new media mumbling

[Roblynmaz]

Too late to try on i2, but could try a partial freebie... A teaser, if you like. Not talking trailer here, rather say 25 or so min

[infraredtechnician]

Hmmmmm,Rob giving things away,,OK can i have a Canon XL-H1 camcorder,Senhieser mic,and Field mixer and recorder....lol....thanks mate.

[derangedband]

haha! jeez! i got watching these vids and found your account on here! now im not just watching the RD related vids ive been watching all sorts of stuff youve posted all day! these vids are great! just intresting and funny :D thanks for entertaining me (all day long) haha

[k4l31d05c0p3]

Giving out the razor blades is like giving out smack. The consumerism will eat us all up. We all have to have five blades now anyway, four, apparently. wasn't enough.

Love the videos btw, good to have found your channel:)

[OriginalUserName02]

When I got a mach 3 in the mail, I thought "wow. this is really good. We'll never need more than 3 blades." I resisted when they started making 4 and thought I'd cut my head off with 5 blades. Tried it. Love it. Waiting for 6. How did this happen?

[Geoff900]

What are your thoughts on paying for the T.V license?, Steven Fry with his podcast was talking about it and he said that we should stick with the license.

I think you could easily create content online, for free with adverts ITV are doing on demand T.V with advertising and it works it's not annoying or anything.

P.S I never knew you where a youtuber, until now it's great that your, having your say.

P.P.S Who owns the rights to Red Dwarf?

[STUTREE]

Interesting piece. I was talking to a friend of mine who is in advertising and he mentioned that a lot of TV ads have the sole purpose of eating up ad time, as long as they are on their competition isn't.

[AdamGillett]

Developing a sincere face on YouTube now is likely to reduce free downloading of your media releases by at least a tiny bit. It's that odd mix of celebrity culture and the cultish side of nerdism. The issue of what is acceptable morally (if not legally) is about as shady as they come. You even get people taking their camcorders into stage performances and putting the videos online. That can even skew reviews! I would in general agree with your commenter, but this media is a luxury, not a right.

[thestalkinghead]

im allways downloading things for free i usualy watch scrapheap on 4od and when red dwarf was on tv for the first tim from about seriese 4 i recorded them all on tap and have since bought some seriese on dvd the main advantage of buying them on dvd for me is the exras the behind the scenes and stuff and i bought all the smegups tapes, i knew all the lines on the smeg ups aswell as the serieses at one piont

[nbm34]

Further I have a suggestion if you did a comedy sketch based on my real experience of the BBC AGENT asking me why I did not have TV licence etc, Not even knowing my name the situation would be entertaining because a true reality can be more funny than fiction. Needless to say the BBC slimeball agent was a little shit and looked like who was from a comedy sketch anyway. Needless to say me the hero gave this toad hell in the best possible taste. Send you the details if you ever see the conceptwork

[nbm34]

I think when you produce something that people would like. In this media that bypasses the controls of the major TV COMPANIES. The BBC with its 3 Billion pounds a year rip off as a tax subjet you literaly being put in prison if you did not pay it. Means you being the first popular entertainer on the tube, could break us free from this evil empire when you have found a method of charging cheap fees for your products. £1 to £2 max, with a website and a password to dowmload your production.

[Geoff900]

There is one major problem with getting rid of the T.V license and that is they will tax some thing else, e.g. the internet.

[Mongothegr8]

we downloaded starwreck which is a hilarious star trek parody with subtitles and all the dubbing is Russian or some other eastern European language I think. It was on their own site for free. That is a great way for the producers of the film to advertise their expertise not to mention the actors getting some recognition too. If they put other work up there for sale, I think it would be snapped up as it had gained quite a following.

[KARMISphere]

One last thing, Sorry going a little overboard on comments. What interests me is the BBC and the ABC (Australia) allowing their citizens to watch their content for free whenever they want, which easily make their way on youtube. This is a corporate from of new media that will pave the way independents will derive income from new media sources. If the BBC and ABC do it, then the pressure will be on corporate channels to do the same and make a system that allows them to gain profit.

