Josh Rimer dot Com
How I'm getting famous and how you can too!

The Tron Legacy trailer was released today, messages are being tweeted to terrorists with Dear Terrorist, and people are sharing what they’re tired of seeing with #imtiredofseeing.

All in today’s Top Trending Topics!

Viral Video & Doritos Viralocity Entry

Last month I entered a contest by putting a video on YouTube that was essentially an audition to be in a commercial in LA.  The people putting on the contest gave the impression that the video with the most views would be the most likely to win, but in the end they chose someone who actually had very few views - a tenth as many as I had in fact.  Smart on their end I suppose because it encouraged people like me to spread it everywhere which in turn got them more exposure.  But pretty underhanded when it actually didn’t matter at all in the end.

Doritos has come up with a contest that is similar, except that the winners actually will be based on views and other social media efforts.  It’s really a pretty brilliant concept really.  You create a video for their new chip flavour and try to make it viral.  The entry that goes the most viral wins up to $250,000.  Not too shabby.  But if you don’t win, your efforts won’t necessarily go unrewarded because there are actually prizes for the top 344 videos!

It’s all done on a points system comprised of video views, ratings, being favorited, shares on twitter & facebook, and even things like coming up in the top 5 search results in Google or having the video viewed in other countries.

It really is a great idea all around.  Doritos could pay a social media / advertising company big money to try to come up with a viral video, or they could just engage their own customers to do it by the hundreds and spread it to everyone they know.  There’s huge incentive for people to come up with something good and push it on everyone they know because there are so many prizes and the top one is so big.

So far there are over 600 entries.  Since my biggest successes on YouTube have been creating parodies of recent viral videos, I decided to stick to that format with my entry.  It’s based on the video of the 3 year old who was crying over Justin Bieber that went up on YouTube last month and currently has almost 3 million views:

Here’s the spoof that I made with Craig Weckerle and Marc Smith:

And now I begin the process of using every social media tool I can think of to spread the word.  My only complaint about the contest is that they didn’t have an entry period and then release all of the videos at once to create a more even level playing field.  Some videos have been up for 3 weeks already so have a huge head start.  One of the top videos is also starring a YouTuber with over 275,000 subscribers so every video he does is essentially viral - sort of like having amateurs compete against professionals really, but again, there are plenty of prizes available so although the top spot may be pretty far away, I definitely think I can get in the top 344

Having said that - I need your help! The whole idea behind viral videos is that they get spread from person to person, so just click here to see the Doritos Viralocity page with all the easy sharing options.  Thanks for your help and I’ll update you here after the contest with how my video did!

Eenie Meenie, the new song by Justin Bieber is revealed today, Alice in Wonderland premieres tomorrow, and people share what they disapprove of with #itsnotcool.  All in today’s Top Trending Topics!

I live in Vancouver where of course the 2010 Winter Olympics are happening right now.  It’s an exciting place to be with lots going on and tons of people everywhere.  During the Opening Ceremonies I tried to get into a big outdoor venue to watch the show with a few thousand of my closest friends on the big screens, but the lineup was the longest I’ve ever seen in my life - it went on for many city blocks.

I was with Craig and as we were walking back he noticed a red case on the ground.  I didn’t think much of it, but he opened it up and there was an HD video camera inside!  We decided to use my YouTube channel to help us find the owner of the camera.  By using YouTube and Social Media sites like Twitter and Facebook we figured we’d have a good chance of finding the owner and a great additional benefit would of course be the exposure the video would give me and my YouTube channel.

I’ve already seen it being posted on our friend’s Facebook Walls and found it being shared on Twitter by people neither of us even know!  So it’s definitely making its rounds online - please help spread it through yours as well!

President Barack Obama is holding a Health Care Summit in the US; people on Twitter are being told to click on links, mostly because of hackers and spam, and people reminisce with #thingswewantback.

It’s all in today’s Top Trending Topics video:

Logan Lerman will be replacing Tobey Maguire as the new Spider-Man, IHOP gives away pancakes during their annual free pancakes for charity promotion, and advice what to do, or not to do, on first dates with #firstdaterules!

It’s all in today’s Top Trending Topics episode:

It was rumored today on Twitter that Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot (who wrote “If You Could Read My Mind”) was dead, but it was just a hoax.

Canadian speed skater Christine Nesbitt won Canada’s third gold medal at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

People shared stories of how they were in high school with #inhighschool I.

Check out the best (or worst) tweets about ‘em in this episode of Top Trending Topics!

Today Michael Buckley from the What The Buck show put me in a video on one of his secondary channels, called BuckNews.  He talked about his thoughts on the Olympics so far, mainly focusing on mens figure skating, and then included a segment that I recorded for him from downtown Vancouver.

Check it out below! (My part is at the end)

The Brit Awards air in the UK today plus it’s Pancake Day and Mardi Gras!  All in today’s Top Trending Topics eposide…

I entered a contest to be flown to LA and appear in a commercial, and the people putting on the contest have said that the view count is one of the main criteria so please help by taking a look at this video!

Google adds Social Networking to Gmail with Google Buzz, John Meyer says some interesting stuff in the March issue of Playboy magazine to do with race & sex and then apologizes on Twitter, and people suggest you just put yourself out of your misery with #goshooturself – all in today’s Top Trending Topics:

Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s doctor, has been charged with involuntary manslaughter, the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl on Sunday, and ways to tell if you’re infatuated with someone #youknowusprung — all in today’s Top Trending Topics:

Today’s Top Trending Topics video includes Super Bowl, #itkillsme and Toyota:

Today’s Top Trending Topics video is about Happy Groundhog Day, #thatsanono, & Punxsutawney Phil…

Today’s Top Trending Topics video includes Grammys, #bestthingever, & Lady Gaga…

Today’s Top Trending Topics video includes SOTU, #imthetypeto, and Chris Matthews…

Today’s Top Trending Topics video includes Union, #letsbehonest, and iTampon…

Today’s Top Trending Topics video is about Mass Effect 2, #thoughtsonthetoilet, & Apple Tablet!

Here’s today’s Top Trending Topics video featuring Saints, #idothat2, and Happy Australia Day!

Today’s Top Trending Topics include John Edwards, #fatthoughts, and Supreme Court!

Watch the video here…

Today’s Top Trending Topics video includes Bill Gates, #whentwitterwasdown, & Justin Bieber!

Watch it here…

Today’s Top Trending Topics include Scott Brown, #arealwifey, and Cadbury!

Take a look…

Today’s Top Trending Topics video includes Martin Luther King, #DontTalkToMe, and Golden Globes.

Take a look…

Today’s Top Trending Topics video includes Jersey Shore, #ifyoucheatonme, & New iPhone Will Have.  Take a look…

Here’s today’s Top Trending Topics video which covers Pat Robertson, #ghettoremedies, and Pants On The Ground.  Have a look…

Did you know that when you embed a YouTube video into your web site or blog that you can actually alter the code to make changes to the way it functions for viewers?  You can change everything from the quality to the part of the video that’s viewed and even what happens after the video ends.

There’s a great blog post by Varun Kashyap at MakeUseOf.com that covers some of the things you can manipulate and how to do them.  Have a look here and then put some of them to use!  I’m thinking about getting rid of the search box and related videos at the end since they’d likely just be sending my viewers elsewhere on YouTube instead of keeping them here checking out my other posts and videos. 

Here’s today’s vlog on this topic:

What do you think? Have any other tricks you’d like to share?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

Jsnake1234 has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

Today’s Top Trending Topics video includes NBC, #SheProbablyAHoe, and World Cup.  Have a look…

Being called out on a doing something stupid can be emberrassing.  But it can also be a good way to get people to notice you and help get you noticed by others.

Whether your putting up a new blog post or a new YouTube video you want comments on it.  The more comments you get, the more that people are interacting and being engaged by what you’re doing.  It also helps get you in the honors or rankings section if you get a lot of comments.  And on Blogs it creates conversation as well, plus it can help with getting you found because blog comments are also indexed by search engines.

And one good way to ensure you get comments is to screw up on something.  People will love to call you out on it by commenting.  In my Nincompoop News YouTube video I was talking about someone in Oregon and apparently pronounced the state incorrectly.  I got 5 people commenting just to tell me that I said it wrong and try to phonetically write it out for me.  That then sparked comments from others who wanted to defend the way I said it.  In the end it was actually a good thing for me because it created more conversation & interactivity on my video.

Here’s today’s vlog on this topic:

What do you think? Have you made a mistake in a blog post or video and received a bunch of comments about it?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

frenchie05 has made a comment on Happy New Year, Bono, & Burj Khalifa:

Today’s Top Trending Topics video is about Glee, Mark McGwire, & Simon Cowell.  And  here it is…

Do you comment on YouTube videos very often?  Well, you should.  Contrary to what you might think, there are actually potential benefits to you for leaving comments which can help get you noticed.  Here are a few:

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1. You’re engaging the video producer when you comment on their video.  If you leave a positive comment and something substantial (ie. more than just “cool video!”) the video producer is more likely to notice you and respond back.  The video creator may also click on your username to check out your channel and of course watch a video or two, and possibly even subscribe if they like your content.
2. When a video creator responds to your comment it also brings other people’s attention to that comment because the creator of the video’s comments are highlighted and their reply is shown directly below and indented from your comment.  Again, some people may click on your username to learn more about you and possibly watch some of your videos and even subscribe.
3. Comments can be searched on YouTube.  People can go to www.youtube.com/comment_search and type in anything they want to search from YouTube comments in a similar way to how you can search for things being tweeted about on Twitter.  So if your comment includes something being searched it could lead that person to click on you username, watch, and subscribe.
4. Your comments could be quoted outside of YouTube.  Everything from blogs to magazines have quoted comments on YouTube videos.  It even happened to me in a newspaper in Victoria, BC.  I commented on how I couldn’t get enough of a video that I thought was really hilarious and because the newspaper was doing a story on how funny that video was, they quoted me and included my name (you can click on the photo above to enlarge it and see).

YouTube is a community in a sense and interacting within that community is a great way to stand out and get noticed.  I’ve had famous YouTubers subscribe to my videos simply because I commented on theirs and I’ve had other people find my YouTube videos through comments I’ve written on other videos so it’s worked for me, and it can work for you too!

