Making Google Rich

Okay, now I’m bummed out. Someone just pointed out that the ripped-off version of my Burger King Outsources Ordertaking got more than a quarter of a million views. Google isn’t running many ads on its videos so I know they didn’t make a mint on the content. But let’s do some “back of envelope” math.

Let’s say the going rate for a banner next to a video is $15 per thousand views ($15 CPM). It’s probably lower, but I would imagine it would stabilize at that price based on demand and the ability to target (assuming video sites can help us advertisers target by content or viewer type).

So Google pockets — with this video — $3,750. And that’s just “to date.” The potential is really unlimited. And the creator? Unless he/she has 1,000 hours they get nothing but fame and comments. That’s good enough for most of us… but for how long?

Grrrrrr.

Little “behind the scenes” of this video… I was sitting on this concept since I heard my co-worker, Peter, talk about this trend to outsource order taking. So I imagined how bad it could get, but I didn’t make the video for weeks. Finally I decided I needed to squeeze out the turd, so I e-mailed my co-workers Derrick and Pinacki and begged them to do their piece via the phone — while I “worked from home” that day. Then I drove to a parking lot and shot my part. The editing was one of the most complicated of my videos because I had to make it seem like the conversations were actually taking place.

Is it a masterpiece? Of course not. But I think it’s worth maybe $1K?