Many digital networks, agencies, and press outlets (yes, including us) use view counts as a way to determine the popularity and reach of YouTube videos. Views certainly have their place in the world of YouTube analytics, but they’re also extremely deceptive, and ad agency Solve Ideas wants to make sure we know that. Solve managed to score more than 100,000 views on a blank video with no images and no sound after distributing it as a pre-roll YouTube ad.

Solve’s video features nothing but empty white space for four minutes. It was posted to the agency’s YouTube channel, which has no subscribers, but Solve promoted it by spending $1,400 to buy 227,000 impressions across YouTube. More than half of the viewers who saw the ad chose to skip it before watching 30 seconds of it, and as a result, their impressions were not tracked on the video’s view counter. More than 100,000 of the video’s impressions, however, did cross the 30-second threshold, and as a result, “The Blank Video Project” has a very healthy view count, despite its lack of distinguishing characteristics.

$1,400 is a lot to spend to prove a point, but Solve’s experiment returned some intriguing results. As Co.Create notes, 22,000 people watched the entire four-minute ad, likely because they opened a YouTube video, switched to another tab or window, and then forgot to come back to skip the ensuing pre-roll. The experiment also cost Solve just 1.4 cents per view, a rate that demonstrates just how affordable YouTube advertising can be.

We’ll give Solve plenty of credit for providing a concrete example of the deceptiveness of YouTube views. At the same time, their experiment could’ve been better. They had a blank space, and they didn’t even write your name.

Filed under: advertising, Articles, Featured, News, YouTube by Sam Gutelle
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Whenever a viral video hits the Internet, Tyrone Magnus is quick to offer his reaction. The New Jersey native plies his trade on YouTube, where he reacts to other videos that are taking the web by storm. This may seem like an odd job, but it’s working out for Magnus, whose star recently rose high enough that he earned a profile from NBC News.

In the NBC News video, Magnus describes the process through which he creates his reaction videos and explains the effect they have had on his life. His unrestrained responses to the videos he watches hover between comedy and commentary while occasionally making use of relevant costumes. It’s a formula that is bringing him significant view counts. As of this post, he has 283,000 subscribers and more than 60 million views on his channel.

Of course, Magnus’ NBC News profile would not be complete without including Magnus’ own reaction to the piece. He provided that bonus clip within the day, but he hasn’t stopped there. Instead, he is now reacting to other YouTube reactors who are reacting to his videos. If he goes any deeper, we’re going to have to break out the Inception foghorn.

Magnus is one of many people making a living on YouTube’s fringes, and his story is interesting enough to make the NBC News profile a worthwhile watch. At this point, there’s only one more thing we can hope for: Hey Tyrone, can we get a reaction to this article?

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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Defy Media is getting into game shows. The digital media company has teamed up with Emmy Award-winning producer Andrew Golder, via its television production and management division Generate, to create game shows aimed at digital millennials.

Golder has executive produced and co-created a variety of hit game show content for television, including the CW’s Penn & Teller: Fool Us and Comedy Central’s late-’90s series Win Ben Stein’s Money (which pulled in several Daytime Emmys over the course of its run). Under his deal with Defy Media, the producer will develop at least four new game show concepts over the course of a year for distribution across the media company’s digital network, with the option of moving to other outlets like TV and over-the-top platforms.

Defy’s new agreement with Golder is an extension of a pre-existing relationship between the producer and Jared Hoffman, President of Defy’s Generate branch and executive producer for AMC’s The Walking Dead digital series. Previously, Hoffman and Golder worked together on an original game format dubbed Camera Roll; game manufacturer Endless Games licensed the format and distributes Camera Roll online and through retailers such as Target and Toys “R” Us.

“We’re thrilled to partner with a producer of Andrew’s caliber to create programming in a genre where he has seen such success,” said Keith Richman, President of Defy Media, in a release. “Combined with the television development and production expertise of our Generate team, and the power of DEFY’s digital and social networks, we are confident we can create compelling game formats and build a significant audience and momentum around them.”

“This is a great opportunity to expand game formats cross-platform and turn the traditional model on its head a bit,” added Golder. “There’s great value in the ability to introduce new programming in the digital space and have that immediate response from viewers. I’m excited to approach the development process in this way and look forward to working with DEFY and Generate to build on exciting concepts that will appeal to younger audiences and migrate to other platforms.”

Golder and Hoffman will start production on the first game show for Defy, tentatively called Crazy Smart, in fall 2015. The two entertainment creatives will tap both Defy’s digital creator network as well as Generate’s talent list to help cast the upcoming shows.

Defy Media currently reaches more than 125 million viewers per month across all its social, web, and mobile platforms.