Here is today’s vlog about this topic:

What do you think? Have any other reasons to share on why it’s benecitial to comment on YouTube videos?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

dirtykateplus8 has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

Here’s today’s Top Trending Topics video covering Shorty Award, Texas, & People’s Choice:

When you write something on Twitter you should be asking yourself “is this something people would want to retweet?”  If not, you might want to start thinking about that for at least some of the thing you’re tweeting.

What makes a tweet more retweetable?  Well, according to Debbie Weil at Mashable, there are five things to keep in mind:  always include a link, don’t use up all 140 characters, when retweeting add something original, build credibility with your bio and url, and combine the personal with the professional. You can read her full report on it here.

And here’s my vlog about this topic:

What do you think? Do you have any other tips on ways to help get tweets retweeted?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

satnia420 has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

Here’s today’s “Top Trending Topics” video discussing CES, Nexus One, and H&M:

Have you ever wondered if there’s a certain day or time that’s best to be uploading your videos to YouTube?  I have.  Someone once told me that a very popular YouTuber always uploaded his videos on Friday evening because that way most of his subscribers would likely see it in it’s first 24 hours since most people weren’t at school or work over that period.  And it’s important to get as many viewers as possible in the first 24 hours so you can get on the most viewed of the day list (although you actually can stay on the list for up to 48 hours from when your video is uploaded).

So I decided to do some research and found out that the University of Calgary (where I’m from) actually did a study on that, as well as other facts about ways to optimize how you go about uploading your videos to YouTube, and I often refer to it, as described by ReelSEO - here.

In regards to time and day specifically, they basically suggest Thursday afternoons around 2pm EST is likely the best possible time.   I tried waiting for that time with my Vumber video and it’s hard to say how much of an impact the timing had, but the video did get about 10,000 views in it’s first month so it was pretty successful.

Here’s today’s vlog on this topic:

What do you think? Do you think it makes any difference when you upload your videos?  Have you noticed any difference uploading one day over another?

The second of my daily video reviews of Top Trending Topics is discussing Snow, #IWishYoAssWould, and Avatar:

Hollywood celebrities are often asked what they think of the Tabloids when they’re lied about, made fun of, or put down.  They usually say that they either don’t pay any attention to them, they just ignore it and/or don’t care, or that sometimes it bothers them a bit, but they’ve learned to deal with it because it comes with the job.

Well, the tabloids have nothing on YouTube.  I’d say I have a pretty even split between positive and negative comments on my videos.  They always start positive because it’s my subscribers who see the videos first, but eventually the negative ones show up and the video gets found by others.  And those negative comments often put anything the tabloids could ever say to shame.

I’ve been threatened to be beat up, raped, stabbed, and killed. I’ve been told that I don’t deserve to live, that I’m waisting my life, and that I’m ruining other people’s lives.  I’ve been told that I’m a talentless fag who should get AIDS. I’m not making any of this up.

So naturally, I’m asked by a lot of people in my life how I deal with such extreme negativity.  And I have to say, it really doesn’t bother me - for a few reasons.

Firstly, I’m happy to just be talked about.  I’m trying to get exposure for myself and my first YouTube video was all about just getting people to comment on it, regardless of what they said.  The more people who are commenting on your YouTube video, the higher it gets on the “Most Discussed” ranking, and therefor the more people who see it when browsing.

Secondly, I’m glad that I’m striking a cord with people.  If I made videos and no one said anything I obviously wouldn’t be making much of an impact.  The fact that I’m compelling people to take the time to share their views on me or what I’m saying/doing, means that they’re taking notice, and that’s what I want.

And thirdly, I believe extreme/unfounded negative comments speak more to the person who’s writing them than they do about me.  Almost all of the time the people who’ve left the really mean comments don’t make videos themselves (or just have one or two home videos up), they have upset/defensive comments from other people on their profile which show they’ve been leaving mean comments elsewhere, and they’re usually kids.

And to be honest, I usually feel sorry for them.  I have a great life and I’m a very happy person, so I can only imagine what they’re going through in their life and how they’re feeling if they choose to take it out on a stranger who’s trying to make them laugh with a free video on YouTube.

Here’s today’s vlog about this:

What do you think? Do negative comments ever bother you?  Have they ever stopped you from doing anything… or creating more videos?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

dirtykateplus8 has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

The first of my daily video reviews of Top Trending Topics is discussing Happy New Year, Bono, and Burj Khalifa:

Having a lot of friends on Facebook and a lot of friends (aka followers) on Twitter is a good thing when you are trying to get famous online.  You need people to see what you’re doing and to help spread it around by sharing it to their friends and followers as well. So naturally it must be important to have a lot of friends on YouTube, right?  No, not really.

I currently have over 950 friends on YouTube and I have to say that it hasn’t really helped me very much.  Unlike with Facebook and Twitter, you can’t easily share things with your friends on YouTube. What YouTube did was essentially split followers into two parts - subscribers and friends.  The number of YouTube subscribers that you have definitely matters.  Having more subscribers is directly related to having more views.  Having more friends is not.  And that’s because when you’re subscribed to someone’s YouTube channel you automatically see their new videos when you go to the homepage of YouTube.  But when you’re a friend with someone on YouTube you don’t get any notifications unless they specifically send you a message, and they don’t make it easy to do that to large groups of people.

In order to send a message to your YouTube friends, you have to go through and click on them one by one and then there’s a maximum of about 25 that you can send a message to at once.  The one time I tried to send a video to all of my YouTube friends was with Father Lover and it took me over an hour to send it out to everyone.  Not that’s it’s any easier to send messages to large groups of friends or followers on Facebook or Twitter, but posting something in your status or tweeting is, which would sort of be the equivalent of how your YouTube subscribers receive notification of your new videos.

Here’s today’s vlog about this topic:

What do you think? Do you have a lot of friends on YouTube?  Do you think it matters?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

trickyproductions has made a comment on I gave out my phone number on YouTube!:

It’s that time of year… the time when everyone sets New Years Resolutions.  There’s the usual losing weight, eating better, exercising more, etc., but this year my goals are all based around this blog, my YouTube videos, and Internet Marketing in general.

Up until now I’ve been posting about once a week on this blog and making a YouTube video about once every couple of months.  (Although, December was so busy for me I didn’t manage to do either.) Well, things are really going to move into overdrive on here now starting this coming week.

The first thing I’m going to be doing is writing a blog post every weekday covering the usual topic of things to do (or not to do) to get famous online.  I’m also going to be making the posts more dynamic by adding video to them.  I’ve created a second YouTube channel called JoshRimerVlog where I’ll create a short video (ie. 1 to 2 minutes) to be embedded into each blog post that I write.  In the video I’ll elaborate a bit further on the topic that I’ve written on so that my blog posts are more interesting and interactive — they’ll now have text, photos, and video.  Speaking of which, here’s the video to go with this one (although I still put it on my main channel for now)…

The second thing I’m going to do is produce another video every weekday in which I’ll be discussing the top trending topics that are being discussed online that day.  To start I’ll mostly be using Twitter’s Trending Topics as my guide, but as more and more social media sites get on the trending bandwagon and share details on what people are searching for or talking about, I’ll start to incorporate more of those as well.  I’ve created a third YouTube channel for those videos called Top Trending Topics.  I’ll also put each one into a separate blog post on this site… making for a total of two blog posts per day.

And finally, the third big change for 2010 will be to get back to creating more comedic content for my main YouTube channel.  I’m going to be collaborating with other people to be able to produce funny & entertaining comedy videos including the usual spoofs & parodies as well as other original topical sketches.  I’m really looking forward to having more people involved in those videos all the way from writing them, to acting in them, shooting them, and editing them.  I’m the organizer of a big meetup group in Vancouver for people interested in film & video so that’s where I’ll find most/all of my collaborators.

So those are some pretty lofty goals when you consider how much time is involved with each thing. It actually means going so far as to turning my main career of running my own video production company doing corporate and event videos into a part-time job so I can have enough time in the day to work on these things as well.  It’s definitely risky because this past year the video production company paid the bills, while YouTube and my blog only gave me a bit of extra spending money, but making a career out of YouTube and blogging and social media is what I really want to do… and I’m not going to be successful at it unless I take some risks and really put in the effort to make it happen!

What do you think? Am I trying to take on too much at once?  Or could I be doing even more?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

woyworld has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

Yes, you read the headline right.  Six figures.

Now, the first thing to keep in mind is that your chances of making six figures are probably about as likely as you becoming a movie star.  It’s a very small percentage of people who are successful enough to be making that kind of dough from posting videos online, but the fact is that there are some and YouTube is no longer just a cool way to get exposure… it can be a cool way to make a living!

Of course, I’m not talking about myself (yet). I make three figures from YouTube. An income maybe if I lived in a third world country, but definitely not in Vancouver. So who is making the big bucks? Well, you basically just need to take a look at the list of most subscribed channels.  A YouTube official said that Lucas Cruikshank(aka Fred) makes a six figure income (as stated in this video) and Michael Buckley (aka WhatTheBuckShow) talked about the “very good money” that he makes in a NewTeeVee interview (although he didn’t come right out and say it was six figures, it’s certainly implied and has been talked about by others that he does).

Perhaps I’m more focused on the bucks right now because I just got my first payout from YouTube, but most people don’t seem to realize that it can be big business. That is, if you can beat out the tens of thousands of other YouTubers who are trying to do it too. :-S

What do you think? Are you surprised to hear how much money the top YouTubers make? Have you heard of some other big financial successes online?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

Viper718xx has made a comment on Mean voicemail messages - have a listen!:

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It’s been raining for a couple of weeks here in Vancouver, but those gray skies aren’t getting me down because I finally, for the first time, got paid for my YouTube videos! (Can you hear the choir singing?) This has been a long time coming folks.  I made my first YouTube video over 2 years ago and became a YouTube Partner over 1 year ago, and now this will mark the date that I officially got paid by them for my silly, stupid videos!

