Category Archives: Advertising

China using #drones to enforce quarantine

Source: China adapts surveying, mapping, delivery drones to enforce world’s biggest quarantine and contain coronavirus outbreak | South China Morning Post

They are being used with sensors to detect people out and about, and to broadcast public health announcements from overhead speakers.

I wonder how long until the AmazonUPSGoogle drone fleets decide to play loud advertising as they fly low over our homes and cities?

More deals on micro four thirds, Panasonic Lumix gear-this weekend only

From Adorama

Photo:

Free $300 Adorama Gift Card
Free $125 Adorama Gift Card
Free $100 Adorama Gift Card
Free $100 Adorama Gift Card
Free $100 Adorama Gift Card
Free $50 Adorama Gift Card
Free $100 Adorama Gift Card
Regular Price: $40 | Sale Price:$7.95
Regular Price: $43 | Sale Price:$8.95

Adorama has some great deals on micro Four Thirds cameras

Note – I own an E-M10 Mark II and it is my favorite camera for still photography.

Photo:

Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II Mirrorless MFT Camera w/14-42mm EZ Lens/ED 40mm-150mm

Regular Price: $998 | Sale Price:$649 | Exp 03/30

 

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX8 Mirrorless Camera Body

Silver

Black

Regular Price: $1198 | Sale Price:$849 | Exp 03/31

 

MeFOTO 52mm Wild Blue Yonder Circular Polarizer Filter – Green Filter Ring

Regular Price: $38 | Sale Price:$5

 

Video:

SmallHD 501 5″ HDMI Full HD LCD On-Camera Monitor with Waveform, 1920×1080

Regular Price: $899 | Sale Price:$599 | Exp 03/30

 

Blackmagic Design UltraStudio 4K Extreme, Thunderbolt and PCIe Video Capture, 12G-SDI and HDMI 2.0, Rack Mount Design

Regular Price: $2995 | Sale Price:$2495 | Exp 03/30

Is YouTube losing hobby video producers?

Back in 2012, views of my hobby videos on YouTube collapsed. Views that had low thousands or occasionally tens of thousands of views were no longer being watched. I hypothesized then that this was due to a flood of new content on YouTube, diluting the views, some sudden change in viewer habits or that YouTube had changed something.

Mostly this is due to YouTube changes. Starting in 2012, YouTube changed its search algorithm to reward videos that had more viewing time. Consequently, search results are steered towards the videos that YouTube thinks you will watch the longest.

A possible side effect of this change, also, is that short form videos may be likely to get higher rankings. The ideal YouTube video length has long been said to be 3-5 minutes. Longer videos get abandoned before they end.

To get seen on YouTube requires a combination of search engine optimization strategies, short videos, some specific types of content, and at least a weekly video release. I suspect that videos that enable advertising are ranked higher (all of mine have advertising disabled by me), which makes sense because ads pay the bills for YouTube.

This has impacted a great many, mostly small hobby producers. I went through my video subscription list yesterday and began pruning out those that have not posted a video in more than a year. I found dozens of content producers who stopped posting content over the past 1-3 years. Looking at their uploads list, it was apparent that their recent videos were no longer getting the views they once had for their older views – and not surprisingly, they gave up posting videos on YouTube.

This result is probably the “right result” for YouTube but not a desirable one for hobby video producers. This turns YouTube away from the serendipitous viewing of funny, independent little videos, to focus increasingly on sophisticated productions. Many of our favorite “channels” may still look like a guy or gal standing in front the camera in their bedroom, but in reality, many now have full production staff behind the scenes.

Today’s announcement doesn’t come as a total surprise. Earlier this year, the company already explained its focus on ‘watch time.” When it updated its suggested videos algorithm, YouTube noted that it did so to “better surface the videos that viewers actually watch, over those that they click on and then abandon.”

Source: YouTube Changes Its Search Ranking Algorithm To Focus On Engagement, Not Just Clicks | TechCrunch

Meanwhile, Facebook is now hosting videos, although its search and organization of videos is terrible. Facebook is also faking high view counts by making Facebook hosted videos play automatically in Facebook news streams while YouTube auto play is disabled. Further, Facebook counts any video that plays for 3 seconds as a “view” while YouTube only counts 30 seconds or more as a view.

Blogging and Youtube videos unlikely to earn much income

The author of the excellent Micro 4/3rds Photography Blog reveals the numbers behind his blog – and with blog ads, commissioned sales links and Youtube videos with ads, the combination earns very little money.

Source: Micro 4/3rds Photography: Blog economy

Most of the top video channels on Youtube got started very early back when it is alleged most channel creators gamed the system to increase viewership [1]. While some recent arrivals have achieved viewer success, it may take years to achieve a reasonable following, or money spent on promotion. It is said that even for the successful Youtube channels, the creators most creators must also sell ancillary products (notably music but also t-shirts, hats, etc).

So why blog or produce Youtube videos? For many of us, do these as a hobby. We enjoy sharing helpful information with others. For example, I publish a popular tutorial blog on programming in App Inventor (See App Inventor 2: Learn to Code!). Other reasons include emphasizing one’s credentials in the subject, to advertise one’s skills to potential clients, to be involved in a social web of people with similar interests, perhaps to sell related products and services, and more.

Footnote – The “old” way Youtubers Got Views

[1] Many Youtubers figured out the way to get viewed – and obtain subscribers – was to generate lots of fake views to jump up high on the “Most Viewed” lists. In the early years of Youtube, it was easy to do this: copy the video player embed code 100 times on an HTML page and just keep reloading the page!  (This “feature” was disabled long ago!)

Appearing on the “Most viewed” lists increased visibility and views rapidly. Others say that nearly all of today’s successful channels, which started in the 2005-2008 first three years of Youtube, got there by manipulating view counts.

In 2012 or 2013 Youtube seems to have made changes in the search system that caused viewership of minor channels to fall. Starting about 2 years ago, views of my own videos fell sharply – and I no longer post much on Youtube, having instead migrated to Flickr (Flickr supports videos too!) On Flickr I often get as many views in a day as I would see – ever – on Youtube 🙂