Filed under: Articles, Defy Media, News by Bree Brouwer
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“All men by nature desire to know.” – Aristotle

BuzzFeed’s massive success in video is unquestionable. Currently, the video offshoot of the incredibly popular site dedicated to listicles, animated GIFs, and hard news is generating over 250,000,000 views a month on YouTube alone, and that’s just on its flagship BuzzFeedVideo channel. If you add up the monthly views from BuzzFeed’s rainbow of brother and sister channels (including Blue, Yellow, Violet, Pop), that viewership number jumps up to more than half-a-billion. And again, that’s just on YouTube. BuzzFeed execs announced earlier this year that their content is generating over one billion views per month across all of their distribution points and channels. Furthermore, BuzzFeed’s YouTube viewership has grown by over 500% in the last year:

That is a lot of views.

I like solving puzzles and figuring out what makes systems work (e.g. YouTube annotations, YouTube thumbnails). That’s why when I saw BuzzFeed’s unbelievable growth and viewership numbers I asked myself, “Why is BuzzFeed’s video programming strategy so successful? And, more importantly, how can Frederator Networks apply what BuzzFeed is doing to our own channels and videos?”

This led me and my team at Frederator to begin reverse engineering BuzzFeed’s observable video strategy into actionable steps we could take at Channel Frederator. Because at Frederator, we’re always looking to make the most commercial (defined as what our audiences will love the most) content possible in whatever media sandbox we’re playing in, and BuzzFeed has some of the most commercial content in existence.

Our research findings inspired the fully-fledged series Tooned Up!, which in just three short months after it’s launch in December 2014 already started generating over 20 million monthly views across 40 videos.

Through our findings, we also found that every video creator has the ability to make highly shareable and highly relevant BuzzFeed style content, which will likely generate similar viewership. BuzzFeed’s programming strategy is actually very easy to grasp once you understand their system. My team and I at Frederator Networks have figured out this system and created an actionable set of categories, sub-categories, themes, title prompts and principles, which we’re now sharing with you.

The Breakdown

The powers that be at BuzzFeed say the organization creates videos in three main categories. However, these categories aren’t defined traditionally, like “educational” or “humor”, but instead by why someone would watch or share a video. And therein lies the brilliance of their programming strategy. Every video BuzzFeed makes is designed to be shared.

The three categories BuzzFeed’s videos are grouped into are:

1. Identity
2. Informational/Utility
3. Emotional Gift

Let’s take a few paragraphs to dive deeper into them.

Identity videos have to do with who someone is, or believes they are. This type of content plays off of BuzzFeed CEO and Founder, Jonah Peretti’s central idea that the content we share helps us establish our identity to our circle and ourselves. In addition, BuzzFeed Motion Pictures’ President, Ze Frank often talks publicly about how the videos, pictures, or articles we share can better articulate who we are than we ever could. Identity videos, therefore, connect with us internally. We watch and share Identity videos because it allows us to better understand ourselves and those around us, and makes it easier to tell those around us who we are.

Informational/Utility videos are centered around things that are typically external. Informational and utility videos are often transactional in nature, where information is exchanged from one party to another. We watch and share Informational/Utility content because it has value to us in the form of better understanding the physical world around us and because it can educate us and the people in our lives.

Emotional Gift videos have to do with things that evoke emotional responses. This content is both internal and external as it typically uses external factors (puppy!) to affect us internally (awww!). We watch and share Emotional Gift content because when we feel an emotion like joy we want the people we care about to feel joy as well. This is the root of human connection.

After establishing what goes into each category my team and I boiled these broader concepts down to their core. We noticed that these three content types broke down roughly like this:

1. Identity Videos – Things about You (Who/What/Where/Why/When/How You Are).
2. Informational/Utility Videos – Things about your world.
3. Emotional Gift Videos – Things that affect how you feel.

Keep in mind with all three content types there’s a lot of crossover. For example a video like, “19 Facts That Kitten Owners Know” (which I just made up and doesn’t exist, but probably should) covers all three segments:

1. Identity: Kitten owners
2. Information: 19 Facts
3. Emotional Gift: KITTENS!!

Subcategories

Each of these video categories has multiple subcategories, too. Below is breakdown with some more titles I made up that may or may not exist as actual videos.

Identity Subcategories and Examples:

Informational/Utility Subcategories and Examples:

Emotional Gift Subcategories and Examples:

We also put together a handy list of title prompts for each category to get you thinking about subject matters that would make for good programming. Note there’s a lot of crossover of prompts between the three main content groups.

