Randomized and Uncategorized....This blog

I'm not sure if anyone really cares about blogging anymore. 

Our lives are so exposed and so EASY to expose with far less effort these days that it's hardly worth the effort.

I mean yeah, there's no shortage of "CEO corner" examples but that's just marketing fluff to appease shareholders.

It's rare that I see anything genuine simply because so few care about the medium.

Which is one of the reasons I started this blog.  I was fairly certain nobody would read it which lets it live in a kind of limbo of being "online" but still largely anonymous.  That also removes the barriers to my content that come from trying to please an audience.

Take it for what it's worth and I have to admit sometimes it's absolutely worthless.

But there are those times when something magical happens.  Brief interludes where thoughts, ideas and emotions flow freely culminating in something that gives me pause.

And I wrote it!

If you want to know the purpose it's quite simple really...

It's a collection of points in time, a sounding board and sometimes just a writing exercise.  Most of the time there's no grand plan, no agenda, no motive.

In fact it's much like the classic personal diary except I rarely expose the personal except to illustrate a concept I may be trying to get across.

I've actually had readers contact me expressing concern over certain posts that may seem indicative of some kind of internal strife. 

Trust me, nothing is further from reality. You're just getting a window into my process of purging those things that are better not internalized.

That kind of thing is at odds, however, with something that's always worried me.  That is, being misunderstood and sending the wrong message.

There are times when words can't express what's in my head no matter how hard I try.  Thoughts and emotions, joy, sorrow, befuddlement and amusement. 

Some things are meant to be expressed in other ways...

Of course that's not the sole purpose of this blog.  Writing exercises, commentary on popular culture and even my own brand of philosophy are found here.

A grab bag of disjointed topics collected together in one grand mess. 

So love it, hate it or ponder it just know that I'm probably doing the same after I hit that "publish" button.

These 2 Things were absolute garbage this Christmas...

OK....

Christmas is over, on to the dirty business of who did it badly.

My 2 top picks for crappiest Holiday observations are a tie  between Google's Holiday Doodle and TWIT's holiday (or lack thereof) spirit.

Let's start with the the Google Holiday Doodle...

In previous years We saw everything from adorable polar bears to a toymaker's workshop.

This year we got this....

(Cllick on the image to see it full size)


WTF Google?  

At least last year showed SOME creativity.  This year's collection of noncommittal  imagery not only was limited to just 3 days instead of the full week we used to get, but was so bland and uninspired that it could have represented any day of the year.  

The Holiday doodles evoked no Holiday spirit of ANY Holiday.  The only variance you got was whether you were in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere and even then the words, "Holiday" or "Christmas" were nowhere to be seen.  

Now I get why some overheated Politically Correct busybody may get his panties in a bunch over the whole "Christmas" thing but all we got was a hover text that said, "Tis the Season."

Tis the Season for what?  Boring doodles that inspire absolutely nothing.  No warmth, no spirit, no soul.  I've seen Heimlich Maneuver posters with more feeling.

Even Muslim and Jewish folks can appreciate the largely secular traditions of the Holidays and let's not forget that Google has done Easter, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah doodles in the past.

Are we so afraid of offending some jerk with a Google+ page that we have to screw it up for everyone else?

Who's going to sue over a picture on a search page?  Besides, you're Google, you don't fear courts...

You know, I'm not especially religious but I do embrace the Holiday season. 

I'd someday like to visit New York at Christmas time to see Rockefeller Center and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.  I'm not looking for some religious epiphany.  These are just places that most American's would find as iconic to the Holiday as Time's Square is to New Year's eve.  It's a cultural thing and Google is getting lazy about it.

We already know that Google can serve up regional doodles for different parts of the world so the whole excuse about offending non-Christian nations is BS anyway.  Last I checked, we were living in the 21st century not the 12th. 

Regardless of what some radical groups may profess, I firmly believe the world to be far more sophisticated than flying into an uproar over the image of a Christmas wreath.

It's not about disliking the design, it's about the vanilla, shareholder friendly dogma behind it.

I won't belabor the point any more other than to say,  Google, bad form dude...

Now on to my second pick for worst example of Holiday spirit.

It's our old Friend TWIT!

What more can we say about the newly "downsized" TWIT operation.  We should have known there'd be no holiday spirit this year after the mass takedown of TWIT related videos on YouTube IN VIOLATION OF THEIR OWN CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE that damaged more than one YouTube content creator, myself included.

