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?
You know, he may be one of the most over-exposed YouTubers of the summer. But he’s absolutely one of my favorite YouTube personalities. Having met him, I can tell you he’s really centered and a wholesome family man. So that makes videos like this Moto Man (in which he spins his motorcycle around his house for no apparent reason) even more special. And his wife plays a perfect dead-pan straight man. Or woman.
How can a video like this not have millions of views? And what about “Chubby Kid Falls from Roof“? As Sxephil joked to me in LA, “when I saw Roof Ninja, I saw money.” Hence their collaboration on a new SxePhil/Shaycarl channel called, “BamBamKaBoosh.”
I struggle constantly with the battle between consistency and variety. And balancing the family-friendly image but allowing the adolescent in me free. And this struggle, paranthetically, doesn’t get easier when I catch yesterday’s Doctor Phil (while on the treadmill, so kinda had no other option thank you very much) interviewing people about Facebook photos that might come back and haunt us. Okay- crossed that bridge a long time ago.
But then I see Jon Lajoie doing a video where he raps about being a stay-at-home dad. Given his edgy style, I was expecting him to pull the rug from under us. But it was a playful reflection of the fact that being a dad can indeed be cool, and there was no surprise shocker in that video. Then weeks later Lajoey is back to his irreverant style with this ear-worm called “Show Me Your Genitals” (Vagina, Vagina).
For some reason Lajoei’s work comes across as a parody of perversion instead of perversion itself. There are times where I think I’d trust him babysitting my kids more than SxePhil). Come to think of it, I think I did dump my kids wtih Phil at the Washington, D.C. gathering but that’s because there were only two or three other attendees.
There’s something intriguing about someone who can vary their style (either by format or tone) and maintain a regular audience. Some of the most popular creators are known for consistency (Sxephil and whatthebuckshow). Others are known for predictably well written sketches (Smosh, Lisanova, and Baratsandbereta).
Like Lejoie, BaratsandBereta also show that us that you can do videos like the recent Bible in a Minute and the timeless Second Coming of Christ, but still return to wholesome skits like the popular Mother’s Day video. Of course, the duo’s Mormon-like style ranges less than Lijoie, who also boasts “Friends With God?” And how in the world is that video not at 10 million views?
Whatya think? Can you appeal to a large, sustained audience if your tone and format ranges, or is it better to find a formula and stick with it? The history of television would tell us consistency is fairly important, and there’s a fuzzy but important line between edgy and perverted. But maybe those rules change with a new medium. Especially if we can segment our content to give viewer’s a choice between the style they’ll accept.
I’m just so glad this cat’s out of the bag, so I can officially boast that I used LonelyGirl15’s Visine in the dressing room. Too bad the set was closed to cameras. In one of those moments I wish I had on tape, I had to ask the star of LonelyGirl15 what we should call her, because I couldn’t remember if Jessica was her real name or stage name.
Says the Hollywood Reporter about the HBO Labs web series debuting October 1, “”Hooking Up” could prove groundbreaking for the nascent webisode genre by amassing a sizable viewership, given its aggregation of Internet personalities who can promote the production to their devoted audiences of millions of young viewers.
Tilzy called it “a small scale Ocean’s 11 for the YouTube set.” I don’t know what I’m allowed to say or not say about this production, so I’ll keep it safe and say that some of the people that work for HBOLabs are so cute and talented I’d buy McDonald Happy Meal toys of their likeness. And this post is not a McDonalds or Visine promotion anymore than yesterday’s Twinkie post. I got contacted last night by a Forbes.com guy writing about sponsored blog posts, and I groaned at the thought that anyone would think my pop culture references have backdoor incentives. Ewww!
And for the record, this isn’t the first time all of us have been scripted. In a grade school production of The Wizard of Oz, I was the soldier that leaned over upon the dying Wicked Witch of the West and said, “she’s dead… you’ve killed her.”
Leave it to the hyper talented Davideo Designs (see his website at www.davideodesign.co.uk) to create this magically delicious “YouTube Celebrity Dance-Off” competition. The poor guy solicited clips from YouTubers, and patienty waited. Finally he decided to go with special effects listed below.
It also features sxephil, charlestrippy, lonelygirl14, geriatric1927, brookers and me.
Music is “Flight of the CEEDEE”, from Davideo’s “Ghouls go Wild” performed on his cherished Korg Triton.
Visual applications used were Photoshop to prepare assets. After Effect for the compositing. Monet for the motion tracking of heads. Boujou for the 3d tracking of the aeroplane. 3d Max for the Plane render with Afterburn for the Red Arrows style colored smoke trails.