It’s been ages since I made a YouTube video because of a stupidly busy schedule in my personal life out in the real non-cyber world, but soon I’ll be getting back at it and it’s nice to know that even when I wasn’t making YouTube videos, I was still making money off of my old ones.  The point of me putting videos online isn’t the money though of course (the amount I got paid only barely begins to cover my costs of making the videos), but it’s certainly a nice bonus and incentive to keep putting so much time, effort, and funds into my wacky vids.  And it more than covered the $100 I’ll be giving away when I get 1000 people subscribed to my newsletter (top right corner of this blog - hint hint).

I’m already about 15% of my way towards another cheque which is exciting… that’s almost enough to cover the cost of a costume!  Woot woot!

Have you made any money from YouTube or other online pursuits?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

SOCALJERKS has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - you can’t just put your video on YouTube and expect it to just get thousands of views on it’s own. Although it does happen to a select few, it’s like trying to be an actor by just moving to Hollywood, or trying to become rich by buying lottery tickets… the best way to be successful at anything is to put in the effort and work at it!

When it comes to working on your online video exposure, it can get complicated. There are all kinds of theories as to what works and what doesn’t, but the people at WebProNews went to the Search Marketing Expo in New York recently and learned 35 ways to improve your online video performance. They shared the tips on their blog so take a look and put some of them to use for yourself. I know I will… when I actually get around to making some more videos again… teehee 

What do you think? Have you tried some of these strategies for getting your videos found more easily online? Or do you do something that isn’t included in their list?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

jakethequake91 has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

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I’m a fan of John Chow.  Never heard of him?  Well, he lives in the same city as me and makes his living from his blog.  And a really good living at that.  A year and a half ago I read about his story in Entrepreneur magazine and thought it was pretty darn cool that someone in my own city had managed to make a career out of blogging.  Then I had the opportunity to hear him talk live at a meetup event that I went to a few months ago and that finally pushed me over the edge to just go ahead and take the plunge and create this blog.  My motivation was more the increased exposure it would give me, but the fact that I might be able to make money from it eventually was definitely a big bonus.

Well, I haven’t managed to that part yet, but John is now bringing in a second income through Twitter.  He was actually on the front page of The Vancouver Sun because of it.  If you want to learn more about how he does it you can read his 10 tips to make more money with sponsored tweets. I think it all just goes to show that this social media stuff isn’t just for fun or a waste of time like many people think it is.  If you use it properly it can get you both rich and famous!

What do you think? Have you managed to make money from your online endeavours?  Have you tried?

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YouTube Comments of the Day:

FrostyFeever has made a comment on Comfortable Stick (Comfort Wipe spoof):

If you want to get noticed on YouTube, you need to do something that makes you stand out from everyone else.  If you happen to be in your 80’s and are willing to prance around in a diaper sucking on your thumb that just might work.  It seemed to for Rob Rogers, who posted a video of himself doing just that, claiming to be doing it because his online dominatrix told him too.

Now, I’m not passing judgment here because whatever turns you on is your business, but lord help his children and grandchildren if he has any.  I mean, it’s one thing to do something goofy for attention online, but it’s another to be caught playing out your sexual fantasy, especially when it’s that wacky.  Oops, there I go passing a bit of judgement. lol

What do you think? Would it be worth 175,000 views to humiliate yourself online?  (That’s how many his video as so far)

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YouTube Comments of the Day:

moshwitme has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

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It’s not every day you find an hour long video on YouTube that’s worth watching.  In fact, I think is is probably the first for me.  Michael Wesch, an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, put up a video on YouTube of a live presentation he gave based on the work he and his students had done on the anthropology of YouTube.  If you’re like me and really interested in the history of YouTube and the complexities involved in why it works so well in getting people famous online, then you might actually find it worthwhile to spend 56 minutes watching it too.  It’s always good to know more about the history of whatever it is you’re trying to master.

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

btwben1 has made a comment on I gave out my phone number on YouTube!:

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So, my last post was about another blogger who wrote an article outlining ways to get your videos to go viral starting with the usual “content is king” talk.  Well, now I found an article from someone basically arguing just the opposite of that.

Dan Ackerman wrote a blog post on TechCrunch about how to get viral videos and his #2 tip is titled “Content Is Not King”.  He believes that there are many other factors that are more important than just what you actually put in the video.  You can read the blog post here.

What do you think? Is content the most important thing or is it really not as important as all the other things you can do to your video to make it more likely to go viral?

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YouTube Comments of the Day:

MsSuperconductor has made a comment on Comfortable Stick (Comfort Wipe spoof):

I found another great article online with tips on that all popular question of how to make your videos go viral.  Jonny Bentwood at Technobabble 2.0 wrote an article about it that covered a lot of good tips and some links to other posts about it written by other bloggers.  You can check it out here and put those tips to use for yourself!

The basics are the same as usual - create good content and then market it.  It also talks a bit about optimization as well, which I’ll get into more in future posts. Let me know in the comments below if you have any viral video tips of your own that you’d like to share!

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YouTube Comments of the Day:

calypsobikes has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

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Did you know that you can buy YouTube views? There are companies/people who offer thousands of views on your video for a price.  I have to admit that about a year and a half ago my brother & I decided to try it out on our Brothers TV YouTube channel after finding someone on eBay offering to do just that.  The deal was for 15,000 views for what I think was under $50 if I recall correctly.  We figured it was worth a shot at getting us on the most viewed list with our next video at the time.  Well, we did get just over 15,000 views in the first few days of the video going up - but it didn’t really do anything and didn’t get us on the most viewed list.  Today that video only has a total 17,000 views a year and a half later.

Now before you start freaking out because I tried to buy some views, in reality YouTube offers something very similar themselves.  It’s called Promoted Videos and involves you paying YouTube directly on a per-view basis for them to essentially advertise any videos you want to pay for.  Many Americans are doing it and it’s perfectly acceptable - my case was just trying to do it in a less expensive and less effective way before the promoted videos option even existed through YouTube (and as I’ve written in a previous post, Promoted Videos still aren’t even available to Canadians yet anyway).

Anyway, the way I didn’t wouldn’t work now anyway because YouTube has come up with ways of determining if views are real or not, which is why when you upload a video the counter will stop at 300 and some views until the next day when their system is able to analyze if the rest of the views are legit and should be counted.

But now there’s a company that’s offering to buy you friends and fans on Facebook, by the thousands.  uSocial says they’ll give you up to 5000 Facebook friends or 10,000 Facebook fans (although they say the friends option is temporarily unavailable).  The cheapest option is $197 for 1000 fans and it goes up to $1167.30 for 10,000 fans.

Why would anyone want fake fans? Well, I suppose there’s the possibility that some would actually be interested in following you and becoming real fans, but I think it’s mostly to make you look popular.  Which sounds so high school, but in reality having a large number of fans can give you perceived credibility that can help convince others to become fans when they check out your fan page and even help with things like getting hired to do workshops or seminars and that sort of thing.  I don’t even have a fan page yet, so it’s not something I’ll be investing in any time soon for myself anyway. 

What do you think? Is this a total scam?  Does it abuse Facebook and the people who use the site?  Or is it a clever way to get yourself some more exposure and making you look more credible?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

moongirl4 has made a comment on What was Kanye West thinking?:

sajcrew has made a comment on What was Kanye West thinking?:

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People often wonder how much money YouTube Partners actually make.  And I’m one of those people. Even though I’m a YouTube Partner, the amount that I make from it doesn’t even cover the cost of the digital tapes I use to record my videos (yes, I use tapes –  MiniDV ones that cost $7 each in bulk because I needed a professional camera that used them for my day job).  In fact, I haven’t even received my first cheque from Google at this point because I haven’t quite hit their minimum payout yet… although I’m finally getting close.

Most YouTube Partner’s are very hush hush when it comes to how much money they make. And really, it’s their job (when they’re popular enough) and who really goes around saying how much they make publicly?  But every now and then one of them shares a little info on the subject and I’ve figured out a very general idea of the kind of money there is to be made.

I watched one girl on BlogTV who had about 20,000 YouTube subscribers and when asked about how much money she makes from YouTube she said that it’s enough for a second part-time job, but she also was working as a waitress part-time to make a decent living.  Another YouTuber with about 40,000 subscribers was talking on his BlogTV show about how he was about to go travelling around North America with some other YouTubers and when someone asked him what he did for a living he said doing videos online was his only job and how he made his living.

So that right there can give you a general idea of how many subscribers you’d likely need before you could consider money coming from YouTube as a realistic “income” of some sort.  Then you get on to the bigger YouTubers with subscribers in the six figures, all of whom pretty much never say anything about how much they make except that it’s their only job.  One of them gave a really good hint though by starting an account with all of his YouTube Partner proceeds going to charity –  Kev Juma started the Jumbafund channel and one month reported earning just over $1700, and I believe he had about 175,000 subscribers at the time.  Now the channel is up to almost 300,000 subscribers (and his personal channel has over 680,000 subscribers).

Now, at $1700 a month that would be just over $20,000 a year if the views were consistent, so seems like there is something different going on with the YouTuber who claims to make a living with only 40,000 subscribers.  But perhaps he’s including a few other online sources such as BlogTV, his own blog, sponsorship, etc.

But that at least gives a pretty good idea of how you realistically need to get into the tens of thousands of subscribers to start to actually earn anything decent.  It is of course based on viewers more than subscribers, but there’s usually a direct correlation between the two.

What do you think? Have you had experienced or seen other levels of financial success from the YouTube Partner program?  Have you made money from it with under 10,000 subscribers?

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YouTube Comments of the Day:

PtrickBteman has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

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I’m always on the lookout for other blog postings that have to do with tips on how to get more exposure online, especially when it comes to videos - and I recently found an interesting one from the Work At Home Guide about making viral videos.

Their post, The Top 9 Characteristics of Viral YouTube Videos Revealed is basically a list of categories of videos that they suggest doing for the best chance of getting noticed on YouTube.  Those video types include Funny Videos, Weird Videos, Inspirational Videos, Shocking Videos, Interesting Videos, Sexy Videos, Personalized Videos, Demonstration Videos, and Gross Videos. I think I’ve only done about half of those types of videos myself so maybe it’s time to move on to something extra sexy or gross next! :-)  You can check out their blog post with more details on each here.

