts?


 

book, Online Video

PopTub Backed by Google ‘n Pepsi

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This Hollywood Reporter article reveals that PopTub (a new show on YouTube) is backed by bigger players that I thought.

(Google) quietly launched a video series September 8 on its YouTube property called “Poptub” with Embassy Row, the production company run by “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” creator Michael Davies, and Pepsi.

So we’re feeling quite humbled that host Nick Vitale joied the Bad Nalts Bear team for the Rhett & Link supernotes contest. Here we see him at Comix getting a round of awkward silence after his supernote.

And of course Maria Sansone did that Yellow Pages reading after I acknowledged that she could read the phone book and we’d love it. Was I right? And that they’re digging my videos. Even guest star Ana covered me.

Why PopTub daily only has 4,000 subscribers is absolutely beyond me. I guess it takes time. Maybe they need a good fake feud with a prominent YouTuber.

Common PopTub. I wanna guest host! See you in NYC.

Online Video

Tilzy.tv Journalist Jamison Tilzner Gets Right to the Facts

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A lot of journalists will let their subjects wander aimlessly about a story. But you have to give Jamison Tilzner, of Tilzy.tv, kudos for getting right to the story. As “Hooking Up” writer Woody Tondorf waxes poetically about some of the second-rate YouTube weblebrities appearing in the HBOLabs web series (which is now featured on YouTube’s homepage), Tilzner gets right to the key cast member. See 1:55 of this video. And feel free to rip, repeat and upload that to YouTube. Seems Nalts is missing from a lot of the heavy promotion, largely because he serves a bit role and he’s rather old for the target demo.

As I shared with the folks from PopTub in a recorded interview this morning, Woody and the HBOLabs team had two characters in mind when they reached out to me:

  • Professor Klein… a burnt out professor of the imaginary Bask University, which apparently recruits for kids who have low SAT scores but are Internet attention-seeking whores.
  • The janitor of Bask, who pops up at the end and says, “and I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.” Turns out they scratched that character to allow for more time to develop the character of Jessica’s boobs.

In the meantime, watch YouTube Reviewed, which is allegedly a mock site HBO Labs created to generate fake negative publicity about the show.

Online Video

Amateur Versus Professional Video on YouTube: What’s Next?

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Slowly the top 100 YouTube “most subscribed” channels are professional content providers. But sxephil (a YouTube amateur who blogs about daily news) maintains that the amateurs “are the future” and YouTube should pay more attention to them, rather than become a Hulu.

I explore this debate in my video today… Also note a new trick I’m experimenting with at the end of the video. I run a few seconds of black and then add some links to other videos that are related or that I want to promote. You won’t see those unless you have “annotations” turned on.

A few of the links at the end of this video aren’t mine. But this technique is a smart way to keep people viewing your content, rather than selecting the random video that might appear over the player as “related.” One of the easiest things to do when you’re lost in a YouTube binge is select the next video it recommends.

So whatya think? Amateurs versus Pros. What’s ahead?