Then edited together with a Sony Digital Pictures NLE ala Vegas.
Total time to complete according to Davideo= 20 Coffees, 30 cigs, 2 bowls of rice crispies, 2 cakes, 3 pints of water, and no sleep.
The release will be this fall, and I’m excited to see the interviews with fellow creators. It’s fun watching them when they’re not “on stage.” Just sitting there with Chuck Potter, who’s demeaner is so laid back you forget he’s holding a camera.
Phil DeFranco (SxePhil) conducted his interview with Potter weeks before getting scalped, but on the set of his next film (see trailer). I love that I’m sticking my photo next to the immensely more popular HappySlip and SxePhil (above).
P.S. That’s happyslip in the photo behind me. It only made Jo and Lemonette slightly jealous.
I just spent some time surfing the YouTube “insights” data to see what videos attracted men versus women. Oddly the “First Pregnant Man” was a precise split (50/50). Not surprisingly, more men preferred “Dying Roach.”
But the biggest chasm in gender viewing was “Best of Naked Vlogging.” That fairly popular video (which is the first in weeks that actually has an InVideo ad) was ridiculously skewed. 86 percent of the ~100K viewers have penises while only 14 percent have vaginas.
I totally rigged this post to be jam-packed with perv terms, so you are probably looking for this hot sexy women video. Now piss off, find a nice woman and settle down. You’ll never find joy, love and peace by taking direction from your second brain.
And the rest of you? Don’t be calling me a SxePhil manipulator because you secretly want to link to this page to take advantage of the traffic you’ll get back (and you know you want it, ohhhh yes).
He’s one of the most prolific YouTubers with more than 123,000 subscribers, daily comedic and topical rants, and he makes his primary income from YouTube’s “Partner Program.”
But Sxephil was so frustrated by YouTube’s technical problems — which he said deprived him of ad revenue — that he turned his daily rant toward the Google-owned video site, YouTube. YouTube provides him with shared advertising revenue that some estimate could amount to a 6-figure annual salary.
Last night (May 17), the YouTube Comedian noticed his recent videos lacked advertisements, and likened the glitch to someone arriving at work and finding their paycheck wasn’t processing. He has since removed that video, but his blog post “Bastards” shows a screen shot of his YouTube midget/prostitute video without ads.
It’s not yet clear if SxePhil removed his YouTube rant video because the site has resolved the issue, or whether it was a reaction to his viewers (some the YouTube’s community took issue with his perceived entitlement). He also might have had second thoughts about “biting the hand,” but his blog isn’t commenting about why the video was removed by him, or even if he removed it.
SxePhil, or “Phil DeFranco” (see PhillyD.tv) also was not available at press time for his comments. But to be fair… I didn’t try to reach him (one of the joys of being a blogger instead of a journalist). I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him at a Washington, D.C. gathering, and his true personality is miles from his on-screen persona. I’ve heard the same observation from dozens of people, including a documentary film maker that agreed he’s the YouTuber whose real self is most unlike his on-screen persona.
Last night’s video not only blurred the lines between DeFranco (if indeed that’s his real name) and SxePhil (pronounced “es-exy-phil”). It also created an interesting bifurcation of opinion, which took place on the YouTube video’s comments, in private e-mails among the community, and in live Stickam discussions last night.
On one hand, Phil devotes most of his day to creating a short, daily video show. He’s paid only if people view his videos, and in direct proportion to those views. If Google fails to run the ads due to technical errors, both Google and Phil aren’t paid. Counter this to a television network that buys rights to a show and doesn’t sell or run advertising. My guess is the show’s producer is still paid. Another analogy would be a wholesaler that buys pottery from a local artist, and damages them all in a truck accident. Naturally the wholesaler would take the loss, while the artist would still be paid.
On the other hand, Phil reminded his audience that he’s paid by YouTube while many of them aren’t, which leads to inevitable (and often deep) resentment. Most YouTubers are hobbiests or at best part-time YouTubers (even the increasingly popular Michael Buckley “What the Buck” has a day job). Members of the community don’t like the idea of one YouTuber not needing a job, while they go to work each day. This resentment is not as true for audiences of television or movie stars, who are often paid for one film what many of us won’t make in a lifetime. But since YouTube has a grassroots community origin, the audience sees itself in an equal peer group with the creators — even when fellow creators are propelled to top rankings. When I first campaigned to be in YouTube’s partner program (with a NAPPY video I haven’t since watched), I felt that community ire and resentment. YouTube viewers begin to expect more from videos of paid creators (an odd entitlement since they’re not paying to watch), yet Phil’s rant was viewed as a pompous entitlement of its own. Interesting?
