After repeatedly vowing to move future content ventures away from YouTube as a result of plummeting ad revenues and accusations of viewership suppression, Philip DeFranco has launched today a new distribution platform called DeFranco Now.
DeFranco Now is a website and iPhone app whose hallmark feature is video-to-video conversations, according to a press release — as fans will have the ability to share video responses to DeFranco’s own posts on the platform. DeFranco will then be able to incorporate these responses into The Philip DeFranco Show, his flagship YouTube series that comprises a rundown of the latest news in politics, pop culture, and across the digital sphere. (YouTube formerly offered its own video response feature, which the company ditched in 2013 due to paltry clickthrough rates).
The new site and app are both being powered by social video upstart Snakt, which enables users to create, reply to, curate, and explore user-generated videos. (DeFranco serves an adviser for the company, he notes in a video announcing DeFranco Now). And DeFranco Now represents a separate venture from DeFranco Elite — a fan-funded initiative on Patreon through which fans can pay for early access to content, swag, and exclusive live streams. To date, DeFranco Elite has amassed 16,209 patrons. DeFranco Now, on the other hand, is free to use.
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Check out the announcement, beginning at the 3:25-minute mark, below:
“DeFranco Now is all about our amazing fan community and inviting them to be part of the show,” the YouTube vet said in a statement. “Creators need new partners now given what has happened with YouTube.” (Given that DeFranco frequently covers news items with objectionable themes, he believes that YouTube is unfairly demonetizing his content as well as stunting their distribution across the ‘Trending’ tab, homepage, and the ‘Up Next’ and ‘Recommended’ sections).
“Snakt has the ideal technology,” he continues, “allowing us to engage with video replies in a way we had been dreaming of for over five years. And they have the right vision: Snakt is putting creators first, and that’s really important to me.”
DeFranco Now has been in beta for Elite patrons over the past several weeks, though the product officially went live yesterday. Elite members will continue to receive special perks on DeFranco Now, however, including a custom badge that makes their posts more visible on the site. DeFranco also notes that an Android version is in the works.
Snakt CEO Tristan Snell says that other new product launches are currently in the works at the four-year-old company, which operates its own platform in addition to building them for third parties. Snakt is currently developing the SnaktCoins Partner Program — a monetization system that it says is designed to “help creators offset the losses they have incurred as the largest platforms like YouTube turn their attention to TV partnerships and away from their homegrown digital-native creators.”
