Regis’ After School Special

After writing a less-than-friendly response to an article on engadget.com, I received a comment from the author of that post. Please check the comments to my previous post to see the response. Had I known the author of the article would actually read my post and respond in a serious manner, I certainly would have used a more cordial tone. My apologies, Steve. And so, after looking up the meaning of ‘ad hominem’, I write…

The charge per upload certainly isn’t a final solution for YouTube, but it is one way to regulate uploads. And, sure, it might not cost much for upload and storage of clips, but it comes back to being able to find the good stuff. (As an aside, it relies on a personal definition of “good stuff”. I like being able to watch the opening credits of the A-Team, but it might not be the most viral of videos.)

Regarding TV money numbers, do they need an estimate of how popular a video will be before buying the ad time? How can they guess which clips will be wildly popular and which will be mildly popular? I know Rocket Boom guaranteed a certain number of views in order to get bids for the ad time. Would YouTube spread this guarantee over many clips until the number of views were met? I guess these are details that don’t relate to the theoretical solutions, but I would be interested in seeing how YouTube approaches these questions.

Anyway, thanks for reading the weblog, and I don’t necessarily disagree with advertising; I’m sure ads are a smart solution. I suppose the ads might not be placed with a clip until it reached a certain number of views or something. I’m just reluctant to the idea of sitting through a 30-second ad to watch a clip that ends up sucking. I guess I’m more willing to bear a burden uploading the material than being burdened with ads while skimming for the “good stuff”.

Please read Stephen Speicher’s article posted at http://www.engadget.com. Here’s an excerpt that mirrors my opinion posted previously:

“it was when eBay started charging for its auctions that the site became useful. Until that point in eBay’s existence, “good” auctions were often hard to find amidst the sea of “bad” auctions.”

I don’t understand why he would make this point and then not suggest (as I had) that YouTube charge per upload. He goes on to suggest advertising as the final word in making the site money. And while the prospect of producers making money from content they upload to YouTube is attractive, how does this mingle with copyrighted content users upload?

Why is YouTube allowed to traffic copyrighted material, and would significant revenue intake draw negative attention to that fact? Would YouTube be in trouble for profiting from copyrighted material it doesn’t own?

Giving producers a cash reward would only encourage more people to upload videos, good, bad, or copyrighted. Why not upload as many videos as possible and increase your chances of making a few cents? This would only encourage more uploads, not make them “stop growing and start making money”. There are also many examples of multiple uploads of the same copyrighted video. These people could easily leech off an initial upload’s popularity and prevent original uploaders from making the money they deserve.

Besides, eBay charges the seller. This example only reinforces my idea of charging per upload. Speicher helps make my point, then misses the point.

“a system whereby quality content owners are eager to submit their work and websites have an incentive to find the best quality clips to feature on their sites.”

It’s clear that people are eager to sumit their work, hence YouTube’s popularity. And I’m sorry, but are there sites devoted to featuring the dumbest, most adolescent of clips? The good will always rise, regardless of monetary possibilities, and this weblog stands for that cause! And you’re never going to attain a “best quality” with the degree of compression YouTube uses.

But therein lies another flawed but possible monetary scheme for YouTube. Low quality streaming and pristine dowload-for-money. iTunes sells music videos for $1.99, and a similar model could carry over to YouTube. Users can watch low-quality versions for free, but can purchase cleaner copies to keep. The question is, will people pay for independently made videos if they’re entertaining enough? I would, and I think others would as well. It’s also dependent on iPod video’s popularity. The small screen and memory capabilities of personal video players make brief viral clips the perfect bubble gum to fill up players.

It’s probably inevitable that ads will eventually permeate YouTube. Producers do deserve to make money off their original content, but they should pay a very nomial fee for that chance. The flash player and imbedding culture of the site will make it interesting to see how successful it is against other sites like iFilm who depend on ad insertion and premium subscription offers.

Lately TWIT keeps bringing up statistics about YouTube and the “thousands of Terabytes” it uses per day. They estimate the cost of running the site is $1 Million per month, and that at this rate, YouTube will be gone in 8 months or so without a strong source of revenue. Source

Should they make sweeping changes to YouTube to make it last? What would help?

First, I love the idea of free internet, free content, free everything. YouTube is extremely accessible for new viewers wanting to check it out. I pay for an internet connection, but once connected, I can receive the content for free. And I doubt anyone would pay to see most of the stuff people upload to the site anyway.

I also think that YouTube is about entertainment, not sharing (like Flickr). Nearly all video uploaded is intended to entertain and gain popularity (hence the rating systems being a part of the experience). If it was about sharing home movies with family, I’d have a different opinion, and it should be noted that it is possible for that type of sharing to occur now.

The main cost lies in sending out the packets, and YouTube pays for that bandwidth. One change would charge producers to upload content. Along with bringing in a portion of revenue, it would also have the effect of limiting submissions without censorship. It would hopefully pare down the 35,000 cellphone clips from the playground so we wouldn’t have to weed though as much to find the good stuff. Maybe people would think about the content before they upload it.

A charge of $1 US per uploladed clip would offset the $1 Million per month cost of operation with some leftover. A merit system might allow producers that prove themselves to upload content of value to the site (again, not the playground clips) to earn free upload status.

If people want to use the site as a means of sharing home movies or other personal content, that would be enabled for free but in a non-public area of the site. Users would need to register to a specific producer to view that content. Of course this might make a place for pron on Youtube, but is that necessarily a bad thing for them?

Having seen what YouTube is capable of and the easy interface for finding, viewing, and interacting with the videos on YouTube (compared to un-elegant Google video, for example), I would gladly pay to watch and upload videos. While a viewer subscription fee would admittedly kill the experience, a producer fee would help concentrate the content of Youtube and make it even more enjoyable.

Videos I’ve uploaded this week:

• Melvis Johnny B goode

Related Videos courtesy of Eroque and friends:

• Fastest Guinness chug
• Karaoke Recap 4/14/06
  

Videos I’ve found hilarious this week:

• meet a black person
• India driving
• Fake Hypnotism
• Nappy Love Retro

Our good friend and drummer Erock just uploaded the most recent “Karaoke Recap” and it’s filled with great and awful moments. The best part is that looking at the sidebar under related content, the next one listed is my posting of Melvis singing Johnny B. Goode! It’s the one-two punch of Eroque and DiscoDoug that’s gonna keep YouTube the edgy resource it is!

Videos I’ve uploaded this week:

• Rhino Karaoke

videos I’ve found hilarious this week:

• benny hinn vs benny hill
• heavy metal video