Invites and early adoption

It's nice to be wanted and it seems that I'm wanted as a vlogger! I'm typing this listening to a video called 'The History of Vloggerheads'. The bald, bespectacled gentleman telling the story is, of course, Renetto. Yes, Renetto - the once self-proclaimed 'King of YouTube'! But I'm not on YouTube (well, I am on a seperate tab, but that's not the point).

Renetto invited me and now I'm vlogger #60 on Vloggerheads. That's all I'll say about it right now, partly because I only logged in for the first time tonight and I've yet to have anything significant to report. The other reason being I may well have said too much already!

So watch this space. It's exciting to be part of something I've been waiting for...well, I guess I've been waiting ever since Renetto started intimating that if YouTube wasn't going to change to prioritise vlogging then something else would need to happen. This may be it. But I don't think I'll be leaving YouTube any time soon!

Adsense - makes sense?

Isn't monetizing the holy grail of online activity? Maybe not to those addicted to online gaming, but large numbers of the blogging and vlogging community would auction their mothers if they thought it'd make them a quick buck. Since we're becoming increasingly resigned to the fact Hollywood won't come calling just because we post an online video we must take what encouragement we can for our 'art'!

To our rescue rides Adsense - at least that's how Google sells it. You can run Adsense ads on your blogs (although I'm not drawing you're attention to them!) and they are the basis of the YouTube Partner Programme.

Listen to 'senior' YouTubers play down their earning power and you'd think that mere mortals would be lucky to make a dime. I certainly didn't expect Google to contact me about my Adsense account. But they have. Naturally I'm going to discrete about the details - Google prefers it that way. I am, however, pleasantly surprised. Never again will I begrudge the few seconds it takes to monetize a videos on YouTube!

Know Thine Audience!

We're back on the 'when is free music not free music' thing again. Don't you hate it when someone promises you a gift, you get excited, then realise they have an angle? It goes sour. Push it too far and you can lose friends over it. Tonight I'm losing a 'friend'!

These days it seems the only people who want to add me on MySpace are pornstars - and I decline! So when I got an invite from an artist that had a properly contextual (these things are never truely personal) meassage attached I was interested, especially with the added carrot of free music.

I shouldn't have wasted my time downloading the 17 free tracks on offer. They all came with a spoken intro: hello this is blah, blah, blah, this song is called blah, blah, blah, brought to your by blah! I deleted all the tracks and in the interests of expressing my feelings on this issue I'm off to lose a 'friend'.

If he really was my friend he'd know that while I love free music I love it with no strings attached. Marc Andre gave away an album on the only condition that you tell people they could download it. I've mentioned it before but that is the way to do it. That's really making friends!

A little late on this one...

By now you've doubtless heard that due to a ruling in a US court YouTube must hand over an astonishing amount of data about every video ever viewed on its site to Viacom. I seen people say this is wrong for many reasons but the more I think about it the one that is most insidious is the ruling is retroactive.

Perhaps we were gullible and naive to ever treat anywhere on the web as a lawless new frontier. But people have - if we're honest I'm sure we all have to some degree. And I think web-development has benefited from that. Viacom argue they haven't - and, rightly or wrongly, a judge agrees with them.

However, I can't help feeling there's an aspect of this ruling that's like erecting fences and 'We Hang Trespassers' signs after a caravan of honest prospectors have trundled across an unmarked boundary, only to find themselves the centre of a Salem-style witch-hunt. They say 'innovate or die' but perhaps if you don't fancy either of those options you just need to a bigger gun and go hunting!

Optimising...but not cheating!

I'm taking a chance typing this because nothing is constant on YouTube. However, at the time of posting this worked. Watch the video below - I think it's amazing! When it gets to the end you should notice the first related video it recommends to you comes from the familiar face of talk74.



How did I achieve that? In part it was the usual dose of being in the right place and the right time, but mixed with a little thought it seems to have paid off handsomely. My response to 'Where The Hell Is Matt (2008)' is, or rather will be for a brief period around the 22nd - 3rd June 2008, the #1 Travel and Events video on YouTube, on the global list and in about every territory YouTube runs separate charts for!

I was fortunate is see 'Where The Hell Is Matt (2008)' within 12 hours of in being uploaded, and to have the time to make a response immediately. (Matt, the channel owner, was only accepting 'on topic' responses - which probably helped my cause!) My part was to title and tag my video identically to his. As my video is not just a response but an endorsement of his, asking viewers to name how many of the places he shows that they have visited, I don't see this as a cheat. It's about relevance. I'm telling the YouTube machine my video is extremely relevant to his. And YouTube seems to have listened to me!

This one's for you unbelievers!

There are those out there who mock makers of online video. That's your call. There is a stupid side to it. An infantile fascination with the sound of your own voice. An outlet for the wanna-be filmstar. It's understandable. But watch this video and it becomes inexcusable.



Imagine how you'd feel if you were one of the content creators he talks about. I know how I feel. So are you a believer or an unbeliever?

Partly political broadcast!

Ever since he launched WebCameron a couple of years back I've keep an interested eye on how Cameron and the Conservatives are using the media. I'm typing this while watching Cameron Direct live from Plymouth. This isn't the first of these events but it's the first I've looked at.

I could comment on how it's obvious that the Conservatives are pushing his strength as a speaker who doesn't need a script - unless these events are an extremely elaborate hoax! But I'm not a conspiracy theorist, nor yet a political commentator. So let me comment on what caught my eye.

Selfcast. I'd not seen that name before but I instantly knew what it was about. Here is a site that let you sign up and stream live with little more than a webcam. Imagine YouTube but for streaming video. There are live text comments flying in as he's talking, there's a form for emailing in questions. It also seems to archive previous streams.

I know this isn't the only site doing this but it has an instantly likable interface. I'm very tempted to try it out!