What do you think? Any video categories that you’d say are missing from that list?  What type of video has worked best for you?

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YouTube Comments of the Day:

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YouTube tried to make everyone change their channels to their new format a few months ago and then at the last minute extended the deadline so they could work out some of the glitches.  Well, now they’ve announced that the new deadline is coming up (September 30th for regular users and October 14th for partners) so soon everyone on YouTube will have their channel switch to what I think is a crappy layout.

Maybe I’m just not giving it a proper chance, or maybe I just don’t like fixing something that ain’t broke, but so far from what I’ve seen I still prefer the format they’ve had since the beginning.  I like that when I click on someone’s video it takes me to the page with that video that has all of the comments and everything to do with that video.  In the new format when you click on a video it just plays within that channel and you have to click again on the comments tab to see the comments, and scroll through a little area that just shows a few at a time.  I guess their idea is that viewers won’t be directed away from the channel this way, but I just find it more confusing overall… and let’s face it, most people are already more confused than me when it comes to navigating around YouTube so we don’t need to add to that.

What do you think? Have you switched over your channel yet?  What do you think of the new layout?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

Rigamarole1980 has made a comment on What was Kanye West thinking?:

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Have you ever noticed how many people the stars on Twitter actually follow compared to how many are following them?  There’s a huge difference… often hundreds of thousands or even millions are following them and they’re following back a few hundred at best.

So how can you get famous people to actually follow you?  The writer at NTOPIX.com thinks he’s found a way.  Essentially he suggests you follow those few people that the celebrities are following and then in turn a lot of them will likely follow you back, and you’ll basically be just one degree of separation away from a celebrity on Twitter.  And if you can manage to strike up a conversation on Twitter with one of those people, or if they retweet something that you write, the celebrity who’s following them may notice you and follow you as well if they’re interested in what you’re writing.

Seem far fetched?  Well, it might be, but it’s probably be worth a shot.  Afterall, you’ve got nothing to lose… worst case scenerio you’ll gain some more twitter followers!

What do you think? Do you care if a celebrity is following you on Twitter or not?  Do you have anyone famous following you on Twitter?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

brokenBDA has made a comment on Mean voicemail messages - have a listen!:

the kids who called you probably got cut tails when there parents found out they made long distance calls and the grown ups really need to get a hobby that doesn’t include hurting others. what cunts! i think you have as much right as anyone posting on you tube! you put a smile on someone’s face today and that is something to be proud of!

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YouTube offers video creators really good information on their videos about the demographics who are watching, where they’re located, how they found the videos, etc.  It’s super useful information that can (and should) help you to figure out what is or isn’t working with your online videos, and why!

And now YouTube has made it even better.  They’ve added information on when a video was first discovered in each place that it was found, the views it’s getting from mobile devices, and how many views are coming from subscribers as opposed to random viewers.

The more info you can get on your videos the better off you’ll be - so pay attention to the stats and tweak what you do and how you do it based on those figures!

What do you think? Do you check your YouTube Insight stats for each video?  Or do you not really give a toot who the heck is watching and where they came from?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

Adovock has made a comment on The $1000 YouTube Experiment:

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It’s no secret that I don’t make nearly as many YouTube videos as I’d like to.  Right now it’s my busy season for the other part of my life, which is being a videographer, so it’s been really tough to find time to make some new stuff.  But today something made me want to rant and because it was so topical and already being talked about by tons of people I figured I might as well pull out the camera and quickly do it on YouTube.

Kanye West’s little episode on the MVA’s was so ludicrous that it made it easy for me to go on about what an ignorant loser he is.  Let’s face it - the guy thinks his opinion matters than everyone else’s and fame has clearly gone to his head.

What do you think? Did you agree with Kanye?  Do you also think he’s a total douchebag?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

martinimama11 has made a comment on What was Kanye West thinking?:

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I often get asked how to become a YouTube Partner.  And generally I suggest applicants wait until they have quite a few videos and subscribers before trying to get in the program.  But now you don’t even have to be a Partner to make some moolah from your YouTube videos if you have at least one really viral video.

YouTube has announced that they will now be monitizing individual videos that get a lot of views.  They’ll simply offer the video creator the option to have ads shown with the video and recieve part of the profits from that adversiting.

Although this is a “new” development by YouTube, I actually first noticed it with the David After Dentist video (which now has over 30 million views by the way).  Although the video creator only had one other video with just a few hundred views, and only a few subscribers, the David After Dentist video was monitized quick quickly into it’s success (but in that case, the whole channel did become a Partner channel).

What do you think? Are you excited by the opportunity to cash in on a really successful video, or does the fact that your video would have to be really viral with a ton of views (and the low payout that would likely be associated with having just one monitized video) mean diddly squat to you?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

amrt1 has made a comment on Google at the pumps:

I went to a wedding today.  There were over 7000 people in attendance.  Sort of. It was the wedding of well known YouTuber Corey Williams (aka Mr. Safety) and his fiance Stephanie and they broadcasted it live on ustream.tv (which is just like the BlogTV site that I use for my weekly webcam shows).  It was a great idea.  They basically just set up laptop as far I could tell, and had it facing them so you could see and hear what was going on with a great view.  There didn’t look to be that many people actually in the bar (yes, they got married in a bar), but there were some notable YouTube celebrities there who you could see come up to the webcam afterwards and say hello.

Corey had done a good job of building up hype for his wedding broadcast through YouTube and other social media.  He even went so far as to make a web site for it - www.SMPWedding.com I think he was claiming this would be some kind of a first, but other weddings have been done live on ustream.tv and other similar sites already.  Regardless, he probably got some good press and publicity out of it and obviously with over 7000 people tuning in, it was a success at getting attention.

I wonder what will be next… maybe someone will get a divorce live on the internet?  That probably wouldn’t be quite as fun to watch.

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

timothyceder has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

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Although most of the acting I do online is comedic stuff, I still do want to do serious acting sometimes.  I’ve been in a number of short films that aren’t comedies and have taken a number of acting classes in which I had to do serious scenes.  But I’ve never made myself cry in any of them.

I think the main reason for that is because I very rarely cry in real life.  I seem to average one cry a year. Which I suppose is still quite a bit compared to someone like my Dad who I don’t think I’ve ever seen cry.  But that’s of course not to say that I don’t have more sad moments — I just don’t cry during them.  I’ve only ever cried at one movie in my entire life, and that was just this year (The Boy In The Striped Pajamas).  I’ve never cried at a TV show (although Oprah got me close once when a tough truck driver was on the show a few years ago crying about how how he accidentally hit a kid who died).  And I certainly haven’t cried at weddings or anything like that.

So, being someone who isn’t a crier makes it super difficult to be one when I’m acting.  The emotions of a good actor come from within and aren’t forced, so when I do a sad scene I put myself there mentally and I really do get very sad, but no more sad than I get in real life.

I’ve often wondered what I’d do if I got a role that called for some actual tears.  Maybe I’d take this guy’s advice…

What do you think? Does it matter if you can cry on command or not?  Do you cry easily/a lot?  Or are you like me and for whatever reason just not someone who sheds a lot of tears?  And do you have any suggestions/ideas on what would help bring on the waterworks?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

JonScherling has made a comment on I gave out my phone number on YouTube!:

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Well, it’s finally happened… I’ve missed multiple days in a row of updating my “daily” blog.  I knew it was bound to happen at some point.  They say that 95% of all blogs fail, and the main reason is because the writers run out of steam.  The most successful blogs are updated multiple times a week so I set out to do one a day.  But life can get in the way and because I run my own business and am currently in between assistants, that’s exactly what life has done to me this week.

And now I’ve dropped to #79 most subscribed Comedian in Canada of all time on YouTube.   That’s two places lower than I was when I put up my last video.  And really, it’s to be expected when you aren’t uploading anything new.

So what does it all mean? That becoming famous online is like a job, and it requires the same amount of time and commitment that a job requires.  Just without the pay, until you make it big.  Think about it - it takes me about an hour for each blog post when you count the time for the writing/reviewing/editing, finding/altering/adding a photo, making the links/font changes, etc (anyone who writes a blog knows what I’m talking about).  Then it takes time to market it online.  And that’s an important part of it - you don’t get discovered by just putting something up and then sitting back and waiting for it to get traffic or go viral on it’s own.  And then if you want to make a video, that can take hours - even my last video, which was quite simple, still took a couple hours when it was all said and done after setting up, doing a couple takes, editing & adding text, and uploading it.  So just there is easily half of a regular shift at a job (or a full shift at a part-time job!).

What’s my point? I have a life, and a very full one at that, with a business that lately has required about 12 hours of my time each day, so I’m having trouble keeping up with what it takes to really get to the level I want to be at with my online endeavours.  It’s frustrating… and it’s keeping me from getting to where I know I could be if I had the time to put in to it.  I wish I could spend hours every day to work on this “career”, but right now I just don’t have the time while I also run my other business, which is the one that keeps me fed with a roof over my head.

And just look at the top YouTubers.  Most of them do this for a living.  They don’t have other jobs on the side so they can devote their full days to coming up with and creating YouTube videos, and doing BlogTV shows, and updating their blog and twitter/facebook, and all that kind of stuff.  It all takes a huge amount of time and when you’re like me and not getting paid for it (I’m still waiting to actually get a cheque from any revenue I’ve made as a YouTube partner) then it’s an uphill battle… that gets more steep the further you fall behind.

What do you think? Do you know of anyone who’s had some good success online with just doing it as an occasional hobby on the side?  Do you think the amount of time and effort required to get famous online is worth it considering the low odds of actually achieving it anyway?  What kind of successes have you had with keeping a blog going and regularly uploading videos?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

BillSara111 has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

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A lot of the big YouTubers have more than one channel/profile.  Most often their main one (and most subscribed to) is the one where they do their main “schtick” (they almost always have a focus that they stick to with their videos, whether it be sketch comedy, commentary, reviews, news, etc.) and then the second channel will usually be for their personal videos - often vlogs (just them talking about stuff) or other random videos they feel like making.

Why do this? Well, the rationale is that this way people can choose what they want to watch from that YouTuber.  So if you just like the sketch comedy segments, but you hate the vlogs, then you don’t have to ever see the vlogs.  Or vice-versa.  Or if you like both, then you simply subscribe to both channels.