This year we get virtually nothing but a crappy panel show recorded December 1st with the few remaining hosts at the round ( err... make that oblong) table.  All of which suckle at the breast of the dying bovine that is TWIT.

Somebody puts on a Santa hat and calls it Christmas....

What?  No TWIT Holiday special with all of Leo's famous "friends?"  In fact no special Holiday programming at all.  Just a bunch of boring "Best of's" Which is a pretty tall order for a network so short on talent and now apparently ambition.

It's a glaring statement of disinterest.  

For proof look no further than the December 21'st Windows Weekly and you'll be hard pressed to see anything on set that would indicate we were mere days from the Holiday.  

Windows Weekly and Security Now are done from Leo's office.  A spot much more secluded and private than the Brickhouse.  Now more lair than set, if you're looking for the real Leo, look at that set. 

If it aint there he don't care. 

There isn't even a holiday bug on the edited shows!  (that translucent icon thing in the lower right corner.) For a guy so concerned with copyright you'd think that bug would be everywhere!

A heartfelt, "Meh" not only from viewers but the network itself.

If anything ever boosted ratings it was the Holidays.  Do something, anything special at the Holidays and you'll get eyeballs even if they're attached to a face that doesn't necessarily hold you in high regard.

But good old Leo can't be bothered even to feed the sycophantic TWIT fanboys ( yes, I stole that from Totaldrama ) 

Not even a  New Year's Eve special.  

Yes, I'll say it.  It was the one show that TWIT produced, aside from the Holiday Specials with John Hodgman and Jonathan Coulton that was actually worth watching.

Even if you hated Leo, watching it would at least give you the same sense of kinship with fellow geeks that normal people get from watching the Ball Drop in the aforementioned Time's Square

But we're not doing that.  We're sticking a Candy Cane on the set, putting a Santa Hat on the Channel Bug and calling it done.

Bad on Ya!

Neither Google nor TWIT has enough respect for their audiences to make anything but the most pitiful of efforts at the Holidays.

My rating for TWIT and Google's Holiday doodle's this year.

5 Heaping banks of Yellow snow....

Is anybody out there?

What do I have to do?

I don't get it...

Or at least I think I don't get it...

I'm not the social media butterfly that many are but you will find active accounts in places like Facebook, Twitter, Google plus and even about.me among others.  All are maintained and updated frequently.

I've got 4 active YouTube channels and accounts on two game streaming services (TWITCH and HITBOX).  I've been published online over 100 times on (former) news sites like Technorati and Kupeesh! and even had an article or two mentioned on Leo Laporte's TWIT.

I've branded my work in hopes that the brand will follow the creator.  I've taken great pains to try to  provide quality content in easily digestible and searchable formats.  I've torn down a YouTube channel only to reconstitute the content into separate more focused channels because someone told me viewers like it better that way.  

I'm still waiting for proof of that.  I've gone from being able to at least make a few bucks a year to virtually nothing since the change.

Which has led me to the realization that contrary to YouTube's advice, I don't believe most people who use YouTube could give a damn about the channel organization.

Hey, you do a Google search and Boom!  Content is served up regardless of the portal it resides on.  That's both the beauty and the Achilles heel of services like YouTube. 

Even being owned by a search giant can't guarantee visibility of your content.  

So I've done all of that stuff I'm supposed to do and still I'm lucky to make pennies a day.  

So how bad is it?  

It's been almost a year since I've had an adsense payment and never received a dime from my Amazon "partnership." 

BTW The threshold for a payout from Google Adsense is $100.

So I guess I just suck then? 

Content not interesting enough? 

I've seen much worse do far better so I don't think that's it.

Perhaps it has more to do with those who do well online being at the right place at the right time for their niche. 

I think it's far more likely, however, that online success is simply a byproduct of success elsewhere. 

Silky smooth radio voice or not would Leo Laporte have ever gotten TWIT off the ground without a stint in television and a long career in radio?  I doubt it.  I've heard better content elsewhere that struggles to match a fraction of the revenue.  

