When I was a kid, I made dumb videos that a total of 5 people actually watched -- me and the 4 other kids I made them with. But today, a kid with a funny video can be seen by millions of people, whether he is swinging a golf ball retriever or lip syncing to a German pop song. There is an Internet shooting star falling to earth every day. Someone creates a video that goes viral and generates millions of views, and for some this flashes and fades, but others are parlaying these flashes into commercial success.
This is a guest post by Darius Monsef, the Creator & Executive Editor of COLOURlovers.com. He is a creative consultant, entrepreneur and Internet Astronaut.
Derrick Comedy
A small sketch comedy group from NYU, has generated almost 40 million views on YouTube alone. YouTube success turned into a gig producing exclusive videos for CollegeHumor.com as they continued to do live performances. They have recently taken a break from their online shorts to produce a feature length film.
Self Defense
Amanda Congdon
The orginal host of popular online video blog Rocketboom, Congdon turned her success as a video blog host into a gig at ABC and appearances on TV shows like Good Morning America. She is reportedly currently working on a TV show for HBO and appears in a series of American Express commercials.
Ask a Ninja
Ask a Ninja was originally supposed to be an animated show about two Ninjas living in Orange County, but improv comedians Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine evolved the questions & answer format into a hit video series. In January of 2007, the comedy team signed a deal with ad network Federated Media that was reported to be worth at least $300k/year if Ask a Ninja maintained its traffic levels.
Ask A Ninja: Question 9 "Ninja Love"
Jessica Rose
Lonelygirl15 was YouTube's first big star. Revealed to be New Zealand actress Jessica Rose after months of speculation, she was able to parlay her YouTube fame into representation by the United Talent Agency and has now appeared in a feature film, has a recurring role in the ABC Family TV series "Greek," and won a 2007 Webby Award.
WineLibrary.tv
Gary Vaynerchuk's WineLibrary.tv draws 40,000 viewers each day to his energetic shows that bring wine knowledge to the average guy and gal. While Gary may not need to stress about monetizing his videos (he turned his father's New Jersey liquor store in a very successful business), has has used his online exposure to help generate huge buzz around his personal brand and online business. You might have seen him on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, or the Ellen Degeneres show eating dirt and tasting sweaty socks.
Does The Color of a Wine Have a Huge Impact on Quality or Age?
(I chose this video because Gary rips up one of my posts in it - thanks for being delicate, Gary.)
Andy Samberg
A member of "The Lonely Island," a group of LA-based independent filmmakers who made comedic short for the Internet, Samberg used the success of the group's "The O.C." parody (called "The 'Bu") to land himself a featured player role on Saturday Night Live. Samberg's "Digital Shorts" for the show often become Internet phenomena and his "Dick in a Box" short won an Emmy for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics.
You might not have the time to create a regular series of videos, but if you can find the time to generate even a few great videos, here are some video sharing sites that give a little back to the creators of the videos.
You can play your cards in the game of finding traction on video sites like YouTube, but more and more opportunities are popping up for creative people to leap-frog from uploading content from their living rooms to watching their work on the living room TV. There have been a few user generated video contests lately and I'm sure more are coming in the future.
Doritos - Crash the Super Bowl
The ad world is heading towards some very uncharted waters. When prosumers are able to create work on par with some of the world's top ad agencies, why not tap the creative talent of the masses? Doritos did exactly that for their Super Bowl ads last year. They had consumers create and send in their own ads, and then selected the 5 best commercials to air during Super Bowl XLI. A huge amount of exposure for the winners, and the $10,000, plus a trip to Miami for a private Super Bowl party wasn't to shabby.
MTV
MTV is running a User Generated Video Contest right now for the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, with one of the winners even receiving a golden popcorn award on stage. The other winners will be in the audience with their creative work shown to the celebrity laced gathering as well as on national television.
Current has taken the user created ad model to the next level by developing a platform and marketplace for the creation of user created adverts. New ad assignments pop up on the site and users create ads for that company. If Current airs your ad, you make $2,500. If the company decides to air it elsewhere you could earn up to $60k.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Rise of an Internet Star - Parlaying YouTube Fame Into Big Business.