I’ll be interested in the comments on this post since the video’s gone and so are many of the public reactions. I imagine the common denominator would be that Phil has a right to his earnings, but it might have been more diplomatic to work “behind the scenes” to resolve the issue. That said, YouTube is a company, and companies run on company time. So sometimes the squeaky wheel gets oiled. Thoughts?
All the YouTubers are cruising with these. Let’s not let them be the only ones, dangit.
Editorial Update…. here’s a newer post on how much YouTube partners make. Since this post gets so many daily views via search engines, let me answer your question simply. It’s a fraction of a fraction of a penny per view. It’s not enough to cover the mortgage for most, and it’s certainly not yet the reported $2.50 per 1,000 views. It’s often far less, and varies greatly on whether the views have InVideo ads (YouTube charges $25 per thousand and shares that with creators) or the flat square ads (cost far less for advertisers, and doesn’t pay creators). Although I can’t reveal my income, I can tell you it’s highly influenced by my top 5-10 videos, which get millions of views per month (as opposed to the new ones). That said, if you get millions and millions of views per month and live cheap, you could quit your job and buy my dang book, “Beyond Viral.”
Beyond Viral: Tips on Marketing You & Company on YouTube
YouTube’s Fred was rumored to be making seven-figures, but Google clarified that as six figures. But if you take his 350,000,000 views and multiply it by a conservative $1 per 1,000 views…. you’re talking $350,000.00. I’m making more on YouTube than I made in my first job out of school, but with four kids and a lot of debt, it’s not enough for me to pull a Sxephil, Shaycarl, or Michael Buckley and rely on it as a primary income source.
Oh how’s THAT for a blog title, when you’ve signed a confidentiality document that precludes you from talking about your revenue as a YouTube partner?! Don’t worry, YouTube. I’m not breaking rank. But I’m very interested in what people THINK partners are making.
Before YouTube, I’ve always been transparent about my revenue related to online video. I feel that’s part of my role on this blog… to give creators a realistic sense of what they can make in online video (beyond food). Alas, YouTube prohibits it for reasons that aren’t quite clear to me — are there tiers? If compensation varies, then I can be sure I’m at the bottom based on my complete lack of negotiation skills.
I do believe that some prominent YouTube partners are beginning to earn what amounts to a full-time job through the site. But I also understand that some of the early Partner contracts are up for renewal about now.
Could some be overstating their earnings? Yes. But some partners are doing $10K a month, especially those that already had an audience and moved them to YouTube. And some creators get millions of views consistently.
When some say they’ve quit their day jobs, is that because their costs are so low that even a couple grand a month can sustain them? Maybe.
Could the earnings be based on a point of time where, say, they had a video featured that was monetized? Sure.
While there’s no question that many could still earn more money per hour doing something else (like consulting or bartending), I am happier with my income from YouTube than what I was making from YouTube before I became a partner (zero). And while I’m not sure whether the per-view profit is as strong as Revver’s and Metacafe’s (I don’t even have access to any such metrics), I’m not getting any significant views on those sites anymore. So YouTube is far outperforming them.
My advice remains: if you’re looking to get rich, create a bunch of mortgage blogs and sell adsense. Or go into financial services or recruiting like the former co-worker that just called me to “network.”
But if you love video and the community around it, then it’s nice to get an income subsidy that helps you justify the time commitment to yourself, wife and family. I remain optimistic that more of the top creators of YouTube will be able to quit their day jobs, but that’s partially because amateurs will slowly get trumped by the semi pros (whose day job is performing or video creation). It’s already happening. While the amateur vloggers are holding top positions, we’re seeing more semi-professional content done by comedy troups, bands or known offline celebrities.
Now here’s the purpose of my post. I’m curious what people THINK partners make. I can tell from a lot of comments that people WAY over estimate what creators make: “You get paid for this shit?” “You’re asking us for ideas? You’re the one who gets paid.” I can’t participate in this thread, but it will be fun to watch.
And if you’re not a Partner yet, don’t let it upset you unless you have hundreds of thousands of monthly views. Grow the audience and reapply later. Even if YT did make you a partner, it’s not worth it unless you have some views. Take it from a guy that tried Google ads on his blog for a while, and quickly realized that it wasn’t worth the cosmetic interference.