Want more evidence?  Simply look who's consistently hitting the top 20 in online media.  Personalities  like Adam Carolla and Marc Maron, News organizations like NPR and the Huffington Post not to mention tabloid TV like TMZ with the balance consisting of celebrity and fluff sites.   In short, we knew about them (or at least some incarnation of them) long before the Internet.*

It  doesn't mean their content is any better.  They're just leveraging a traditional media presence online.

So how fair is that?

For me it seems an online presence is less the great equalizer and more just adding to the noise.

I admit, being a bit older than most online dwellers there may be a generational bias that I'm at least in part struggling to overcome.

For example, when I write about gaming I'm not going to be anyone's fanboy.  Nobody's paying me to talk them up and if they did you could be sure I'd let you know about it.  

I wouldn't promote anything I didn't like so no worries there.

Still, I've been critical of the antics of the publishers like EA, Activision and Ubisoft.  I could care less about gussied up game trailers and technical demos.  I'll put it to you this way.  Battlefield 4's demo was awesome, the final product...notsomuch.  There's a lot of people who agree with that but I'm not seeing them around here.

Thing is, just like everything else those that pander to the hype seem to get the lion's share of views.

I don't just write about gaming either (obviously...) I'll tackle current events, politics and anything else that sparks a point of view. In fact that's what this particular blog is for.  That's why it's tagline is:

"Uncategorized reading for the randomized mind"

Perhaps that's the problem.  Nobody can identify with me.

I've been called overly negative, a troll not to mention any number of profanities.  I dunno, I just call 'em like I see 'em but it seems that if you don't buy into the prevailing online fads you're somehow a deviant.

Which to me signals the final evolution of online culture.  It's become as commercial and shallow as anything Hollywood could come up with.  It seems online success comes only to those either willing to put aside critical thinking or who've already made their mark elsewhere.  

Now before anyone runs off claiming my problem stems from being an arrogant a-hole with an overactive troll complex I'll simply give you this statistic.

I've written close to 500 articles in 4.5 years on a variety of topics.  Of those approximately 12 of them have proven the most popular with over 5K views each. 

All of them were critical of TWIT.  Meaning what people seem to like the most is a more critical point of view.  

Which implies that....
If you write an article about Leo's penis pics you can guarantee 5K views.  Write about a good book you read and you see 12.

Yeah, so take that you...you...troll!   

But seriously, the most popular stuff I ever wrote I never really wanted to write.  That being, the downfall and slow disintegration of someone I once held up as role model.

So I guess negativity isn't the problem. If I was as big an ass as some have made me out to be I'd have a lot larger  readership from the numbers I see.  

So the real question is, what kind of posts do you really want to see?

What do you think folks?   Glass half full or half empty?

I'll publish your answers in an upcoming article.

...Of which there will be none if I don't get any.

Up to you. <drops microphone>

*sources
http://www.ebizmba.com/articles/blogs
http://podbay.fm/browse/top

Google: In Memoriam

Momofuku Ando 2015 doodle- Ramen Noodles inventor

Instant Ramen Noodles...

That's what the Thursday March 5th Goodle Doodle was all about...

Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen noodles would have been 105 that day.  He was the man that brought the world that sodium rich staple of frat boys, frugal office lunchtimes and the culinary challenged everywhere.

To celebrate such inventions in the same light as the Polio vaccine and the light bulb is a stretch to say the least.  Google may be scraping the bottom of the barrel for the subject of their doodles. 

Is Momfuku Ando as relevant as Madame Curie or Einstein? Probably not but he does share one trait that appears to be noteworthy at least as Google Doodles go.

He's dead...

So is Jane Austen who would have been 240 this upcoming December 10th.  Laura Ingalls Wilder would have been 148 on February 7th and Leonardo da Vinci who would have been 563 on April 14th.

Einsteins Birthday Doodle 2003

They all had their birthday's celebrated in a Google Doodle too.

I can't remember the last time, if ever, that a doodle celebrated someone that was still breathing.  A friend offered up a possible explanation.  In short, the dead are not likely to do anything embarrassing.

I mean, consider if Google had done a doodle for Bill Cosby.  Regardless of his guilt or innocence it would have certainly put them in an uncomfortable place.  Just think of how those poor folks over at the Golden Globes or the Bob Hope Humanitarian awards are feeling right now.

Pfft, stupid awards, serves them right... but I digress.

So they stick to holidays, socially responsible observations like International Women's day, significant events like invention of the barcode and the first episode of Sesame Street.