[KARMISphere]

A perfect example is "Pure Pwnage". This show has completely survived through voluntary subscriptions to forums about the show, merchandise, and some product placement. I think new media will be more rewarding for "true merit" because new media hype usually surrounds merit. New media provides those who are new and upcoming to truly create a name for themself, when it is otherwise impossible. If i make a movie on youtube that gets 1 million hits, then it is very likely that i could get investment

[KARMISphere]

I think the future of new media (i.e. youtube, free webisodes e.t.c) will make profit in terms of the actual footage, which is currently the process that movies use to make profit. Instead new media will make profit in two ways. Profit from physical products that are related to the content i.e. merchandise. Secondly, profit made from reaching the masses that encourages media corporates to invest in that show i.e. transfer to tv or stage show, characters being used by media advertisements.

[hitoriasobi]

I know I watch stuff on the internet because I'm a poor student, but if I watch something and like it enough, I'll buy it. Kind of a try before you buy kind of deal. That's the way I see it.

[jocopro]

You can make money giving media away, but it is a leap of faith, the key is to make is *bery* easy to donate. Check out Jonathan Coulton, he gave away a song a week for a year, and now he is making more money than he use to in a paid job from income from those songs and concerts.

[BigglesPiP]

Yay, the media is finally adapting it's business model for the internet.

Leagal bittorrent: Why don't we see more places with a download link (after you pay) and another link do download with bittorrent. Solve the launch day "uuuuuuugh it's going slooooowly". Bittorrent's supply increases with the demand, unlike a regular server. And if you host the tracker and turn DHT off, you can control the downloading.

[BeckyRoseI]

If you cant get people to pay for content they watch, and you dont want to sell out to advertising to cover costs, then you need content that earns money in itself - such as sport, where competition in itself will bread business.

[StevenJMUK]

"I'm really keen to not earn my money working for television companies"

I can appreciate that. I think it's actually the idea of "big companies" that makes it easier for people to mentally justify not paying for things. The idea being that "companies are crooks (which is true), so screw them".

What's needed is a personal touch. Tell your audience what it cost to make something and what profit you really need to make and even show people the running total. Then it's Guilt vs Freeloading.

[professormoog]

I think Starglider has a good point, it's a way of testing sale-ability by seeing how much you would get in donations for your creations.

I'm interested in this monetisation as I'm working on a Sit-com which I'll put on YouTube (for free) then see what happens...

[Magnulus]

Now, I ended up buying it2i2 on a DVD myself last autumn, so maybe I'm not the right person to say anything.

Of course, I will anyway.

I think one thing you can do is make two edits, one abridged but fully watchable one that you distribute entirely for free yourself and then a "full director's cut" that you sell, both as download and DVD, or maybe as a download and THEN a feature-packed DVD. Three tiers of product: Free abridged, full version, full version + extras.

[Magnulus]

An example of this is that I downloaded Thumb Wars, a Star Wars parody by Steve Oedekirk, off the web at some point. When I later bought the box of all the thumb parodies, I found that the DVD version was eight minutes longer and contained a bunch of new jokes.

Oedekirk didn't advertise this, so I doubt it had an effect on sales that it was longer, but it certainly made me happy.

You could just add "See the director's cut at: [site]" in bold letters to the credits.

[andymort]

That Gillette-style marketing works on me; back when the original Napster was running I ended up buying more music CDs in about 12 months than I have in all the years before and since combined. I also download comics (via torrents) and will still buy the printed originals (even ones I'd otherwise never have considered). Of course if my laptop battery worked that might change as I'd be able to read the downloads on the toilet...

[Rightnutter]

Blimey, that was a bit of a ramble, but a good one, I never watch adverts, they put me into a coma, I'm a channel flipper, which annoys other people in the room.