Identity Title Starters:

• Things only __ will understand
• Which ___ (character) are you
• Before you die
• In your life
• # Reasons you (should)
• Signs you should
• Photos that prove
• # things that happened
• In real life
• Things that happen
• # things you
• # signs you’re
• You should be
• Things you didn’t
• ____ People Try ____

Information Title Starters: 

• You probably didn’t (know/think/feel)
• Reasons ____ Are the most
• Reasons you should
• # You Probably didn’t know about ____
• Most important
• ____ You didn’t know about ____
• ____ Of all time
• Blow your mind
• # Things that happened
• # Things you didn’t know about ____
• What ___ People Think About ____

Emotional Gift Title Starters:

• # ____ To get you through your day
• You won’t believe ____
• # Amazing photos that ____
• ____ That give absolutely zero F#@%s
• ____ You need to see to believe
• ____ That will ruin your childhood
• # Best ____
• # Craziest ____
• ____ Will change the way you see ____
• ____ That will blow your mind
• How well do you know ____
• If __ was ____
• Weird facts about ___
• You’ve been doing ___ wrong

Programming Strategy General Principles and Themes

After doing this structural breakdown, my team and I sat down and took a look at the general principles and themes that were apparent in BuzzFeed’s content strategy.

Positivity. BuzzFeed is 100% positive. Every post, every video, every tweet, for the most part, is positive and happy. If you click on an article or play on a video from BuzzFeed, you’re entering a party. The primary benefit (there are many) is that this positivity ensures that every video, blog post, tweet, etc. is inclusive. That further ensures BuzzFeed is palatable to an ever expanding audience (no one is excluded), and keeps the BuzzFeed brand favorable in people’s minds.

Promise. BuzzFeed is one of the few exceptions to the rule of “if you’re everything to everyone, you’re nothing to no one.” BuzzFeed is everything to everyone because it caters to all (with a slant towards internet native millennials) as part of its core promise, which is an extension of its positivity and inclusivity. BuzzFeed’s promise is that it will hold up the mirror and tell you how great you and people like you are (e.g. your obsession with Dr. Who is totally cool!). Following this line of thought, if we live in a narcissistic culture, BuzzFeed epitomizes that culture. If the purpose of art is to hold up a mirror to society than BuzzFeed is the most perfect mirror ever created.

Relevancy. A video’s popularity is often decided by how relevant it is to how large of an audience. For example, a video aimed at people who like cats will probably do better than a video aimed at people who like Tom Brady because cats are more relevant to more people than Tom Brady. Relevancy is actually linked to a number of the principles outlined here, including tones and types of content (positivity, relationships, voyeurism, humans are weird, etc.), and how that content is seen by the public (distribution strategy, channel strategy, language, etc.).

Relationships. One thing that all three of BuzzFeed’s content categories have in common is that they center around relationships. Relationships are how we define ourselves, those around us and the world. Relationships are at the center of all storytelling, media and art. Therefore, it’s no surprise BuzzFeed’s content – that is solely driven by the desire to understand these relationships – is so incredibly popular.

Managing Expectations. One of the things we appreciate most about BuzzFeed’s strategy is that a viewer knows exactly what they are going to get when they click on a BuzzFeed video. This is because BuzzFeed’s programming (what’s in the video/article) exactly matches the title. For example, the title of one of Shane Dawson’s latest uploads is “HIGH SCHOOL SUCKS”. You think the video is about high school sucking, right? Wrong, it’s a promo for Shane’s new book (and that may be a-okay for Dawson’s audience of seven million YouTube subscribers, but it may also be misleading for a large percentage of random viewers who happen upon the video).

Now take a title from a recent BuzzFeed video: “People Try ‘As Seen On Tv’ Products”. Guess what this video is about. You’re right! This is a video where people try “As Seen On Tv” products.

By fulfilling the promise to the viewer of what the title claims the video to be about, the viewer is satisfied and happy. Happy viewers means they will ultimately watch more videos because they know exactly what they are going to get.

Niche. Super-serving niche audiences keeps your total audience pool expanding as a whole. For example, creating a video just about left-handed people may only appeal to a small niche, but this niche has other interests and will likely find other content of yours they want to watch. Furthermore, lefties will likely share this video to explain themselves and non-lefties will share this video with people they know are left handed.

Information gaps. Create an information gap in your audience through proper headlines/titles. An effective title will make someone ask Why, Who, Which, What, Where, When or How? This causes them to want to watch that video (or read that article) because they now have an information gap to fill. If we use our example above, “19 Facts That Kitten Owners Know”, the information gap would be “What do I not know?” or “Do I know These Things?”.

Explaining the unexplained/Voyeurism. A lot of BuzzFeed’s content attempts to explain the unexplained (the Why’s and How’s of life) as well as provide voyeuristic opportunities for people. This plays off of our desire as human beings to want to know, or at least not appear uninformed. Giving us this opportunity to be voyeurs allows us to learn these previously unknown things with no risk of appearing stupid.

Funny is money. The vast majority of BuzzFeed’s content aims to be funny or humorous on some level, in part because the best emotional gift you can give someone is to make them laugh. Even information/utility content often has a humorous slant to it. This plays really well with their other principles, like staying positive, being inclusive, etc.