Wait, the Barcode?  I guess that explains the ramen noodles thing...

You probably already knew this but if you sign up for Google services they'll honor you with your own doodle on the Google search page on your birthday. 

I don't' know if I like that.  After all, it puts me in the company of a bunch of dead people and I don't party with corpses.

How to get more visitors to your blog, e-commerce site, YouTube channel...blah blah blah

I know why you're here...

I got lucky and somehow Google determined I had just the right metadata to put me higher in the list of search results. 

Yup, I'm right up there with all the sites that promise Internet millions and no-down real estate deals.

Well, at least that's my hope but with Google selling AdWords to drive traffic and sponsored links chances are this article wasn't in the mix.

I've been blogging for around 4 years and been running a YouTube channel (now 4) for 3.  In that time I've never managed to get more than 150 subs on Youtube or more than 50K visitors to any of my blogs. 

In other words, I'm just like you. 

The little bit of information you'll get from the "experts" out there will  try to pound it into your head that the key to success is comprised of a few key tenets.  Most of the time they'll bury them in a bunch of vague marketing speak designed to get you to ante up the plastic to get the "secrets."

I'll save you a few bucks and spell them out minus the long-winded sales pitch.

1. Have interesting content!
2. Be consistent and post/upload on a regular basis
3. Collaborate with others
4. Use social media and cross promote

Great, now you know exactly what you need to do right? 

Of course not.  It's all ambiguous and misleading as hell.  

What you need to realize is all those sure-fire strategies are nothing but link-bait.  None of it is any more useful than a late-night infomercial.  They're selling a fantasy and making money with every duped visitor to their page.

So what's wrong with the "Tenets?"

Let's go by the numbers...

   Have interesting content!  -- Ok, define "interesting"  some people think knitting is interesting others think Pewdiepie is a phenom.  What does that make you?  The cold truth is that most of the popular people on the web were already popular somewhere else.  There's very little "organic" fame to be had meaning you might be the next Spielberg or Hemingway but nobody is going to know who you are unless you find popularity somewhere else.

   Be consistent and post/upload on a regular basis -- This one annoys me the most.  How many mindless blog posts or boring cat videos have you seen just because somebody followed this advice?  If you have something to share then by all means share it but don't put crap up just to fill space.  Nothing turns off an audience faster than having to sift through a bunch of half-hearted crap.   

   Collaborate with others -- It's nice to share but to be honest I can't stand 90% of the content creators on the Internet so why the hell would I want to collaborate with them?  Really now, If  I'm just going through the motions then why am i bothering at all?  Hey, if you've got a friend with similar interests great but otherwise leave it alone.  Nobody collaborates out of the goodness of their heart, they're looking for more traffic just like you and if you don't have anything to offer you're not going to get many opportunities.  It's kind of a catch-22 in that you need exposure but nobody is going to help you unless you already have it.

   Use social media and cross promote  -- This one kind of goes with #3.  Everybody thinks they're going to get on Twitter or FaceBook and suddenly have 100's of followers.  Except that most social media is siloed meaning you're going to spend most of your time communicating with people you already know.  Spamming other peoples pages with "Come see my stuff" posts will get you the opposite result.  Social media really isn't that social and unless you're already famous nobody is going to come looking for you.

So is all lost?  Am I just a Debbie Downer to your Internet dreams?

I sure hope so but not because I want you to fail, I just want you to get real. 

Look, it's really simple.  There's no such thing as get rich quick in the real or online world.  If you're just doing it to turn a buck then I hope you do fail.  I mean that.  Not because I'm some vicious troll but rather because I'm tired of content for content's sake. 

It clutters up the Internet with the online equivalent of junk mail and infomercials. 

Put up all the content you want but do it because you want to not because you're following some formula you read about from a Google search.   Blogs are great for creating a body of work.  Take it seriously and it may even spawn a career.  YouTube can be a great outlet for budding filmmakers, educators and new media content. Social Media can be a powerful tool if used wisely.

I've been creating content for awhile now and I can say with conviction that I never have nor would put up anything I didn't believe in.  Even if it never got a single view.  I can stand being unpopular, I can't stand adding to the cruft.

I may not be a "success" story but at least I'm genuine.  Forget the Leo Laporte's and Pewdiepie's of the online world.  Hell, even old Leo is getting a hard dose of reality these days and once Pewdiepie hits 30 he's over with.