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Comments
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You make a good argument - but one has to wonder if how many of those videos are being professionally promoted.
There are new services that pay their members to vote for certain YouTube videos.
Also there are services that openly solicit top members to submit
The question remains WHAT tactics are being used and would those videos have made it on their own - especially if the submitter is new without any friends
Posted by: World's Most Beautful Girl | May 6, 2008 8:04 PMLooking at the top viewed videos on YouTube - some are VERY questionable as to whether they REALLY became popular on their own
WMBG,
And you make a good point... some of those top videos are being promoted by outside sources... it is rumored that Anonymous had a hand in promoting Tay Zonday to internet fame with Chocolate Rain.
And I probably should have included it in the post, but even one hit wonders are finding ways to capitalize on their success... The Evolution of Dance is becoming the Evolution of Product Endorsements: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61heClTFc5w
Cheers,
Posted by: Darius A Monsef IV | May 6, 2008 8:11 PM-D
YouTube is really empowering new video makers and anew type of audience. I have personally seen that many video content is so popular on YT that it can be never be in normal. Many new videos are only launched through YouTube and they are seen more than million times.
Posted by: Siddharth | May 7, 2008 2:39 AMI'm not too interested in whether proffesionals have their hand in making the videos go viral.
What does interest me, and should interest everybody else, is that the possiblility exists for whatever you do on the internet to go viral, get you noticed, and give you the option to take it to the next level. None of this existed 10 years ago!
It's a great time to be alive, be foucused, and be willing to grab the golden ring...
Live From Las Vegas
Posted by: The Masked Millionaire | May 7, 2008 6:40 AMThe Masked Millionaire
Kent Nichols ( Ask A Ninja ) has written extensively about the nuts and bolts of "Parlaying YouTube Fame Into Big Business" on his blog, if you want to read more about the subject:
http://kentnichols.com
Posted by: Todd | May 7, 2008 6:51 AMI am fascinated by the grass-roots creativity that we can all be a part of now thanks to YouTube and other video hosts.
As a domain reseller, I am always intrigued by the unbelievably unique domain names which get registered and packaged into really cool content which garners BIG traffic.
Your "ode" to these folks turned out to be a great reminder of the new world of entertainment where everyone, literally EVERYONE, has a chance at notoriety.
Cheers!
Posted by: hank ceigler | May 7, 2008 7:19 AMHank
Nameify.com
We've built a whole business around the idea that there is a huge (and growing) market of semi-pro and freelance video makers who are more than talented enough to tell brand stories. We're putting their work in front of our major brand clients like Anheuser-Busch and Nestle to great praise. I definitely believe that this kind of content has great potential because people have a thirst for creation. And they're only going to get better.
I believe in the future, you will see a creative class of videographers who make money from several revenue streams. They'll make video ads for their neighbor's restaurant, commercials for Nestle through sites like ours, video blog segments for their friend's band and comedy skits for their YouTube Partner channel - making money at all of them.
It's the rise of the multi-faceted media maker.
Posted by: Mark Schoneveld | May 7, 2008 7:27 AMSites like Break.com or CollegeHumor.com are paying filmmakers peanuts, while profiting huge off of them, and it's upsetting to see!
I'm part of a small team working on a marketplace with the hopes of giving the more power to the creators.
Posted by: John | May 7, 2008 5:53 PMI see you like TV streaming sites. Well just to let you know that there is a better site than this called www.viewmy.tv it streams live global TV to your computer but is free and has no downloads so it is faster and the quality is really good. I also have a profile on the site which enables me to save my channels so I don’t keep on having to search them, find other people who like the same stuff as me from all over the world and join groups, talk to friends etc. Check it out! They even have created loads of gadgets, widgets and apps so you don’t even have to go to site to watch their streams- its is great!
Posted by: Henry | May 9, 2008 2:34 AMha thats funny stuff good Idea if you are keen on producing Movies, otherwize dam who has the time?
Posted by: mac Flash | May 11, 2008 1:30 AM