Category Archives: Advertising

Advertising, Business, Online

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 🙂

Advertising, Cameras

Deals on Nikon D750 and Nikon 1 J5 Mirrorless cameras

I do a lot of shooting with the Nikon 1 cameras and love’em.

Adorama is featuring package deals on the newly announced Nikon cameras:

Advertising, Business, Online

Fascinating article about Youtube stars' business models

Is YouTube Risking A Creative Exodus? ⚙ Co.Labs ⚙ code + community.
It’s getting hard for many of them to make the money needed to fund their production efforts based on Youtube ad revenue, alone.
Musicians make their money primarily by selling their music outside of Youtube (e.g. iTunes) – and use Youtube for the promotion of the music.
For others, the “stars” are branching out with sponsorships and paid product placements (a lot of videos now have hidden ad placement – some like the endless fashion/hair/makeup videos targeted at tweens through age 20 or so feature products the star was paid to show), merchandising and the latest is books, movies and even TV deals. Others, like Devin Graham, do sponsored videos that get shared with his millions of subscribers, featuring people having fun with products and services. He just announced he’s off to Istanbul courtesy of Turkish Airlines (and then probably other destinations as well).
Youtube is rapidly turning into something other than what it has been. Whether it ends up in a good place only time will tell. Obviously, Youtube and its content creators cannot sit still.
Yahoo might use Tumbler as a way to compete with Youtube. Hmmm.

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Advertising, Business

YouTube to open its 4th production studio

Youtube Studios adds New York City to its existing studios in Tokyo, London and Los Angeles – accessible to any Youtube channel with at least 5,000 subscribers:

It will be chock-full of expensive equipment wired for collaboration all over the world, and it will all be available at a cost of exactly zero.Creators can easily gain access to the space. YouTube artists need a minimum of 5,000 subscribers to their channel and must be part of the company’s Partner Program, in which ads are hosted and revenue is shared.
Partners are given access to better cameras, production spaces and editing facilities as classes train them not just in shooting video, but also in makeup, design and anything else that might make programming pop online.

via YouTube Takes Manhattan – NYTimes.com.
Perhaps more importantly, the new studio is located near “Madison Ave” advertising agencies as Youtube content increasingly turns into smaller versions of what you watch on cable TV. Indeed, Youtube stars are already using the same agency, management, talent lawyers and agents as Hollywood. (I was amused, recently, to learn that one of the Youtube “stars” that appears by himself, is actually supported by a team of about two dozen people now!)
Some Youtube creators are complaining that Youtube takes 45% of all ad revenue and it has become very difficult to make a living creating content for Youtube.
However, some Youtube “stars” will also soon be adding books to their revenue streams.
Personal note – Youtube has coalesced into an increasingly “winner take all” market place. With so much content uploaded every minute, my own videos, which once had at least thousands of views, are now lucky to get tens of views. With their recent dropping of the 3D video player, I am contemplating ending uploads of video to Youtube. Youtube has become saturated and it is difficult for new offerings to get viewed.
Flickr, on the other hand, has been incredibly successful for me.