So when is the best time to create a second channel? I’m not really sure yet.  it’s debatable if you should wait until you already have a big subscription base or if you should just start of from the get go with separate ones.  I’m contemplating creating a new channel for videos of me just chatting about stuff.  And maybe even a third one for anything that isn’t vlogs or comedy spoofs,  so it’s all really separated and clearly defined.  That way when people subscribe they’ll know exactly what they’ll be getting.  Just like when you watch your favorite sitcom, you know what to expect week after week and that you’re not going to suddenly tune in and find them doing a serious drama one time.

I think what’s holding me back from doing it is that I feel like it’ll be difficult to get the viewership up on my new second channel if I create one.  Lisa Nova has 3 channels for example and her second and third ones have significantly less subscribers than her main one. And for me I’ve found it really difficult just to get people to switch over to the new newsletter on this blog from my old one on my previous web site, so that really just goes to show that it’s actually a lot harder than you’d think to get people to make simple changes and follow you in other places.  So I can ask my current subscribers to subscribe to my new channel all I want, but the reality is that less than half probably will.  And who knows how long it would take before that second channel got accepted by YouTube as a Partner account as well.

But having such wide variety on my channel is likely the main thing that’s keeping my subscriber count from shooting up.  When people subscribe it’s because they want to see more of the same type of thing that they’re currently watching, so going back and forth between different types of videos might really be a bad choice.

What do you think? Is having more than one channel a good idea to keep different types of videos separate and keep subscribers happy?  Or do you think it’s better when a YouTuber just has one and you only have one place to go to see all of their videos?  Should I open a second (and possibly third) account or would it just cause a lot less views on my vlog videos and divide up my subscribers into two smaller accounts?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

GothCat77 has made a comment on Dogs are better than cats!:

As you may or may not know, I host a live webcam show on BlogTV every Sunday evening.  I’ve done a couple of them with my best friend Marc as the co-host and during one of them we came up with the idea of doing a cooking segment for an upcoming “episode”.  And that will be happening tonight!

This will be quite different from my regular BlogTV show where I usually just chat with the viewers (who communicate via the chat room next to the video) and I do things like read from my stupid book of questions, ask riddles that I’ve found online, try out weird drinks that I’ve found at the Asian supermarket, and groove/sing to dance music.

I have no idea how well we’ll be able to pull this off since it has to be done through the webcam attached to my laptop, but I’m sure it’s going to be fun regardless!  The whole idea for the cooking concept came out of the fact that Marc is a great cook and I’m a terrible one so he’s going to basically teach me how to make something while he also teaches the viewers.  I hope you can join us at 8pm PST / 11pm EST! It’s gonna be good times (but if you miss it, don’t worry - it will happen again next Sunday)!

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

MeemersBrennan has made a comment on How to get famous online… CHOCOLATE!:

yay josh you’re back! I love watching your videos. They really make my day. I checked out the blog, and there is some very interesting stuff in there. I look forward to more.

If you haven’t heard of the web site ehow, it’s a place that you can go to read all kinds of “how to” articles.  Eric Mark is one of the contributors and he wrote an article about how to get famous online.  He included seven steps, and here they are:

1. To become famous, you’re going to have to give people a reason to care about you or what you’re doing. Is there something unique about you, your work or your interests? Do you have a special insight into something that a lot of people are interested? Basically, you need to figure out what you have to offer the world.
2. Next, you need a gimmick. Several people have gotten famous online solely off a gimmick, but it’s rarely been a lasting fame. You could be the guy that straps a webcam on his head just because that’s his gimmick (what’s his name?), or you could use that gimmick to get more people interested in what you have to offer, creating a much wider audience.
3. Once you’ve got your mission and your gimmick, it’s time to get going. Dedicate as much time as you can to your pursuit of fame. Blog, post on other blogs, upload YouTube videos and go viral with as much content about you as possible. You need to literally flood the Internet to get even a trickle of fame.
4. Network with other blogs and build a community around yourself wherever you can. Host chats, setup a forum about yourself, let everyone know what’s up with you using Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc.
5. Digg yourself and use whatever other free promotion tools you can. Consider advertising with Google Adsense or another service if you can afford it.
6. Consider branching out into other media, pitch stories about your celebrity to traditional print, broadcast and other outlets. Give lectures, readings, throw parties or host other events to get your name out there.
7. Hire an agent and take over the world. So long, Oprah!

Some great tips there.  I agree with all of them and have done (or been working on) all of  them myself.   Not sure what the “So long, Oprah” part is about… it should be more like “Oprah, here I come!”

What do you think? Do you strongly agree or disagree with any of those tips in particular?  Do you think he missed anything important or obvious?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

jesuismeaghan has made a comment on Dogs are better than cats!:

Let’s face it, sex sells.  It’s used in all kinds of advertising because it’s a proven and studied fact that it works.  And it certainly helps for getting popular on YouTube as well.

I can’t count the number of videos I’ve seen that have become popular because the thumbnail image for a video has a hot chick with cleavage.  Having sexy words in the title or description really helps too.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s proof of that one in my own videos…

I posted four videos of scenes that I acted in from a student production last year.  Three of them have under 3000 views and one of them has over 17,000.  What’s the difference with the one that has over 14,000 more views than any of the others?  It has the word sex in the description.  I’m not kidding.  You can see all four of them here.

And then when you combine both sexy words and a sexy image, you’ve got yourself a masterpiece.  Like this little gem by HotForWords…

Did that video get almost 5 million views because of her intellect?  Her witty repartee?  Let’s replace the hot blond girl with big cleavage for a regular guy and change the topic from being about boobs to being about elbows, and I’d love to compare the results.

What do you think? Do hot girls who use their looks to their advantage have it easier on YouTube?  Does it make you want to a watch a video more when the topic is about something sexy?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

XxXDELTAxFOXTROTXxX has made a comment on Comfortable Stick (Comfort Wipe spoof):

Adding music to your videos on YouTube is a great idea… if you have the rights to do it.  And let’s face it, you’re not going to get the rights on any popular music you hear on the radio.  Which sucks because it’s the songs that we know and enjoy listening to that we most want to add to our videos.  But YouTube has the technology now to quickly (sometimes almost instantly) figure out when copyrighted music is being used in a video and remove ALL of the audio (or sometimes even remove the video all together, or even worse suspend your account).

Take this video for example…

I’m on this night club’s email list and today they sent out an email to all of their subscribers suggesting they check out their video.  Well, everyone who went to the video saw it without any sound because they used copyrighted music and YouTube removed the audio.  They would have been a lot better off buying some royalty free music or getting a local/student/unknown composer to make some for them instead of having a video for their dance club with no dance music in it.

It’s actually not that hard to get music for your videos that you can use with permission.  A lot of my videos have dance music in them provided to me by another YouTuber who put the songs together and let me put them in my videos in exchange for putting a link to his YouTube channel in the description of those videos.  I also found a composer to make the Father Lover music for me in exchange for including a link to his myspace page in that video.  It’s a win win for both of us since I get the music for free and he gets the exposure.  And beyond that there are a lot of music royalty sites where you can use any of the music on their site for a small fee (Freeplay Music for example charges $25 per song for using them in YouTube videos).

What do you think? Is it ever worth the risk to still try to get away with using copyrighted music?  Have you had your audio removed, your entire video removed, or your account suspended because of it?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

depfox has made a comment on How to get famous online… CHOCOLATE!:

If you look through my YouTube videos you’ll notice that most of them are video responses to other videos.  For anyone not overly familiar with YouTube, what that means is finding a video posted by other people and then posting your own video as a response to it.  This was originally meant as a way for people to essentially “talk back” to a video that was posted.  But it’s also a great way to get your videos seen by more people.

When I put up Father Lover I posted it as a video response a version of the Mother Lover song that had been uploaded to YouTube.  Because “Mother Lover” was a popular SNL skit that people were already looking for and interested in, having mine as a video response would get a lot of those people to see mine, and they were obviously the type of people who would likely enjoy it.  A still shot from the 4 most recent video responses are shown below the video that is being responded to, so as long as the image from your video looks intriguing enough, chances are people will click on it.

I’ve also done this for videos that aren’t directly related though and it’s still been benefitial in getting more views.  Sometimes I’ve gone through the most viewed videos of the day and just randomly chosen one of them to post my video as a response to.  Now, with those, you have to monitor it because they get so many video responses that you’ll likely be out of the four most recent within no time (sometimes minutes) and will then want to post it to another video.  And it’s now a default setting that uploaded videos require the person to approve all video responses before they’re accepted, in which case you’ll have to wait for the person to come back on YouTube and hope they approve yours (and hope that it’s one of the 4 most recent - because anything older than that and it won’t really help you).  This method isn’t as good at getting you new subscribers as posting to an actual related video since the viewers may not be looking for the type of video your posting (ie. if you post a comedy video as a response to a political video), but it will get your video more views than if you didn’t post it as a video response to anything.

And sometimes just using a video response for what it was originally meant for can be really benefitial too.  If you want to share your opinion about a video on YouTube, then go ahead and make a video about it and post it as a video response.  Those types of videos are almost always approved by the original video poster and when done to a popular video or a video by someone with a lot of subscribers, it can get you a lot of views and, if done in an enteraining enough way, new subscribers.

What do you think? Have you had success with video responses?  Do you watch many of the video responses attached to other videos that you were looking for?  Do you get annoyed with people posting video responses that have nothing to do with the original video?

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

artgeek12583 has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

I’m currently the #77 most subscribed to Comedian of all time on YouTube in Canada.  Not bad… but it’s of course nothing compared to the #1 most subscribed to person of all time out of all categories and countries.  And that spot was  taken over by a new person a few days ago.

Previously the #1 spot had been held by Fred, a character created by Lucas Cruikshank, who currently has over 1,365,000 subscribers.  In just one year that number has jumped by over 1 million which is pretty darn impressive and made him #1 for quite a while.  Lucas is a teenager who plays a 6 year old kid.  The videos are very simple and are sped up to make his voice high pitched and make his character seem like he has a big case of ADHD.

