Category: Web 2.0

Die YouTube DIE!

Those are the thoughts of many YouTube users. YouTubers are going so balistic about ads being placed onto videos that Google has temporarily stopped showing video ads altogether! Great job guys! Apparently the research and development team at YouTube really thought this one out…

I don’t have any issue with ads being placed on my videos if I had control over what is being shown and that I can actually make money off of it. If I’m embedding the video onto my website, do I not deserve a cut of the money made off of the ad? My viewers are watching the video – not YouTubers!

YouTube Ad

If YouTube is to survive, it needs ads everywhere. I don’t even think Google is willing to lose billions of dollars on this site if it can’t pull its act together.

But YouTube fans are so dedicated that they have already built a way to avoid YouTube video ads entirely! This FireFox browser extension called TubeStop specifically eliminates ads from your viewing pleasure.

If YouTube can’t guarantee that sponsors receive viewership, why would they want to advertise on YouTube?

The future is not YouTube?

YouTube is implementing video ads on user videos! Runaway, RUNAWAY! Here’s how their new ads work:
15 seconds into your video another video will overlay on top of that near the bottom, the video will stay up for 10 seconds unless the user clicks on it, by clicking on it the ad will play and the user video will pause, if the user doesn’t click on the video after 10 seconds the ad will disappear. This picture within picture sounds great if YouTube were paying the content creators!

YouTube Ad

While YouTube is still testing out ads there are a couple of services that already provide income to content producers:

Revver – Pre-roll/Post-roll ads. Requirements: original content, payments sent out after you’ve earned $20 or more.

MetaCafe – Banner ads at the bottom of the video. Requirements: original content, video needs at least 20,000 views and a 3 star or higher rating, payments sent out after you’ve earned $100 or more.

These two services are really the only ones that currently pay for your content. While Revver has less requirements before you receive a payment overall I’ve found it difficult to receive views from my videos on it. I don’t know if that’s because no one really goes onto Revver searching for videos or if the people using Revver aren’t interested in the content that I provided. MetaCafe on the other hand is easy to gain a couple hundred views in about a week, but the requirements of having to receive over 20,000 views and a 3 star rating or higher is ridiculous.

There is one more service that does pay users called Brightcove, but it’s really complicated to get your videos uploaded and just like Revver the videos that I did upload received extremely low view counts.

So while you might not get the view counts on these services as you do with YouTube at least you can start earning money today!

[Via SearchEngineLand]

Earn Community Respect

Since the dawning of social networking websites, the user has had the ability to design their pages however they wish. This has led to both good and bad designs. In some cases those designs make people runaway from your page! THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING! So I’m here to give you some Web 2.0 advice on how to solve this issue.

YouTube Profile

First choose the background for your page wisely. Usually a solid color is best, but if you want a image as your background be aware that others will be looking at your profile. Do not choose a image that’s overly flashy or distracting in anyway. Even if the image suits your personality, the idea is to get people to read your content – not be blinded by it.

Secondly avoid background music/video that automatically plays! Any sound that comes from a website is an automatic red flag to a user. They will quickly figure out how to turn it off and if they cannot within a couple of seconds they either have to turn off their own speakers or exit your page. If a visitor wants to listen or watch the content that you provide on your webpage allow them to do it manually.

The color and style of text is very important and always has been important since the creation of the Printing Press! Why would you bother to write something that no one can read? If you think it looks cute, the liklihood is that someone else thinks it looks dreadful. The way to avoid this is yet again simplicity. Times New Romain, size 12 = perfect. The color of the font depends on the background which the font is placed. Be aware that white text with a black background is hard to read. Read your profile information over and over and see how long you can stare at it without your eyes going blurry. If you can last at least 10 minutes without having any problems then you’ve chosen a good color.

In the world where anyone can create their own internet shrine, make sure that yours is user friendly. Why would you want to spend hours on something that only you read?

Blog Modifications

Wordpress Logo

You know if anyone told me that blogs were fun, I’d have to punch them in the nose. They’re tourchorous because you can do slight modifications so easily! That’s what I’ve been doing ever since we launched the blog in February!!! Every time I think there I’m done, it looks great, yeah right! It’s never done. It’s constantly evolving (hopefully for the better) and yet I receive few comments on them. So this time I beg you to save my insanity and write 1 comment saying yes David, now you can go die peacefully.