Humans are weird and that’s okay! Catering to all audiences means you have to explore some things that the “mainstream” might find weird to talk about in both general and specific terms. Thing of topics having to do with drug culture, sexuality, and other taboo subjects (e.g. What’s Living in Your Bellybutton?) Making these human oddities okay to explore and discuss in a positive and inclusive way further allows BuzzFeed to continually expand its audience.

Channel Strategy. BuzzFeed’s channel strategy (with the aforementioned Videos, Blue, Yellow, Violet, and Pop YouTube channels) is based on mood. The theory goes that if you’re watching a video, you’re doing so to feel a certain emotion and you are likely to want to keep feeling this emotion. With that in mind, you’ll watch more videos that elicit this emotion.

Distribution Strategy. Jonah Peretti and Ze Frank have both recently pointed out that different types of content perform better on different platforms. While this premise is obvious, the way BuzzFeed looks at it is a bit unique and also logical. For example, they say Informational/Utility videos do better on YouTube and Identity videos do better on Facebook. This actually makes a lot of sense. Facebook is where we share things and see things about others relating to who we are and what we like. It’s always been that way as a platform. On the opposite end of the spectrum, cinéma vérité has always been the most popular type of content on YouTube (and, yes, I did just use cinéma vérité to describe cat videos and vlogs).

Statistics and Data. There’s no doubt I’m an analytics junkie, so please read what I write next with that in mind. BuzzFeed can have all the stats, data, “scalable solutions”, and technology in the world, and maybe that helps their investors sleep better and their content perform better by a few percentage points. But at the end of the day, media is about humans connecting with each other (and themselves), and BuzzFeed is best in breed at fostering that connection digitally. The data and and analysis idiosyncrasies that comprise the massive BuzzFeed machine merely assists that connection, it doesn’t make it.

Testing/Experimentation. BuzzFeed appears to do a great deal of testing and experimentation in their programming strategies. They are constantly trying out new content types to see what will resonate. For example, BuzzFeed has a series of videos that are formatted as “______ TRIES _____ FOR THE FIRST TIME.” This content seems to have debuted on their channel in July of 2014. Several months later, in September 2014 BuzzFeed launched the “Try Guys” series. It’s essentially the same exact format, but is really the first series BuzzFeed has done around set characters. They tested the format, saw that it works, and then created their first series out of the content type.

Language. The language BuzzFeed uses is the most important principle on this list because it encompasses all of the above. This communication must be relevant to the audience and use language the target audience uses. The majority of BuzzFeed’s audience are digital native millennials. This is why titles like “This Instagram Account Literally Can’t Even And It’s Amazing” gets nearly a million views.

How Can You Make BuzzFeed Style Content

As I mentioned before, anyone can apply this programming strategy to their content, niche, topic or interest. Do you have a beauty channel? Why not start with a video of “How You Can Dress Like Beyonce” Or is your channel all about fast cars? How about create some content around “8 Things Only Gear Heads Know” Or do you make videos about food? How about “7 Signs You’re Obsessed With Buffalo Wings”. And on and on and on.

If you use what we’ve laid out above in terms of categories, sub-categories, themes, title prompts and principles you can easily make content similar to BuzzFeed’s and potentially reap similar rewards. And like I said before, don’t just take my word for it. We’ve tried it at Frederator. And it seems to work.

Filed under: Articles, Buzzfeed, News, YouTube by Matt Gielen
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After asking celebrity guests to say I Love Movies, Fandango is now inviting other collaborators to its Movie3Some. The ticketing company’s Movieclips brand has taken up residency at YouTube Space LA, where it is shooting a weekly series dedicated to current films.

Movie3Some will be hosted by Kristian Harloff and Tiffany Smith, both of whom have previously made videos on the Schmoes Know channel. Each week, Harloff and Smith will complete their threesome by inviting a guest to join their discussion of recent movies. Guests will range from people within the film industry (such as director Guillermo del Toro, who is no stranger to YouTube Space LA) to those outside it (such as Dwight Howard, who also appeared on Fandango’s previous series, I Love Movies).

The partnership between Fandango and YouTube Space LA is a logical one. Fandango often creates videos that relate to current movies, and the YouTube Spaces have often housed sets on which content creators can film videos related to those same movies.

“Fandango Movieclips has a long history of proven success on YouTube, and we are very proud to have been selected for YouTube Space LA’s highly-regarded residency program,” said Fandango Chief Creative Officer, Sandro Corsaro. “We are excited to have the opportunity to explore new ideas that celebrate the movies and moviegoing on YouTube at their world class facilities.”

The first episode of Movie3Some, which covers recent releases like Minions and Ant-Man, can be found on the Movieclips Originals YouTube channel. Dan Perrault, who is himself the host of a Fandango series, serves as the first guest star.

Filed under: Articles, Fandango, Featured, News, YouTube Spaces by Sam Gutelle
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From July 23-25, online video creators, fans, and executives will take over the Anaheim Convention Center for the 2015 edition of VidCon. The yearly event dedicated to web video will include dozens of sessions, and several of those presentations will be hosted by Vimeo. The online video platform will run a space called the Vimeo Studio, at which VidCon attendees will be able to recharge their devices, grab some coffee, and attend sessions led by important figures in the web video world.