So keep this in mind.

Do what you do but make sure it's really coming from you.

...consider the soapbox put away.

Prosecuting Youtube

Let me preface this article with the following statement. 

I firmly believe that content creators have an undeniable right to profit from their work. 

That said, I do have a problem with a copyright system that allows "owners" (which are usually not the content creators) to assert claims on anything they "believe" to be infringing without question by spineless "services" like YouTube. 

I also have a major problem with services that employ a hostile process for redress of the "accused."   

You're guilty with little opportunity to prove your innocence.  It shows up in dire legal verbiage designed to scare away any challenge and immediate penalties that effectively cripple the medium for the accused user.  

In short, on YouTube a copyright strike makes you guilty until proven innocent.  It's a  process that demands all but an admission of "guilt" before allowing you to do anything further on the service while the "infringement" is active.  In the end unless you live with a copyright attorney it's virtually impossible to mount an effective "defense."

So in case you haven't guessed, I just had another run in with YouTube but this one put the proverbial nail in the coffin...

I'd been using the service (notice the tense there) for over 3 years and had hosted almost 300 videos at one point.  I have an active adsense account that allowed me to participate in a revenue sharing agreement with YouTube by allowing them to place ads in my content.  A mutually beneficial arrangement although the benefit was decidedly slanted toward YouTube.

Over the years I'd dealt with a few copyright claims for music and game footage but none were ever elevated to the level of being an outright DMCA copyright violation.  My response was fairly routine.  

I'd either remove the "alleged" offending content if I was feeling generous or if I felt the claim invalid I'd contest it with varying degrees of success.  Over the years I had actually won a few disputes and got the so-called "owners" to back off.  If I lost I usually just deleted the offending video and was done with it.

I never intentionally tried to infringe anyone's copyright but if somebody thought I was trying to take their bone I wasn't going to risk any of my dogs fighting in a rigged game. 

But this was different...

The videos in question were about 2 years old and were simply some footage of a friend of mine testing Windows 8 Enterprise Evaluation edition in a VM.  

There was nothing about the videos that was a privileged information even when they were initially posted.  In fact I never saw anything obvious in Microsoft's EULA that mentioned a restriction on recording footage of the OS.

Unfortunately for me, Microsoft decided yesterday that it didn't like seeing footage of someone actually using their operating system and subsequently filed a take down demand with YouTube.  

Of course that's just supposition as YouTube almost never informs you of the exact "infringement" leaving you to guess.  Only recently have they began testing of an editing tool capable of removing alleged copyrighted content identified by their ContentID system.  Making every upload a coin toss...

Which means anyone who chooses to show a Windows desktop in their video could soon find their content ripped off of YouTube without warning, receive a copyright strike and never know why.

To me, this is nothing short of abuse of the copyright system.  It's bad enough that perpetual copyrights have become the norm effectively shutting anything remotely commercial in the past 50 years out of the public domain.  Now anything that even resembles or has elements of a copyrighted work can be suppressed. 

We're not talking about someone posting some unreleased Hollywood Blockbuster or the latest music video featuring Beyonce's... assets. 

It's about corporate bullying facilitated by a broken copyright system with lapdogs like YouTube doing their bidding. 

And I've had enough...

YouTube always sides with the accuser and as I already mentioned you're given feeble mechanisms for rebuttal. 

This latest insult was the final straw and my response was to delete the entire channel.  I'd rather sacrifice 3 years of work than suffer the Scarlet Letter foisted on me.    

Now some may say I'm in the wrong and list the myriad of ways a copyright holder can claim the exclusive right to distribute anything related to their "property."

Perhaps as things are now that's so but again I reiterate, this was not content that denied anyone their payday.

I like analogies so let's try one that is a little less ambiguous than a video of some geek clicking around a  Windows desktop for an hour...

Imagine you've just bought a brand new car.  It's the first one you've ever had and it's exactly what you wanted.  You're bursting with pride and want to show it off to all your friends and family on the Internet. 

So you record a video, spend hours editing it till it's perfect, upload it to YouTube and send everyone a link who cares to have it.

A month goes by and suddenly your video gets a takedown notice and you get a copyright strike against your account.

Why?  Because the manufacturer of your brand new car claims that they have the exclusive right to any  exhibition of it. 

