Daisy Whitney provides a “New Media Minute” (TVWeek) that excites me about a day when I watch a video, and I’m offered a “viewers who liked x also liked y.” It works on Amazon.com to increase purchases by existing customers, and it can enhance the video-viewing experience. This functionality is available to those who customize their YouTube homepage, and could be something that helps Strike.tv (with its diverse portfolio of shows) move audiences from one show to a related one. These kinds of user-experience services will make online-video average sessions longer, and more satisfying.
In this episode (embedded below), you’ll see a snipet of YouTube filmmaker Chuck Potter, whose “I Want My Three Minutes Back” should be mandatory viewing for aspiring video creators. It takes the journey into the transformation of several YouTube creators like myself. I learned a lot about the personal and professional challenges of “surviving” on YouTube, and a bit about myself. Potter is shopping the film to film festivals, and I hope he’ll one day offer “chunks” of it on YouTube and perhaps a DVD.
Potter’s primary ingredients for success: Find a niche, and remain persistent. Persistence is the key ingredient, and that requires following one’s creative impulse, responding to the audience preferences, and constant “Madonna-like” reinvention.