The new #1 is Nigahiga, which is comedy channel featuring a group headed by (and sometimes featuring only) Ryan Higa.  Their videos are made for an older audience than Fred’s and they currently have over 1,397,000 subscribers, which means they’ve had about as many new subscribers in the past week as I’ve had in the past 2 and a half years.  Sigh.

So what does this all mean? Well, I think it shows that the trend is moving toward more “adult” comedy on YouTube and videos that cater to an older audience.  There are fewer adults who would enjoy Fred’s humor (his stats show that his videos are much more popular with kids), but more adults (and teens) who would enjoy Nigahiga’s humor.

And that’s pretty good for me overall since my videos are switching to being geared toward an older audience.  Or at least I think they are… Father Lover’s biggest audience is still 13 to 17 year olds - which really surprises me considering the content.  I don’t think it gets a lot more “adult” than that on YouTube!

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YouTube comment of the day:

x2j9kq has made a comment on I gave out my phone number on YouTube!:

I like chocolate.  Maybe not as much as this kid, but some chocolate, like Kit Kats, I find super yummy.  So when I found a package of bite size Kit Kat pieces I proceeded to eat way more than I should have… and then made a YouTube video.

After my post a few days ago about how I need to just get a move on and upload something to YouTube, I finally made a video updated my viewers about this blog.  Why I’ve waited until now to do that is really just a matter of being stupidly overly busy and trying to balance out what I’m doing online with what I’m doing in my offline life.  More about that some other time…

But here it is, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, or at least a few of us, or maybe just me and my mom…

Tomorrow is my one day off so the plan is to make another video and then do my live BlogTV show.  We’ll see how that goes… but rest assured, I’ll definitely be on BlogTV no matter what, as I always am every Sunday evening at 8pm PST / 11pm EST.  Hope to see you there!

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YouTube comment of the day:

piggieluvr has made a comment on Comfortable Stick (Comfort Wipe spoof):

It took me a while to realize the importance of learning from others as opposed to trying to come up with stuff on my own (in many aspects of life).  It’s much easier and smarter to watch what other people are doing who are successful at what you want to do than to try to just completely go at it on your own.  And then you can add your own flair and still do your own thing, while utilizing what you’ve learned from their successes and failures.  And that is definitely true when it comes to getting famous online (and hence this blog)!

When YouTube first started there wasn’t really anyone to learn from because let’s face it, before YouTube the amount of fame that anyone had online was minimal.  There weren’t online video stars like there are now.  But now YouTube has been around for 4 years and there are people who are well known on it and make a good living off of their videos.

Michael Buckley is one of them.  I first started watching him back when I first started going on YouTube and I think he had about as many subscribers as I do now (and I had under a hundred).  I wrote a nice comment on one of his videos and I soon got a nice comment back from him on one of my videos and he subscribed to me, so I subscribed back.  Well, fast forward about 3 years and he’s now got over half a million subscribers and has hundreds of videos.

By watching his videos as his popularity rapidly grew, I learned a few tips and tricks.  Sometimes he would share something like “wow, I’ve learned how important it is to just ask people to subscribe” or I’d just notice something like how he always added a “5 stars for —” bubble in every video.  Well, recently Buck did a webinar (aka a 26 minute informational video) with his top tips on how to be successful on YouTube:

I watched it and thought it was great, but I’m surprised to see how few views it has (under 150,000 as I write this).  Considering how many people whine about their videos not being seen by enough people on YouTube I would have thought that more would take the time to listen to someone who’s accomplished what they want.

I think it just goes to show that a lot of people are talkers, but few are doers.  And also that people often think they know everything or can come up with a “better” way of doing things on their own.  But I think it’s the people who learn from others who did it before them AND put in the time and effort who become the most successful.  Just like the people who come to this blog and read it on a daily basis.

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YouTube comment of the day:

KissMyDonkeyEditing has made a comment on Comfortable Stick (Comfort Wipe spoof):

I can’t believe that it’s now officially been 2 months since I uploaded a YouTube video.  Here I am preaching about what you need to do to be famous online and I’m not even making any new videos.  Hello Josh, wake up and smell the unsubscribers!

Here’s the thing.  I’m a perfectionist.  And I typically spend A LOT of time on my videos.  When you include the writing and planning, sometimes shopping for props or costumes, the shooting & locations, and maybe above all the (ugh) editing (especially when I want to add graphics and text and all that jazz) we’re talking a big time commitment.  So, even though I’ve had a few ideas for videos lately, I’ve put them off because I haven’t felt I have time to do them.  And really, if I’m going to spend an entire day on a video then I’m right because I never have a day off (I own a video production company and it takes up most of my time).  Which is why I’m thinking I need to change my thinking when it comes to my YouTube videos.

I saw a video today by another YouTuber who went on a little tangent about over editing.  He talked about how people always try to be perfect and continually edit their work, but in the end it’s more important to just have good content and get it out there and just let go…

And really, when I think about it, is not putting out any videos at all better than putting out some that are more on the “simple” side?

So I am definitely going to set aside a bit of time this week to make a video.  In fact, I haven’t even told my YouTube subscribers about this blog yet, and that’s just plain ricockulous, as I like to say.

What do you think? Is it better to have regular uploads of videos that don’t have a lot of high production values or planning (ie. one a week), or would it be better to have less (ie. one a month), but really put a lot of time and effort into those?

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YouTube comment of the day:

redrussian007 has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

I was quite surprised when I started watching a YouTube video and an ad started to play.  I noticed the video loading in a different way than usual and then a bar showing up at the bottom saying “Advertisement: Your video will start in 30 seconds.”  Sure enough I had to watch through a commercial before the video I wanted to see would actually start. And if I refreshed the video a different ad would appear.

Click here to see the video that I was watching.

Not having commercials play before videos is one of the things that set YouTube apart from other video sites and I was actually quite surprised to see them trying this out.  But I suppose it does make sense considering reports say that YouTube actually doesn’t make money with their current model so they need to do something to make the site profitable.  And if YouTube starts to offer this as an option for Partners then it could be a good thing for us because we’d get a share of the profits and wouldn’t have to rely on people clicking on the ad, since it’s a video that they’re forced to watch.

What do you think? Do you find waiting 30 seconds to watch a video annoying and irritating?  Or are you ok with YouTube adding in more advertising since the site is free?

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YouTube comment of the day:

algernonlover15 has replied to your comment on Hillary Snaps On Student:

If you haven’t heard of collaboration videos on YouTube, they’re just videos where more than one person with a YouTube account work together to make a video.  Usually it’s just one sending video clips to the other and then combining the two to create one video.  The secret to having a successful colab video is to get one of the more famous YouTubers to do it with you.  That will typically get you a lot more exposure.  I’ve been a part of a few videos, but nothing to major… here are some that come to mind:

Josh Rimer interview

YouTubers For Unity

Nyoki! Nyoki! Please!

Youtube’s Dream Valentine

And here are a couple collaboration videos that I’ve made:

Father Lover

Weird phone messages from YouTubers!

Nine YouTube personalities have taken collaboration videos a step further and created a separate YouTube account for their collaboration videos called “The Station“.  They’re all very well known YouTubers with tens of thousands (or hundreds of thousands) of subscribers and they all actually get together in person (in LA I believe) to create high quality videos for their channel.  And it’s working.  Their third video was uploaded yesterday and it’s currently the #4 most viewed video of the day with over 400,000 views:

Now, you aren’t going to get all of these big YouTubers to do videos with you, but it doesn’t hurt to ask some.  Doing a collaboration video any YouTuber who has at least a couple thousand subscribers is a good bet for getting you a bunch more subscribers (for both of you really since your subscribers will learn about them and theirs will learn about you).  Coming up with a clever idea that requires little effort on their part is probably the best way to go…  and if you can convince them that it as to why it would be in their best interest as well that’ll really help because the bigger YouTubers already have their success on the site and tons of people asking them to do this kind of stuff.  I’m going to try to come up with some ideas and pitch them to a number of YouTubers with good amounts of subscribers and we’ll see what happens… and if anyone from “The Station” is reading this, I will fly down to LA to make a cameo in one of your videos! Pretty please…

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

21evilgrizz has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

Apparently when you go to YouTube on your iPhone now you’ll actually see a different version of the site that’s specifically optimized for viewing on Smartphones.  I say “apparently” because I haven’t received my new iPhone 3GS yet… even though I first tried to order it over a month ago.  Yes, in Canada the new iPhone is so successful that you have to wait weeks to get it.  Grr…

Anyway, YouTube has just recently announced that they have created a version of their site that will automatically show up in most smartphones.  It’s set up to make it work better on a cell phone and make it easier for you to access everything on their site when you do it on the go.

This is good news for anyone who makes YouTube videos.  Anything they can do to make their site better and more accessible is a benefitial to video creators.  Now if I could just get Rogers to hurry up and send me my new friggin cell phone I’d be able to check it out!  In the meantime I’m stuck with my friend’s old blackberry because my Treo died and I can’t even access the web at all on that outside of emailing.  Groan…

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YouTube Comment of the Day:

sparkizz12 has made a comment on Comfortable Stick (Comfort Wipe spoof):

I like to find videos on YouTube that are local, but usually they’re just boring shots of scenery or parades or events around town.  Yesterday though, I found a real gem - and I can’t stop watching it!  And what’s even more rare is that every time I watch it I laugh out loud.  Now that’s impressive.

It’s a video clip from the noon hour news on Global BC.  At the end of the show they brought on a representative from the Surrey SPCA to try to encourage people to adopt a couple of dogs.  Well, for the first 30 seconds everything seems hunky-dory with the women going on about how well behaved the dogs are and then all of a sudden… well, you’ll see:

The combination of how both dogs out of nowhere became so overly excited/aggressive and how these two handled it is pure comedy gold.  I love watching news stories gone bad on YouTube and usually the reporters don’t handle the situations all that well, but these ladies are hilarious together and their doggie co-stars are comedians in their own right too.