[keltoi2000]

I would HAPPILY pay, watch ads, etc if the money went to the people producing the "content". There's no reason accounts based on viewer hits couldn't be made up, but noone is talking about that. Some of the new talent on Youtube seem to be able to make a bit of cash with live shows and tours, which is great fun. And honestly, I wouldn't know who you are if it weren't for Youtube and all this "free content" you send out every week. Keep up the good work! Diane in Seattle

[hellyersonline]

Very honest... good video

[komikero]

Hello Robert! I write, draw and publish my own comic books. I've so far released three issues of a 4 issue series called ELMER in PRINT. I'm seriously considering putting the first issue on PDF and/or CBR files and just distribute it free online so I pretty much agree on that Gillette blades idea and I'm pretty sure it could work. It's in aid of people getting interested in buying the rest of the book in print. But if your product is video, that is one thing that would be a challenge to solve.

[Blablablaaaat]

For any "content" to be profitable you need to link it to advertising these days. The problem is that people are getting immune for advertising. I zap away when ads are on TV and I have developed a sort of sixth sense of not viewing ads on internet pages and going straight for the text I need to read. Sadly the only way to combat this is to really imbed ads in videocontent; just put your product in front of the video I'm watching and I cant ignore it anymore. Ads will only get more agressive.

[dionysusstar]

Thanks for posting.

[dionysusstar]

Thanks for posting.

[ianhalen1000]

Hi.

[ianhalen1000]

Hi.

[doctorevilbad]

these days, sex and comedy in advertising sells!

maybe you should try doing an ad campaign like that for your DVD and Red Dwarf lol

[re1d]

monetization!

[AlexKitch]

great video! I do wish YouTube would grace you with a faster server for your videos though! They always take a lifetime to load :( - Good things come to those who wait, I guess!

[bobbyllew]

That's an interesting observation, I didn't know that, they seem to load okay on my machine. Do you think this has anything to do with original file size as mine are all fairly chunky, I just get them below 100 meg, maybe I should compress more?

[EBursey]

I've often noted that the more popular the video the longer it takes to download- irrespective of the actual size of the video, though smaller vids always help.

[nicholas9999]

bobby: i read thru the comments, wondering if others had experienced this as well. once it got fully d/l'd it was okay, but was a bit of a stop and start until then. try increased compression but review for "fidelity," etc.??

[AlexKitch]

It seems to depend on your channel popularity, the time of day, and your internet connection. Some users get their videos placed on servers capeable of delivering faster while others on slower ones. Notice how Universal Music's and the BBC's videos always load in a flash? It's discrimination! (Or clever load balancing?) ;-)

[AlexKitch]

I should've added: It doesn't matter how well you compress your video, since YouTube recompresses it to a set (low!) quality when it arrives

[Magnulus]

Actually, Youtube compresses down to around 200-250 Kb/s anyway, so there's no real need to go all out like that. I've done tests, and it seems as though it makes no difference whatsoever...

What kind of a codec are you using as you export?

[lukepietnik]

If any other guy on youtube sat rambling for this amount of time, i would almost certainly lose interest. Not you Rob.

[starglider2006]

Hmmm, left a comment and it dissapeared!

have you considered a donation site, where if you're giving your video away, people can donate money to you. It may not earn a bean, but it may give you a little something back for your trouble. You never know!

[starglider2006]

have you considered trying out a donating system? Whereby people can donate money to you (if you ask uber-poiltely) for your work. Okay, it may not earn a fraction of what you would do if you charged privately, but if giving away stuff is the only way to get heard, maybe the kindness of people will give you back a little something for your trouble.

[watchtheskies]

isn't that every thiefs excuse though Robert, "I don't have the money so I'll just take it",

there's a lot of things I would like, high end software etc, but I'm working for it,

when I was a kid I washed cars and delivered newspapers for the things I wanted,

a line has to be drawn somewhere,

just remember that nothing is ever free, someone somewhere is paying.

[Breemskin]

Typical, I just posted a comment on your Red Dwarf vid asking for another of these kinds of vids and then youtube shows me that you did make one.

[ianhalen1000]

Hi.