Seem ridiculous?  It is but that's how the copyright system currently works.  All an "owner" has to do is make a claim and YouTube will dutifully begin prosecuting you.

Which is why I've deleted the channel and removed all the content.

It's bad enough that Google's acquisition of YouTube has resulted in the mass suffering of its users by herding everyone into Google Plus whether they wanted it or not.  

Add in constant attacks by prepubescent teens and quasi-sociopaths determined to destroy your self esteem and your dreams of PewdiePie fandom soon evaporate.

All of that I can deal with.  When you put your stuff out there for all to see you learn to develop a thick skin. 

But when I get branded as a criminal with YouTube as proxy Judge, Jury and Executioner to pass "sentence" it's a step too far. 

YouTube's copyright enforcement system is flawed, ambiguous and to my mind designed that way.  

Hiding behind the shield of "Safe Harbor" they fail to define what constitutes an "infringement" in order to profit off the legitimate work of millions of YouTube creators.  At least until such time as someone makes a claim against you be it legitimate or otherwise.  Leaving a bewildered user base potentially branded as criminals without recourse.

This is one content creator that's had enough.

I'm tired of the constant badgering of copyright trolls with YouTube's blessing and no recourse.  I'm tired of finding my videos mysteriously losing monetization without warning or reason.  I'm tired of YouTube's flawed "ContentID" system throwing innocent users into copyright disputes based on false positives. 

But ultimately, I'm just tired of participating in an abusive relationship.  

Or maybe I'm just tired of writing about A-holes...


UPDATE!

Apparently I wasn't the only one getting screwed over by Microsoft and thousands of other YouTubers including some Microsoft employees suffered the same treatment at the hands of a 3rd party marketing agency called "Marketly." They decided to slap a takedown notice on just about anyone with "Windows" in their video's title.  

When I checked my account today, I no longer found a copyright strike although I'm unsure whether that was because I deleted the channel or the takedown was released.  I will risk uploading the same "offending" videos in a new channel focused on IT this week and see what happens.

Facebook buys Oculus VR, not as left-field as you think

Originally published on Kupeesh!

By now you've heard the big news...

Facebook has bought Oculus VR, the company at the forefront of virtual reality products aimed at the consumer and de facto mascot for the power of crowd sourcing.

The real question is, what does VR have to do with social media?  Does Mark Zuckerberg expect us all to start running around with VR headsets poking fingers at the empty air screaming "Like!" and "Friend!"

Zuckerberg has an answer...

"... we're going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences. Imagine enjoying a court side seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world or consulting with a doctor face-to-face -- just by putting on goggles in your home."

Zuckerberg the futurist or maybe it's more like Zuckerberg coming to the realization that Facebook as a service is losing relevance. 

Enter Facebook, the brand.  Remember the failed HTC First?  It was the short-lived Smartphone that forced users into the Facebook ecosystem whether they wanted it or not.  It was the first indication that the Facebook bandwagon was losing a wheel.

As early as October of last year the company warned advertisers that "organic reach" will eventually be inconsequential.  "Organic reach," by the way,  is the number of Facebook page views that don't come from your "Fans" or "Friends" but rather from sources like search engines and shared links outside of the service.

That means advertisers have to work harder to attract eyeballs as veteran users become increasingly jaded against ads they have no interest in.  Not good news for a free service that depends on ad revenue.

There's little doubt that many of Zuckerberg's visions will come to pass but whether they're all Facebook properties remains to be seen.  It's far more likely that this move is meant to elevate Facebook the brand above Facebook the service. 

Much like Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility in 2011 it's less about owning a space than creating a halo effect around the brand.    In Google's case, they didn't need to dominate the Android device market to dictate what it looked like.  Mission accomplished and now Motorola Mobility is on its way to Lenovo sans a few patents safely kept in Google's breast pocket.

We're entering what could be called the "Post-services" era.  It's more about the halo around a brand than the products themselves.  History is on Zuckerberg's side.  Nobody thinks of Google as just a search engine anymore and Zuckerberg is betting that Facebook can evolve beyond social media. 

Much to the dismay (or the delight) of IP attorneys everywhere we may soon view online Icons like Facebook, Google and Twitter the same way we look at Ford, Chevy and Toyota.   You'll be picking brand not product.

But fear not social media addicts.  Facebook the service will always remain a place to jeopardize future job prospects by posting embarrassing videos of yourself.