The video passed 100,000 views today and it’s only 3 days old so word is definitely spreading around the internet about it.  I wonder if the dogs have been adopted yet…

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YouTube Comment Of The Day:

TrousersnakeLove has made a comment on Father Lover (Mother Lover spoof):

Last year I got a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts to produce a short film that I had written and wanted to star in.  I was super excited because any decent film costs thousands of dollars to produce and I just didn’t have that kind of money to put into another project after Brothers TV.  I produced and directed the short as well so it really was my baby.  I had the amazing Lisa Fryklund as my Director of Photography (the person who operates the camera in case you didn’t know) and a great cast and crew.

I had no shortage of obstacles to overcome with getting this film completed, from money to crew to locations to technical problems, etc.  But in the end it finally got done and I was thrilled with how it turned out.  Well, close to thrilled anyway.  I’m a bit of a perfectionist so you know, it can always be better.  But for my first project of this calibre, I was pretty darn impressed.

Getting it actually shown somewhere ended up being probably the biggest obstacle.  There are tons of films submitted to film festivals and most have to be turned away because there are only so many spots available.  And you have to submit at certain times of the year or you miss your chance and have to wait for next time.  And as luck would have it, the editing of my film completed just after the main film festivals that I wanted it to premiere in had closed their entry periods.  I really wanted my film to be shown in Western Canada and the best chance of it getting accepted was if it hadn’t been seen anywhere else yet.  So I had to wait almost a full year before I could submit it.  I didn’t think about it for quite a while knowing I had all that time to wait and then one day realized that I had better check on the new deadlines.  Sure enough, I had missed one of the film festivals that I wanted to submit it to.  Doh! I was so mad at myself.  But there were four more so I submitted it to all of them and hoped for the best.  Three turned it down and then yesterday I got the great news that one had accepted it!

“Not My Type” will be shown at the Edmonton International Film Festival in September.  I’m actually planning to head there to see it’s premiere on the big screen and be present for the Q & A that they do with the directors who attend their screening.  My parents are going to probably come as well and maybe even a friend or two so I’m really looking forward to that.

And now I can start submitting it to film festivals throughout the rest of Canada and the states.  I’ll of course keep you updated on anywhere else that it gets accepted!

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YouTube Comment Of The Day:

gjkgmnn091 has made a comment on 14 things I love about Valentine’s Day:

If you didn’t already know, I have a younger brother and he’s quite the character.  When he was still in high school I knew that he really had potential to be an entertainer and that’s why I came up with “Brothers TV“, the short lived TV series that he and I starred in.  Although that show did get us quite a bit of exposure, it didn’t really showcase either of us to our full abilities… largely because we had to work morning to night just to produce the friggin’ thing and all of the work involved with it sucked most of the creativity out of us.

But that’s a story for another day.  The long and the short of it was that “Brothers TV” didn’t launch either of us into stardom, and although we still sometimes get recognized from it, it didn’t make us famous.  So I moved on to continue my different acting endeavors and of course my online pursuits, while Andy didn’t do much to pursue a career in entertainment after that, unless it came with a push from me.  I was always lining him up with odd acting jobs or auditions and pushing him to do a live show with me or a new TV series.  I knew that we both had a lot of potential if we could just get “discovered”.

Then, out of almost nowhere, Andy decided to take one more shot at his character “Spandy Andy“. Dressing up in spandex and dancing was nothing new to him - I’d been videotaping him doing it in random public places for years, but nothing ever came of it.  But for some reason, this summer it exploded.  One day he decided to play his boombox and dance along the beach and he was almost instantly a local fixture.  Photos and videos starting popping up online of him and people were talking about him and recognizing him on the street.  A few weeks ago someone came up to the me at the bar and asked me if I was Andy’s brother.  That’s when I realized that just like that he had become more of a celebrity than me… locally.

Well, tonight that changed and now he’s more of a celebrity than me, nationally.  He was on So You Think You Can Dance Canada and he was freakin hilarious.  We watched it at a pub with a bunch of his friends and everyone was cheering and laughing so loudly that we could hardly hear anything… but it was the visual presentation that mattered anyway.  If you’re in Canada you can watch it again this Sunday afternoon on MuchMusic.

Now people are Twittering about him (including Blake, the choreographer, and the actual SYTYCDCanada account) and I’m getting messages all over the place from people that I know (or knew at some time) saying they saw him on TV.  He really made a memorable impact and I’m sure this is just the beginning of a lot more for him.

So, what’s the lesson in this? How about that you never know when something’s going to take off.  And being original and unique certainly doesn’t hurt either.  And just don’t ever give up on your dreams because you never know when all of a sudden something will change and everything will fall into place.

So congrats to my little bro! Now I just have to make sure that I keep having more subscribers on YouTube and more followers on Twitter… because if he becomes a bigger celebrity online than me too, then he’s gonna be in trouble.

YouTube Comment of the Day:

rachimoo2 has made a comment on Comfortable Stick (Comfort Wipe spoof):

This is my daily blog.  I feel I have enough stuff to share about how to get famous online (or how not to) that I can write a new post about it every day.  But like anything, every now and then I need to take a break.  And that’s what I’m doing starting tomorrow for 4 days… I’m heading to Vegas baby!

I wish I could say it was for some big gig or interview or something, but it’s actually just a regular vacation.  An extended weekend away with a good friend of mine from Michigan.  It’s gonna be freakin hot out… today it got up to 100 degrees F (38 degrees C) so that’s going to be an interesting experience.  But everywhere is air conditioned so I’m sure I’ll be fine.  I just can’t wait to get away for a bit and hopefully come back re-energized and ready to take my online fame to the next level… like by actually finding the time to make another YouTube video since I’m so overdue and that sort of thing!

Since I’ll be gone on Sunday my live BlogTV show won’t be happening that day either.  That’ll be back to its regular weekly schedule on the following Sunday (August 16th).

So I’ll see ya with next blog post on Tuesday!  And even though they say what happens in Vegas stays there, I’ll be sure to fill you in on most of what went down.

YouTube comment of the day:

ForrestHayesVlog has made a comment on Dogs are better than cats!:

I was both shocked and thrilled when a friend told me that I was on the homepage of the CollegeHumor web site in June. If you aren’t familiar with CollegeHumor, it’s a place that’s really popular for college students (or anyone in that general age range) to find all kinds of silly stuff including mostly outrageous photos and videos.  And I do mean really popular - it’s currently ranked #1,290 on Alexa.com out of all of the billions of web sites on the internet.

So how did my video get on the front page? Well, when I uploaded Father Lover to YouTube I didn’t just sit back and watch and hope it became a viral hit.  Instead I set aside a couple hours each day over the following week to go online and spread the word as much as possible. I found reasons to tweet about it a few times a day on Twitter, and reasons to mention it in my Facebook status or post it to my wall (or friends’ walls), and I searched for related blogs where I could make a comment that actually had to do with the blog, but still allow me to mention my video.  I also wrote up a press release and sent it to some blogs that I thought might be interested in mentioning it to their readers.  All of this self promotion lead to a lot of people checking out the video and spreading the word even more themselves and eventually it go to the people at CollegeHumor who then liked the video enough to feature it because they thought it would be something their audience would enjoy.

So overall it’s a mixture of self promotion, good content, and some luck.  But heavy emphasis on the self promotion because that’s something that’s often overlooked.  It takes a lot of time to make a good video and even more time to really spread the word and make sure it gets seen.

YouTube comment of the day:

bilsrylos has made a comment on Comfortable Stick (Comfort Wipe spoof):

Money can’t buy you love, but it can buy you more exposure on YouTube. If you’re American that is.

YouTube has what they call Promoted Videos, which are basically videos that the creators have paid to have promoted on the site. For as little as 10 cents per view you can have YouTube put your video in their Promoted Videos section and it’ll basically be seen by as many people as you can afford to show it to.

But for some strange reason, they won’t let Canadians do it. When someone like me goes to the advertising page they get a message that says “At this time we only support users in the US, but rest assured we’re working on supporting your location soon.” Why they’ve chosen to not make that feature available outside of the states is beyond me.  YouTube is owned by Google, and Google is fine with taking my money if I want to do pay-per-click advertising on their search engine, so why wouldn’t they be ok with it in their video site?

On the bright side, I guess it goes to show that my videos are in fact pretty popular considering a lot of bigger YouTubers would definitely be taking advantage of the Promoted Videos option.  But I still hope that soon enough they’ll make it something that the rest of us can do as well in order to compete fairly for those YouTube views and get ourselves as much exposure as possible.  If we’re willing to pay for it, they should take our money, especially since reports claim that YouTube is actually losing money every year!

What do you think? Is it worth paying 10 cents per view to get your videos seen more on YouTube?

YouTube comment of the day:

HappyTheThumb has made a comment on How to comment on a YouTube video:

Just over a week ago I wrote a blog post about how I’m working to have everything I’m involved in be branded with my name and how when you Google Josh Rimer I’m the first thing that shows up.  My inspiration for the post had come from the fact that I had just found out that another Josh Rimer had recently passed away and that reminded me how there are other people with my name who can be competition for getting found online when people look for Josh Rimer.  I named the blog post “Josh Rimer is Dead” knowing that would get my readers’ attention, especially when I posted it on Twitter and Facebook.

Well, it did get attention. From both my readers and from people who knew the Josh Rimer that passed away.  It’s currently my most viewed blog post since I started this blog and the most commented on as well.  The most recent comment proclaimed me to be “intensely cruel” because the writer found me on Google when trying to find information on the other Josh Rimer.  I apparently had no right to be more popular online than him because he was a soldier killed on duty in Afghanistan.

While I can of course sympathize with the family and friends of the deceased, I find it somewhat ridiculous that they are so offended by my blog post.  I didn’t share any sort of opinion on his death, other than to say that it was a sad situation.  Which I suppose is what they’re so upset about.  Apparently I’m not allowed to write about a fallen soldier without devoting the entire posting to him - someone that I’ve never met and who is fighting for a country that I don’t live in.  I even got an email from one of them saying that I should donate some money to the family.