The Vimeo Studio slate will feature a number of creators who are selling their work directly to fans through the Vimeo On Demand. For example, Sawyer Hartman and PJ Ligouri–who are both bringing full series to Vimeo thanks to a deal with New Form Digital–will both chat about their projects. Other featured guests include members of RocketJump and Wong Fu Productions, which have both used Vimeo On Demand to sell high-quality content.

The focus will certainly be on Vimeo, and we expect the featured creators to extol the monetary advantages of the host platform. At the same time, the Vimeo Studio sessions (which will only be available to Creator and Industry Track attendees) will spotlight some of the most interesting and important characters who will be in attendance at VidCon. If you’ll be in Anaheim, you’d be wise to listen to what they have to say.

You can check out the schedule for Vimeo Studio Sessions below and right here on the Vimeo Studios website. And we’ll have some profiles of Vimeo Studio guests as VidCon approaches. Stay tuned.

Thursday, July 23 @ 11AM – 12PM • From Short To Series: Turning PJ Liguori’s (AKA KickthePJ) Oscar’s Hotel Into A Hit

Released by New Form Digital in the first round of their Incubator series of short films,  PJ Liguori’s (aka KickThePj) whimsical “Oscar’s Hotel” grabbed the attention of Vimeo with its vivid characters and offbeat humor. Now, with the backing of a major digital studio and one of the world’s largest VOD platforms, PJ is turning his concept into a six-part series launching globally this fall. Hear from the various stakeholders involved in turning this short into a high quality series on Vimeo.

o PJ Liguori | Oscar’s Hotel
o Kathleen Grace | New Form Digital
o Sam Toles | VP, Content Acquisition & Business Development, Vimeo
o Moderator: Natalie Jarvey | The Hollywood Reporter

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, VidCon, Vimeo by Sam Gutelle
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The presence of ads on Hulu’s premium subscription service has long bothered many of the site’s users. If we’re paying $8 a month, the common complaint goes, why do we still have to sit through ads? If a report in the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, Hulu will soon address these concerns. The streaming video site is rumored to be planning an ad-free subscription service, which will cost somewhere between $12 and $14 per month.

Hulu has been thinking about reducing ads on its premium service for some time now. In October 2014, CEO Mike Hopkins said Hulu is “always looking at a variety of ways to create the best possible experience for our viewers and advertisers including reducing the ad load.” Then, one month ago, Hulu stopped calling its current premium service Hulu Plus. While the company said this name change was meant as a way to unite the Hulu brand, it also created space for a new premium offering beyond the-service-formerly-known-as-Hulu-Plus.

In the WSJ report, details about the new service begin to take shape. Its codename is NOAH, which stands for No Ads Hulu. It would allow Hulu to offer a equivalent tier to the ad-free subscription platforms of Amazon and Netflix, albeit for a higher price than either of those two services. While Hulu obviously hasn’t shared a release date for NOAH, the WSJ’s sources believe it could arrive as early as the fall.

It goes without saying that launching an ad-free service would be huge for Hulu. When the streaming site launched the entire library of Seinfeld, it received backlash from premium users who believe their subscriptions should entitle them to an ad-free experience. As Hulu looks to bring in more high-profile projects, it will face consistent criticism unless it gives the people what they want, and the people want to watch their favorite shows and movies uninterrupted.

While we wait for more details about NOAH, there are still many high-quality original programs worth checking out in Hulu’s library. New releases in August will include Difficult People, which will arrive on August 6th, and Hotwives of Las Vegas, which will follow 12 days later on the 18th.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Hulu, News by Sam Gutelle
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American YouTube fans may not have heard of the Brazilian YouTube channel Porta dos Fundos, but that hasn’t stopped the five-member comedy group from amassing over 10.2 million subscribers and more than 1.7 billion total video views. And all that success on Google’s online video platform has now translated into some impressive deals with traditional media companies.

Porta dos Fundos (translated as Back Door) has landed a TV series deal with Fox’s local Brazilian pay-TV channel Canal Fox for a show called O Grande Gonzalez (The Great Gonzalez). The YouTube comedy group also inked a feature film deal with Brazilian film distribution company Downtown for Porta dos Fundos — contrato vitalicio (Porta dos Fundos — Lifetime Contract).

Porta dos Fundos consists of members Antonio Tabet, Gregorio Duvivier, Ian Fernandes (aka Ian SBF), Joao Vicente de Castro, and Fabio Porchat. The quintet quit their day jobs at Brazilian broadcasting company TV Globo and started uploading sketches to their YouTube channel in 2012. Now, the troupe boasts over 400 skits on their channel, many of them subtitled in both Spanish and English and providing comedic takes on topics like Fifty Shades of Grey, corporations, and even the Ku Klux Klan.

