May 15th, 2007
YouTube to video artists: Wolf in sheep's clothing?
Is all good in King Chad’s YouTube Kingdom now that he agreed to share the video wealth, in his own small, very selective way?
NO, both newly ordained video elite and newly dissed “non-populars,” are lamenting a YouTube calculated business move that moves YouTube away from its original community spirit.
The chosen video few are wondering if they are selling themselves short to YouTube parent Google while the masses of plain old YouTubers are crying foul and pleaing for equal treatment.
Is feel good YouTube on its way to becoming a big, bad wolf in sheep’s clothing?
How YouTube lost its video soul, big time I analyzed upon the proclamation earlier this month that YouTube ”Elevates Most Popular Users to Partners.” I also underscored Google’s YouTube divides community: Advertising rules, not users.
YouTubers concurr. Legions of YouTube users have not only been “venting” their frustration over the new YouTube tiered community, but decrying how YouTube has, in fact, lost its soul, big time.
Just yesterday Methadone4Life wrote:
The funny thing is that most of the people you selected to be partners are the most subscribed on Youtube. However,you need to ask yourself: How did most of them get to that level? Was it just that their vids were so much better than everyone elses that they just got hundreds of thousands of views? Or did they manipulate a system that is easy to manipulate and used to be much easier? Refresher programs,multiple accounts,groups of friends who spam each others videos..are just a few of the ways that many of the “most subscribed” people got their views and subscribers.
I personally do not care about having loads of subscribers,but many great videos are never given the same chance. Once a person gets to the top of the most viewed,it seems that every video is featured or put on a sign-up page or some other form of publicity. Why do that for people who are already “e-famous”? Why not give some people who have great videos but havent been featured or given free publicity a chance?
Also,why does YouTube avoid featuring people who may have a controversial outlook on things? Why does YouTube avoid featuring people who are anti-war? 70 percent of Americans and 94 percent of the entire world is against this war,yet we see no anti-war videos featured?
I love YouTube and it has provided me with many hours of enjoyment and lots of new friends. I just wish that it was a little more fair to those of us who dont have 47 thousand subscribers. Isnt that the people who need some publicity??
AussiePoliticsReport:
Will there ever be a time where everyone shares in the billions of dollars you are making from our videos?
worldpeace
It’s all or nothing. You can’t extend the opportunity to share in the ad-revenue to some and withhold it from others. That’s just not fair.
YouTube revenue sharing stars themelves are also questionning the fairness, or not, of the new YouTube scheme.
Christine Gambito (HappySlip), as cited by Business Week; “For YouTube’s top video creators, being compensated for the Web traffic and ad impressions they generate isn’t all it’s cracked up to be”:
Like a growing number of online video creators before her, Gambito is coming to terms with the mixed blessing of compensation for online content. Video-sharing sites are a valuable asset, but the slice of the ad revenue they dole out to successful producers isn’t how you really want to cash in on the Web. In fact, for the truly successful content creators, such sites threaten to steal audience from what really pays the bills: building your own site.
You can’t sell your DVD on YouTube, says Gambito.
IS THE YOUTUBE COMMUNITY SPLINTERING? IS PARENT GOOGLE A WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING?
ALSO: Google at Risk: YouTube class action lawsuit changes DMCA copyright game
