Web Series (Page 2 of 2)

Not exactly. Guys from Sync tried to do that and they're failing miserably. They release a 3-5min episode every month and everyone complains that it's too short and not worth waiting for.  VGHS on the other hand with its 15min every week schedule racked up millions of views per episode in a matter of days.

People want stuff and they want it NOW. If you can make it on time you don't have to make it super short.

Last edited by Lamer (2012-07-23 14:59:34)

It's not horrible, just different. YouTube pays creators to get eyeballs on ads, and they generally show one ad per video view. They don't force you to do short or cheap or broadly appealing content, it's just potentially more profitable to do that. Compare that to the limits of an hour long network TV show, with 15-20 minutes of ads breaking up the episode and more restrictive content limits.

The people making a living on YouTube prefer the YouTube format with the subscriber model and easy distribution and ad revenue and like/dislike buttons and even the comments section (well, sometimes). I guess if TV and movies are seen as 'more real' with their big budgets and big distribution then there would be an assumption that online videos are a cute little stepping stone into the big boy shoes, but that's just not how the successful YouTube content creators see themselves.

Incidentally, Corridor Digital would love to release SYNC faster, but BAMMO, which funded it, required the once a month release schedule. BAMMO, along with Geek and Sundry and Crash Course and a number of other 'premium' channels are part of an initiative by YouTube to fund and distribute higher quality content.

The thing about content like this is that you don't have to just limit yourself to the one thing. There's a ton of options out there, and you don't have to limit yourself to just one or two of them. Just by doing Let's Play stuff there are a lot of options. A lot of them do live streams via Twitch.tv, so that's another source of ad revenue. Some of them have forums, and those forums have ads, so there's another little bit of income. One of the guys I follow is a decent little sketch artist, so once in a while he'll do a sketch thing where for a few bucks he'll do a quick drawing for you, and he streams that as well so the people who paid to get the sketch done end up contributing ad views as well.

If you have any sort of fan base, even a small one, you can get some traction on a revenue stream. You can do things beyond just creating media content and hoping enough people watch it. If you can get 10K views per video, that's 10K potential buys for one of your other hobby projects. Maybe you knit scarves or something and sell stuff on etsy. Tell your youtube fans. Some of them are bound to buy something, and the people who like your videos probably won't mind if you mention you've got to make some cash once in a while.

But as the saying goes, 'time is money'. Even for a basic video I can see how one can spend a lot of time on it; planning, recording, editing and uploading (the last of which I understand to be quite troublesome). If you are in it to make money and yet are spending alot of your time, that seems counterproductive. The online ad revenue model is only really sufficient to supplement an existing income, so it functions best as a second, part-time job (which I'm sure is how a lot of people on youtube see it).

But short, cheap or broad content is far more likely to develop under such a model. If you create a platform that encourages one thing, to the point where it pays better, you'll get it. Worse, you'll flood the market with tonnes of low quality crap as millions attempt to micmic the success of the few.

And Network TV isn't ideal, but that environment, with its higher potential revenue and risks, is much more likely to lead to a product that's been crafted with thought, care and skill.