How to have a succesful YouTube channel.

Mug shot smile?  Maybe his move from #18 to #6
on YouTube afterward had something
 to do with it...

Shakira, PewdiePie, Super Bowl commercials and Justin Bieber.  There's no accounting for taste but one thing they all have in common is that they consistently have more YouTube views than you do.

Why is that?  What are they doing that you're not.

Talent? 

Debatable, there's plenty of trash with views over a million.

Fame?

Some would claim YouTube takes care of that all by itself.  Of course if you're already famous then YouTube is just icing on the cake. 

Ok, so what about content?  It's king right?  Only the best and brightest rise to the top enriching us all...

Then again, if everyone watched a playlist of the top 10 YouTube videos for any given week the collective IQ of the planet would plummet 40 points.

That doesn't mean the entirety of YouTube is a wasteland, however.  There are those hidden gems that deserve more attention but never seem to get it.

The most successful YouTuber's didn't necessarily get that way because of the quality of their content but rather the way they delivered it.

I've had an active channel for about 3 years now with a small (as in microscopic) amount of success.  One thing I've learned is that while content may be king, viewers are a picky bunch.  If you manage to get their attention you still have some work to do to keep it. 

You may have the voice of James Earl Jones, the charisma of Harrison Ford and a Wall street banker's  wallet but if your video stinks you'll be lucky to break 100 views.

If you're a YouTube partner, it's all about engagement.  10,000 views that only last 5 seconds each won't make you a dime.   Actually, it'll probably get you kicked off the service.  YouTube protects its advertiser dollars and actively looks for people trying to cheat the system.   So ignore those "pay per view" scams.

Truth be told, I came to the game a bit late.  YouTube was already well established by the time I got around to trying it out and found it a saturated medium.  There aren't any original ideas left just original ways of delivering them.  I thought I had a niche of starting up a channel for older gamers until I found 100 channels with the same idea.  

I've done a lot of things wrong, some because of ignorance, some because of resources but mostly just a lack of talent on my part.

But my failings may be instructive....

So let's take a look at a few.  If they seem obvious that's only because they're easy to forget.  It's not uncommon to get so wrapped up in the message that we screw up the delivery.

I'll start with the basics.

First and foremost make sure you've got a decent camera or capture software if you're grabbing screens from a PC.  Low resolution, bad sound and the like turn off viewers fast no matter how good the content is otherwise.

Second, don't make a video just to hear yourself talk.  Only people that are already famous can get away with that.  You're asking someone to invest precious time in your creation, don't make them sorry with crap content and grainy party videos.  Trust me, nobody really cares about your lost weekend in Vegas.

Third, learn how to use your equipment.  Keep your subjects in frame and keep your edits simple.  You're not going to be the next Steven Spielberg with a webcam and Windows Movie Maker so don't try.

Fourth, grow up and have some respect for your viewers.  If you'd be afraid to see it on the nightly news then it shouldn't be on YouTube.  That means we don't need to hear any of your bodily functions thank you very much. 

Fifth, do some planning.  Meandering dialog and poorly organized content is confusing if not boring as hell.  Want to kill a channel, ignore this.

Sixth, make it interesting!  Think about everything that's in the shot.  Nobody wants to see a window behind you unless it's got a great view outside of it.  If you're the star then make sure you're worth seeing and  be comfortable in your own skin.  If you're not comfortable on camera or speaking to people then why the hell are you on YouTube? 

Seventh,   If you're doing a how-to video then for heaven's sake show HOW you actually do something, don't just talk about it.  Show the tools of the trade and actually use them.  Think of it this way, most people had more fun in auto shop class than English in High School.

Finally, be aware of copyrighted material.  It can show up where you wouldn't expect it.  Embedded music in a video game, a radio playing in the background or even singing a few bars of a favorite song can doom your monetization dreams.  Always upload a video privately and then monetize it to see if it trips YouTube's draconian ContentID system.  If it comes up with a so-called VIOLATION at least you can correct the issue before it goes viral without you getting anything for all your hard work but a Copyright strike and empty bragging rights.

I'm pretty sure why I'm a YouTube failure for many of the reasons above.   Take heed!

The video below will illustrate what we've covered above.  Hopefully I broke my own rules enough for you to get something out of it!

Enjoy!