“We decided to give up our contracts with Globo to pursue a different type of humor — to do it our way,” Porchat told Variety.

Drawing comedy inspiration from Monty Python and YouTube channel and content structure from CollegeHumor, Porta dos Fundos started to receive attention from local television companies and networks who wanted the comedy gang to create content for TV. “We received offers from virtually all (free) TV and many pay-TV networks in Brazil,” Tabet said. “We chose Fox, because their offer fulfilled our financial demands and granted us absolute creative freedom.”

The Great Gonzalez will be a ten-episode comic mystery series for Canal Fox. The series is written by Porchat and Gabriel Esteves (a sketch writer for Porta dos Fundos), with Ian SBF leading the project. Production began on The Great Gonzalez in June 2015, but no official premiere date has been set.

Porta dos Fundos’ feature film Lifetime Contract will begin filming sometime in September or October 2015, with no release date determined as of yet. Ian SBF will again helm the project, with a screenplay from Porchat. As for the flick’s content, Porchat noted it “will not be a combination of sketches.” “It is a feature film with a beginning, (middle), and end,” the Porta member clarified.

Porta dos Fundos boasts around 40 full-time employees and new headquarters (complete with a studio) in Rio de Janeiro.

Filed under: Articles, News, Porta dos Fundos by Bree Brouwer
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Google has YouTube to thank for some of its current financial success. The tech and internet giant revealed its Q2 2015 financial report on July 16, 2015, and cited YouTube’s growth and mobile advertising as key factors in its $17.7 billion revenue.

The Q2 report, the first of its kind since the instatement of Google’s new Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat, noted the $17.7 billion figure was an 11% increase over Q2 of 2014. Advertising revenue, much of it from mobile search, was also up 11% year-over-year at $16 billion. Porat said in addition to mobile advertising, YouTube’s growth has been instrumental in improving Google’s revenue.

Some of this comes from the fact that watch time across all of YouTube has increased 60% since 2014, as reported by The Verge. And according to the Wall Street Journal’s live coverage, mobile watch time has doubled on YouTube year-over-year, even though Porat said cost-per-click pricing is currently lower than normal on YouTube’s TrueView ads.

Porat emphasized the importance of this extended watch time on YouTube. The Google CFO said what it means is many of the viewers who stick around for longer on the online video site are choosing to watch TrueView ads. Eventually, YouTube will be able to start charging more for such ads once it’s proven itself to marketers in core demographics like the 18- to 49-year-old market.

Analysts continually tried to get Porat to reveal more about how YouTube’s business works and how it has affected Google as a whole. Porat wouldn’t budge on listing specifics, but she reiterated the value and importance of mobile advertising and YouTube TrueView ads.

Filed under: Articles, News, YouTube by Bree Brouwer
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Netflix continues to dominate young people and millennials’ viewing habits. A new study from research firm Ipsos Media CT found the streaming platform was the top entertainment outlet choice among surveyed consumers between the ages of 13-49.

When compared against options like Hulu, ESPN, and HBO, participants put Netflix at the top of their viewing habits list by spending at least five hours on the platform per week. About 25% of people aged 13-17 watched Netflix more than any other presented entertainment outlet; roughly 21% of 18- to 34-year-olds prefer Netflix, as do 12% of those in the 35-49 bracket. The only exception was the 50-64 demographic, where Netflix placed fourth behind CBS, ABC, and NBC, respectively.

Granted, Ipsos Media’s sampling was limited, both in terms of time period and entertainment options. For example, the firm only studied the viewing habits of consumers during the week of June 15. And it’s no secret teens favor YouTube for digital entertainment consumption. However, Ipsos Media’s findings echo those of several other research firms who’ve done their own research into the Netflix-vs.-everyone-else matter.

In January 2015, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) and the National Association of Television Program Executives (NATPE) found 51% of millennials regularly choose Netflix over cable and and broadcast channels. A few weeks later, the second part of CEA and NATPE’s study found 40% of consumers first turn to Netflix for TV shows before other providers. And in a blow to Amazon Instant Video, research firm Strategy Analytics discovered 40% of Amazon Prime subscribers who also have a Netflix account are more likely to only use Netflix for video streaming purposes.

Netflix released its Q2 shareholder letter on July 15, 2015, which revealed the streaming platform now has more than 65 million subscribers and earned a 23% increase in revenue year-over-year. It seems Netflix has no issues keeping viewers’ eyeballs on the content it has to offer.

Filed under: Articles, Netflix, News by Bree Brouwer
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Welcome to YouTube Millionaires, where we profile channels that have recently crossed the one million subscriber mark. There are channels crossing this threshold every week, and each has a story to tell about YouTube success. Read previous installments of YouTube Millionaires here.

