What We Learned At VidCon 2010

by Paul Colligan on July 12, 2010

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VidCon 2010 was amazing, on a number of levels. I’ll try to hit some of the highlights here but, … wow … I’m more serious / bullish on YouTube than ever before. Let me give you some highlights:

  • The excitement of YouTube’s announcing support for 4k video overshadowed the important 3 point outline that came from the presentation where it was launched. In short, YouTube wants to be 1) the best place for your content while providing 2) the best ways to make your content fun and interactive while enabling people the chance to 3) view your content wherever you are. Lofty goals, yes, but I think these guys can pull it off. Oh, yes, and did I mention, they want you as a partner. Yes, our goal here is for you to see us as your YouTube Secret Weapon but, dear friends, MAKE YOUTUBE YOUR SECRET WEAPON.
  • All my writing and teaching of all the places YouTube is available was made so much more elegant in the statement that our future is “not going to be a device centric world.” Your content everywhere (#3) above is the only choice for any content provider looking to take the Internet seriously.
  • YouTube is monetizing over a billion videos a week. Read that sentence again. Nuff said?
  • In a bit of very strategic insight, it was also said that more than half of all YouTube views come from subscriptions. One YouTube employee went as far as saying that subscriptions are “the currency of YouTube.”
  • In one more bit of hackerlike information, twas told that channel numbers are not as much of an influence on the YouTube ranking algorithm as people think it is. Take that for what it is worth.
  • I met the guys from Orabrush (one of the sponsors of the event). Oh, man, does their YouTube story sum things up perfectly. I include it here, how else, but as a YouTube Embed


Expect more on the topics of both VidCon and what we learned there. I’ll be there for next year’s event and recommend you do the same.

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YouTube Mobile, HTML5 And The Future Of Flash

by Paul Colligan on July 7, 2010

A reported at Techmeme, YouTube is rolling out their HTML5 version of their mobile site, rendering their apps obsolete and nailing another nail into Flash’s coffin.

We’re able to see it here and we agree with Techmeme. This is where YouTube needs to go and it looks like a million bucks

Now, we need to be honest. Everyone else in this “space” looks at YouTube to see where they should go as well.

By YouTube doing this, it should go without saying that we’ll be seeing more of the same from other video players online.

Flash simply does not have much time left – and YouTube today perhaps pulled the plug.

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VidCon 2010 – YouTube Secret Weapon Will Be There

May 23, 2010

This year’s VidCon event looks to be tremendous.  We’ll be there, reporting from the event, and will share with out whatever YouTube VidCon goodness comes our way.
If you know nothing about the event, take a look a VidCon2010 for more information. You might want to consider attending yourself.

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Customized YouTube Background Images for the Re-designed Channel Layout (here to STAY September 30th)

September 30, 2009

According to YouTube’s Channel Re-Design Beta Blog, TODAY, September 30th, is the day it will officially begin switching all YouTube user channels over to channel design 2.0. So with the new official design switch on the horizon, I went out and found a fantastic designer to customize some new channel background images. If you have not customized your YouTube channel, you definitely want to reconsider. It is wise to keep your branding consistent across all of your online properties. By making good use of a custom background image, you can modify your channel to look like an extension of your existing site(s) and/or profiles. FIRST, check out these absolutely STELLAR YouTube channel designs by Kurt Austin of Catalyst Digital.

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YouTube Video Marketing and Optimization Secrets – Part 3 of 3

July 9, 2009

This post on YouTube Video Marketing Tips is a continuation of my post from a few weeks ago entitled “YouTube Video Marketing Secrets and Video Search Optimization Tips – Part 2 of now 3.” Today’s YouTube Video Marketing & Optimization Tip Topics are as follows: (1) Analyzing YouTube Insight Statistics — why you need to do it and how to make it easier. (2) Creating Inbound Links to both your videos AND your YouTube Channel. (3) Building YouTube Playlists — the importance of Playlists as a way to expand your audience and gain new fans.

By employing even just a few of these strategies, you’ll end up with more targeted traffic coming to your videos, and therefore more qualified prospects being driven over to your main money site –- whether that be a website, a blog, or simply a landing page for an affiliate product you are promoting.

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YouTube Channel Re-Design Officially Takes Effect Site-Wide July 15th

June 24, 2009

YouTube announced today that its Channel Design 2.0 will come out of beta and officially take effect site-wide on July 15th. Users have been able to try out the new design since April 16th, and YouTube’s Product Management team has been sharing progress and gathering feedback on their dedicated channels beta blog. But hey, while change can be uncomfortable at first, this is in many ways good news.

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YouTube Video Marketing Secrets and Video Search Optimization Tips – Part 2 of now 3

June 18, 2009

This post on YouTube Video Marketing Secrets is a continuation of last week’s post entitled “YouTube Video Marketing and Optimization Tips – Part 1 of 3″ in which I publicly share my critique of YouTube user Mike Stokes’ YouTube Channel. Today we are going to cover Adding Friends and Gaining Subscribers on YouTube, NoFollow & DoFollow links within YouTube, and posting YouTube videos as responses to other highly-viewed videos in your niche as a way to expand your audience and gain new fans.

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YouTube Video Marketing and Optimization Tips – Part 1 of 2

June 11, 2009

A YouTube marketing strategy is now CRUCIAL to include as part of any business’s overall online marketing plan…And for a number of reasons: 1) Lead Generation and List-Building Tactic, 2) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) 3) Viral Video Distribution Potential and 4) Social Media Networking Benefits. Let Julie Perry get you started with some FREE insider tips from her YouTube Secret Weapon 3-Part DVD Course.

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YouTube “Is A Disaster Waiting to Happen.” Oh Really, Mark Cuban?

May 28, 2009

Yesterday, American entrepreneur, Dallas Mavericks’ owner and HDNet CEO, Mark Cuban, referred to YouTube as “a disaster waiting to happen.” More specifically, Cuban was referring to the fact that the company lacked a monetization strategy from the get-go, and the fact that it still struggles to be profitable.

In that respect, Paul and I agree with Cuban. Paul and I always recommend starting out with a plan. In fact, one of the first places we start in YouTube Secret Weapon is by having you determine exactly what you’re in it for. Which of the many online marketing benefits do YOU–the business owner–plan to achieve from your YouTube efforts?

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YouTube’s Re-Design Changes Have Taken Effect – April 16th

April 17, 2009

As has been rumored on sites such as ClickZ, Mashable, and even Reuters the last two weeks, YouTube’s redesign changes took effect today, April 16th. One of the first things that became apparent were the experimental design changes appearing on select YouTube Partner Channels, such as this one belonging to sxephil:

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