How YouTube is Changing The Game

Over the past few years becoming a YouTube Partner has become a career for people. Their videos have received enough plays and comments that they are making six figure salaries by uploading a short and simple video weekly. How is it that most entertainers work years before earning that much, but John Doe from anywhere can achieve that right away via YouTube?

Out of the top ten earners in 2010 from the YouTube Partnership number ten received $101,000, while number one made $315,000.

Number ten on the list Natalie Tran has ranked in over 429.2 million channel views and 1 million subscribers. Natalie’s channel is mostly videos of her talking or ranting about something going on in her life. This type of video is called video blogging or Vlogging. Yet, some how 429 million people have watched her videos and found them entertaining.

The top earner on the list, Shane Dawson, is boosting over 707.9 million views and over 2.7 million subscribers. Just like Natalie, Shane vlogs about things going on in his life. In 2010 enough people watched Shane talk about his life that he was able to receive $315,000 from YouTube.

Now not everyone one of the YouTube partners are able to achieve money like this. No, these people have very tight guidelines to follow in-order to maintain their status as a Premier YouTube Partner. They need to upload a video once or twice a week, interact with viewers via the comment section of their page and maintain a stable number of views, comments and subscribers. For most people this is a full time job.

However, some have been able to cash in outside of YouTube. The people behind The Annoying Orange recently had a show air on Cartoon Networks Adult Swim block. The YouTube user Fred has had a movie made by Lionsgate and is currently working on a show Nickelodeon. Others have gone on to expand their career.

iJustine who refuses to discuss how much she makes from YouTube has gone on to guest on Law and Order and co-host Game Trailers on Spike.

No matter how you look at YouTube is slowly changing the entertainment model. Studios and networks are beginning to pay attention to what draws peoples attention of people online instead of reading the scripts they receive. 

TED talk - Why Videos Go Viral

These days it seems like everyone is trying to create the next viral video. However, most of the time 99.9% of them fail at their attempt. Now why is this? YouTube’s trend manager Kevin Allocca gives us three reasons on why videos go viral in his TEDvideo from November 2011.

Mr. Allocca explains that the first step of something going viral is getting the attention of tastemakers. Examples he uses are how the day Jimmy Kimmel tweeted about the Double Rainbow video it went from nearly no views to over a million in a single day. The same goes for Rebecca Black’s music video for Friday. Comedian Daniel Tosh and others tweeted about video and the rest is history. It seems like one of the key elements for something to go “viral” is that you need to have that one influential person to mention or share your video to the world.

From there it’s up to the YouTube community to take control of the next step in the “viral” process. Just about all the successful “viral” videos have either responses or have been parodied by other members of the YouTube community. Mr. Allocca points out that there are over 10,000 parodies of Friday by Rebecca Black and within the first seven days videos for the other days in the week were created and uploaded. The community within YouTube is like nothing you will find anywhere else. The users are so involved and their creative freedom is unchallenged that on a rare occasion the parodie can out shine the original video.

The final and most important element is that you can’t go into making or uploading a video with the idea that it will be the next big “viral” thing. What makes Double Rainbow, Friday and Nyan Cat so successful is that they were unexpected and didn’t take off till months after they were uploaded. The unexpected factor is also what makes “viral” videos so great because they come out of nowhere and take the Internet by storm.

After viewing Mr. Allocca’s TED talk I have a better understanding of how “viral” videos and how they become the Internet legends they are today. Since new media is slowly taking over just about every industry, the better understanding you have of how to stick out and get people to notice your work the better your idea or business will succeed. Honestly, if it wasn’t for the video Dollar Shave Club created I would have never heard of their business, but with a successful “viral” video they have my attention and business.

No matter how hard your try the Internet can make or break your idea or business. It gives everyone a voice and just about everyone chooses to use it. Anything you think is funny or will be the next big thing can be seen by millions of others as a terrible waste of time. So the things you need to remember when going into creating content is that you need to make sure that it can gain the attention of tastemakers inspire community participation and most importantly be unexpected.