On his Game Theory YouTube channel, Matthew Patrick drops video game knowledge bombs on his millions of subscribers. As it turned out, Patrick has plenty of movie-related theories in his arsenal, and his desire to share them has led him to a new channel: The Film Theorists. On his new channel, Patrick and his team of movie buffs deliver interesting theses about everything from Doctor Who to Shrek. This formula has seen immediate success, with the new channel rolling up one million subscribers in just one month. We spoke to Patrick about his process for analyzing famous movies:

Tubefilter: How does it feel to have 1 million subscribers (for a second time)? What do you want to say to your fans?

Matthew Patrick: It’s incredible! When I first started taking YouTube seriously, getting that gold Play button was my “stretch” goal. As a gamer, it was the achievement I wanted to unlock, but was skeptical I could. Now, we’re almost at SIX MILLION subscribers across both channels – it’s something I never anticipated.

As for the Loyal Theorists, I want them to know that this is a milestone for them too! Without their support for every episode of both Game Theory and Film Theory, we wouldn’t be here to celebrate this. More than that, though, I think it’s important for everyone to know how much of an impact they have on real peoples’ lives when they do things like watch the videos, subscribe, and even argue with me about the theories in the comments. Because of the way the community has grown and how enthusiastic everyone is, we’ve been able to bring more people onto the Theorist team, giving people actual jobs! We’re also able to educate and entertain more people! The audience’s support has a domino effect that goes way past the numbers on the channel and it’s important to recognize that and say how grateful we are to the fans.

TF: Why do you think your new Film Theorists channel attracted 1 million subscribers so quickly after launch (within a month)?

MP: Well, it certainly helps when you have a 4.5 million subscriber channel to promote it on, haha! But joking aside, when channels have done similar promotions in the past, they’ll typically only see about a 10% carryover of fans. So certainly a well-optimized annotation strategy from Game Theorist was part of it, but programming was another huge component.

In creating Film Theorists, I wanted to bring on another large, thoughtful gaming brand that was looking to cross into new territory, which is how Did You Know Movies entered our lineup. On top of that, in crafting the launch lineup, I tried to include a good mix of mainstream movies, topical content, as well as a few more niche subjects to give viewers coming over a good sense of the breadth of the channel. What we started to see after the first week was that while people were still coming over from Game Theory, more people were discovering the channel who had never seen any “Theorist” shows before, which was incredibly exciting.

TF: So why launch a new channel?

MP: First, it was something that my fans had been requesting in comments, on Twitter, and in email, so when I started the channel the hope was that it would be something they would enjoy watching. At the end of the day, with anything I do, it’s to entertain and educate, so if I didn’t think the interest was there, it wouldn’t have happened.

But to be completely honest, I started seriously considering it nearly a year before any requests came in. If you watch Game Theory, you can see that I make A LOT of TV and movie references — my favorite shows like Community, Archer, and Breaking Bad get referenced all over the place. So, working in the new genre would allow me to flex that muscle while still creating fun, exciting content for other diehard fans of those sorts of shows.

From a YouTube-perspective, the reason was purely for viewer experience. Even though I knew a good number of Game Theory fans would also enjoy Film Theory, I knew not ALL of them would. So, to avoid spamming gamers sub boxes with theories about Seinfeld or 50 Shades of Grey, a new channel made the most organizational sense.

TF: How has your process changed from the Game Theorists channel to your new one (if at all)? Have you had to adjust your “formula” for analyzing games to fit movies and TV?

MP: Yes and no. On the one hand, one of the most important things for me about The Film Theorists was for it to stand on its own. I didn’t want it to be “the spinoff from Game Theory.” But I also didn’t want to send fans of Game Theory off to some random new channel where the format was drastically different.

In the end, it was a balance. I carried over some of the imagery from The Game Theorists and a few of the memes, but I’m actively working on establishing new jokes and routines with the Film Theory audience to make the channels distinct. We’re covering some more mature topics, addressing franchises that aren’t as male-centric, and experimenting with shorter episodes. And we have two awesome partner shows who are providing great content. How much the channel evolves as we go forward will really depend on how the audience is reacting to the content. I’m always VERY attentive to the analytics and the community of Loyal Theorists has always been willing to share their opinions, so I’ll keep experimenting and between those two sources providing feedback, we’ll end up in a successful place.

TF: How much would you say you focus on “creating” your own personal theories vs. analyzing ones that already exist on the Internet?

MP: It’s always a balance—I get theory ideas from everywhere and do my best to come up with a good mix of programming so you’re never getting too much of one type of episode. One of the really great things about having a big audience early on for The Film Theorists is that episode suggestions started coming in right away. Literally in the first two days of the channel going live, I started to get emails and tweets requesting that I look into theories about Marvel movies, Pixar connected universes, and tons of other stuff I hadn’t even heard of. For instance, one of the biggest TV shows people have been requesting for Film Theory is Gravity Falls. I had only heard of the show before in passing, but so many people requested it that I had to start researching it right away.

TF: You’re also known for your deep knowledge of YouTube. What do you think is the most significant way in which this expertise has helped you grow your channel?

MP: During my time working in YouTube audience development, I’ve seen a lot of channels launch and struggle to make it out of the gate. The channel doesn’t have enough content, the creator doesn’t perform a clear call to action, the programming strategy isn’t quite right, etc. I tried to avoid as many pitfalls as I could because you only get one really good shot at launching strong, and behind the scenes, I kept pushing our launch date back until I was confident we were in a good position.

A core part of our launch strategy was optimizing for long retention times and creating a lean-back viewing experience where the audience could click play and watch as much as they wanted. When you launch a new channel, you want it to be easy for new viewers who don’t know what they’re getting into to start watching and keep watching if they like what they see, so we did everything possible to make sure watching all the episodes would be easy and fun.

TF: Similarly, what is one tip you would give to an aspiring creator who wants to create longer videos, as you do, while still gathering a sizable audience?

MP: Starting with long videos out of the gate is really tough. Unless you have a format that lends itself to longer videos, like Let’s Plays, vlogging, or livestreaming, it can be hard to come up with enough content to fill 8+ minutes. I mean, Game Theory episodes started out at 5-7 minutes, so even my content was a lot shorter once upon a time!

My episodes have been able to slowly creep up over the years because we’ve gotten better at more elaborate storytelling, and I’ve been able to work with incredible editors who can handle the huge amount of work each episode takes, but for people looking to do longer content, I would first say, ask yourself WHY you’re pursuing longer content. Is it because there’s so much to cover even when every moment is densely packed with something interesting? Then yes, go long. But if you find yourself with a video that has a lot of down time or filler, chances are you’re going to lose a lot of people along the way.

TF: In addition to “Did You Know” and “Frame by Frame,” are there other series you plan to start on the Film Theorists channel?

MP: Right now, the focus is on establishing the channel and helping the shows we have on it grow. I love Did You Know and Frame by Frame and I want to make sure that every upload on the channel has plenty of space to build momentum over the next few months. I also want to make sure that people don’t have to pick and choose between uploads they want to watch on the channel.

Subscribing to a channel can feel like a big commitment and it’s hard to ask an audience to subscribe when they’re not sure where their next upload will be coming from. I really like how clean and simple the channel feels with the shows we have on it now and I think viewers can get a really good sense of the whole channel in just a few episodes. That’s not to say that down the line we won’t continue to experiment and try new things, but we’re happy with the series that are there now and want to see where the next few months take them.

TF: What’s next for your channel? Any fun plans?

MP: Well, there are two more empty spaces on our logo…

On Deck (channels that will soon reach one million subscribers): keferavlog, kuplinovplay, AmbuPlay

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, Millionaires, News by Sam Gutelle
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Connor Franta is looking to become a player in the music industry. The YouTube vlogger, who boasts over 5.5 million subscribers across two channels, has launched a new music label called Heard Well, to help digital stars like himself release their own albums.

Franta’s Heard Well business partners include Big Frame talent manager Andrew Graham and Jeremy Wineberg, who is the owner of the music distribution and licensing company Opus Label. Heard Well’s entire modus operandi is to put the power of music curation into the hands of what the company calls “social tastemakers.” Each Heard Well album will be a compilation of songs from up-and-coming artists, hand-picked by digital influencers.

This strategy mirrors how Franta first got into the music industry himself. The 22-year-old vlogger curated his first album Crown (which was one of iTunes’ top 20 best-selling pop albums in 2014), and then released another compilation album dubbed Common Culture (which debuted on Billboard’s Top 10 chart).

“The work I’ve done through my Common Culture Music series has enabled me not only to share my joy of music at scale, but also promote the artists I love,” Franta said in a release. “We see a wonderful opportunity to build a talent-friendly label that rewards and empowers influencers for promoting the music they love, while simultaneously offering musicians a new, meaningful means of discovery.”

“Music is deeply interwoven into online communities, especially YouTube which holds the distinction of the world’s most popular music streaming platform,” added Graham. “As more and more influencers begin converting online communities into owned-and-operated brands, music is an easy entry point as it is a media already intersecting influencers and musicians alike.”

Franta will release all future compilation albums through Heard Well; this includes Common Culture, Vol. 3, which will debut later in July 2015 as Heard Well’s first release. Other social tastemakers who have signed on with the new label to curate their own albums include Amanda Steele (aka MakeupbyMandy24), Lohanthony, and Jc Caylen. Variety reports Heard Well will share a cut of all revenue with signed influencers.

“Influencers are the modern A&R scouts, and they have tremendous built-in power,” said Wineberg. “Being able to reach millions of fans instantaneously is a game-changer.”

Filed under: Articles, Connor Franta, News by Bree Brouwer
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