This all makes me think about when Michael Jackson died.  I was scanning through Twitter when then news first broke from TMZ about Michael Jackson’s heart attack.  I spent the next couple of hours closely following what people were saying online about it, staying of course well ahead of the actual media.  I searched for videos about Michael Jackson’s death on YouTube and could only find a couple that had just been posted within minutes.  So now I was in a situation where I knew I could make a video about his death and likely have it become one of my most viewed videos because it was a super hot topic that people would be searching for… but in the end I felt it would be too disrespectful.  I make comedy videos after all, so I couldn’t think of a way to make that funny that I’d be ok with.

But many other people did.  And they got thousands, if not millions of views out of it.  Take the video below for example, aptly called “Michael Jackson is Dead”.  It has currently passed 2.5 million views. Just a warning that the lyrics will be offensive to some, but the point is that if you talk about someone important who’s passed away it will get you attention, and a lot of it.

So, my condolences to the families of anyone who’s ever passed away, especially if that person is serving their country.  But this is my blog, and Josh Rimer is my name, and if another one makes the news, I have the right to mention it without devoting my entire post to it or paying the family money.

What do you think? Was I wrong to mention the death of Josh Rimer in my blog?  Did I go too far with the title?  Do you agree with the comments that were left on it?

YouTube Comment of the Day:

webkinzxoxo97 has made a comment on Comfortable Stick (Comfort Wipe spoof):

As a YouTube Partner I make a small share of the revenue generated from the ads that appear next to my videos and on top of my videos as an overlay at the bottom.  The ads that are shown are chosen by YouTube and their system essentially uses some type of automatic system to look at the wording I’m using to describe the video and likely the stats on who watches my videos to determine which ads would be most appropriate.  But now they’re starting to offer Partners the ability to run their own ads in the overlay.

What this means for someone like me is that I could choose to have the overlay promote this blog, or if I have a video in a contest and I want a lot of votes I can promote that, or I could find my own sponsors to advertise for and potentially get more funding that way.  So far it’s apparently in the testing phase and only about 50 Partners have the ability to do that at this stage as far as I know.  But I think it’s a great idea and can really help me to further promote myself and/or pay for the cost of my videos.

What do you think? Is this good for video producers or should they just stick to the ads that YouTube serves?  Or do you think that overlay ads are too disruptive/annoying and should just not be used either way?

YouTube Comment of the Day:

BL4CKR0ZE has made a comment on Comfortable Stick (Comfort Wipe spoof):

I get a lot of comments on my YouTube videos, and they cover everything from hatred to admiration to all sorts of stuff in between.  I really enjoy reading them and I’ve decided that starting now I’m going to write my favorite one or two comments of the past 24 hours to the end of each new blog post.  Maybe I shouldn’t say “favorite” as many of them will be negative ones since they often give me the biggest laugh.  “Most notable”  is probably a better choice of words.

So, to start us off, here are two recent ones that I quite enjoyed.  They were actually both on my “Father Lover” video.  The first one said “That was the gayest thing i ever seen, and one time i seen 2 guys making out at my baseball game when i was a kid” and the second one said “Your lyrics are hilarious (and often socially relevant).  I am somewhat disturbed by the homophobic remarks. I guess when cowled in anonymity people are allow their prejudice some expression. I guess it takes a greate level of intellect to see the level of satire inherent in both the SNL original and your parody. Must visceral reaction take precedence over thoughtul commentary and critique?”

I loved the first one because he really painted a picture of just how incredibly, ultimately gay he thought my video was… even more gay than gay men kissing.  Now that’s saying something!  And I loved the second one because, well, I totally agree with him.  Being anonymous on the internet allows people to say whatever they want, no matter how harsh, and it’s funny how 99% of the time the people being negative about my videos have none of their own on YouTube, but the people who do also make videos themselves most often have something constructive to say.

Have you received a comment on one of your videos that really stood out to you? Or have you seen a comment on one of my videos that made you laugh or cringe?

A week ago I wrote a blog post about the biggest mistake that I had made on Twitter and how you have to remember that your Twitter account isn’t really in your control because Twitter owns it, not you.  Well, today Madonna apparently found that out the hard way.

I tried to go to Madonna’s Twitter page and when I did the infamous orange owl was there telling me that her account was suspended and to go on my way.

That’s nothing new to see, but the fact that it happened to a superstar like Madonna is quite something.  Of course, it also means that by the time you read this post it may very likely have be reinstated.

People still ask me all the time why I want to be famous, and there’s so many reasons, but this situation specifically makes me think about the power that celebrity status brings you.   When my brother’s Twitter account got suspended for no reason, there was nothing he could do about it.  And when he contacted Twitter to try to remedy it, they just ignored him, as I’m sure they do to the thousands of other accounts that are suspended on a daily basis.  But you know that someone like Madonna will get her account reinstated, and tout suite.  She has the power to make it happen.  Twitter is not going to want to piss off a huge celebrity like that along with her legion of fans and followers.

And I’d sure like to have that kind of pull - wouldn’t you?  Being famous creates all kinds of opportunities for you that wouldn’t normally be there for the average person.  People listen to celebrities, pay attention to what they say and do, and inevitably give in to what they want.    I mean, let’s face it, OJ Simpson was not found innocent because he didn’t commit the crime.

What do you think? Do celebrities have more power?  Is life easier when you’re famous?

I know a few performers who also make videos of themselves doing their thing and then put those videos up online to share. A lot of them either put their videos on YouTube & Facebook or even just on Facebook.  What they’re effectively doing is killing their chance of having a viral video and cutting down the amount of people who will see it. And here’s why…

When you put videos on Facebook that’s probably the easiest way to get comments on them, at first. Most of your friends are likely on Facebook and it’s a real hub for commenting on stuff in general.  But there is no view count on Facebook videos so even if you got thousands of views, you’d never know it or be able to prove it. And beyond that it’s also not a public searchable forum like YouTube so really the only people who will watch your video there is your friends and you likely only have a few hundred of those anyway.

So if you only put the video on Facebook then you’re essentially cutting off the rest of the world from seeing it. Sure, some of your friends of friends might see it if it gets passed around a bit, but it doesn’t have the viral capabilities that a YouTube video does. YouTube allows the video to be easily shared with anyone in a variety of different ways including by email, being embedded in blogs and web sites, and of course even by Facebook.  Facebook videos on the other hand are very limiting in who can see them and how they’re shared.

And if you put your videos on both Facebook and YouTube, then you’ve likely just cut out your biggest audience (your friends) from watching it on YouTube, which simply cuts down your view count on YouTube and cuts down the chances that they’d pass around the YouTube link.

See, it’s all about the numbers. The more views you have on your YouTube video, the more it’ll get noticed (and the more impressive it’ll be to your viewers). When people go to YouTube they will usually find videos either by searching for words that are connected with the video or by finding it in the YouTube honors, which are categories like “most viewed today” and “most commented today”.  To get in those honors lists you need to have ALL of your viewers watching the video on YouTube.  Unless you have a huge following, you can’t afford to throw all of your Facebook friends’ views away, which is what you’re basically doing if you put your videos up on Facebook.

So put your videos ONLY on YouTube. It’s the #1 most used video sharing site and that’s where the general public will find your video. Then send all of your friends there with a link in your Facebook status and by posting the YouTube link on your wall.  That way their views will be counted and they have to share the YouTube link if they want to pass it on to others. When you have thousands of views on your video you’ll start getting on the honors lists and that way more people will start to find  your video and it will be shared around more and you’ll get more comments on it and it all just feeds into itself over and over again!

I used this strategy for the “Father Lover” video and went so far as to ask Ryan (the other singer in the video) to not upload it to his Facebook account or even his own YouTube account until after a month. That way we’d both be sending all of the traffic to one location, keeping the view count up as high as we could, and that way getting it the most exposure by being in the YouTube honors.  I’m sure that “Father Lover” wouldn’t have almost 50,000 views in it’s first 2 months if Ryan & I had both put it on Facebook and had he also put it on his own YouTube channel.

What do you think? Do you upload videos to Facebook?  Do you still think it’s better to have them there as well as or even instead of YouTube?

I got a comment on my one of my YouTube videos today that really made me chuckle. It wasn’t actually meant to make me laugh, but like most of the negative comments that I get on my videos, it amused me more than anything.  It was on the spoof that I did of David after Dentist, which is the video of the kid who went to the dentist and was still high afterwards when his dad videotaped him talking in the backseat of the car.  Mine is Josh after Boozer in which I use David’s audio, but put it in the context of a drunk guy.  It’s currently my second most viewed video with over 400,000 views.

The comment that I got today said this: “You’re a LOSER!!!!! you can’t come up with your own ideas for videos so you make fun of poor little David!!!!! You’re nothing but a jurk!!!!!!! I don’t know why you think making fun of a little boy is funny!!! this is just plain horrible!!!!!! you are a horrible person i hope you die in a ditch!!!!!!” It always amazes me  how different the reactions to something can be.  I’ve had comments that range from someone thinking that video is the best thing they’ve ever seen in their life to someone who thinks that my life should end because of it.   But the important thing to note is that either way, it’s striking a chord with people and getting their attention.

My next most viewed video after that one also happens to be a parody video.  It was my version of the maps question that was asked of Miss Teen South Carolina when she went off on a weird tangent about South Africa and Iraq and everywhere like that such as.  ;-)  And believe me, I got all kinds mixed reactions on my spoof of that one too.  With Josh after Boozer I’d say at least 95% of the comments have been positive, but with Miss Teen South Carolina it would probably only be about 80%.  Still, it got people’s attention and got them talking.  And that’s a very important thing in a viral video.

So the moral of the story is that it is ok to make fun of people.  And let’s be honest, I really don’t think what I’m doing is that bad.  It’s all for fun anyway and it’s not meant to be taken seriously.  And I’ve even had someone do a spoof of one of my videos in which they implied that I was a gay porn star… and I thought it was funny and flattering that they thought I was worthwhile making fun of.  But some people just don’t have a sense of humor… and I guess have never watched SNL or MadTV.

What do you think? Did I go too far with Josh after Boozer or my interview of Miss Teen South Carolina?  Is it wrong to make fun of other people on YouTube or make parodies of their videos?

My mother made a comment the other day about how I’m getting to an age where I need some stability in my life because I’ve been aspiring actor for years and can’t just keep on doing that for the rest of my life.  And it’s not the first time I’ve heard that kind of thing by any stretch. It seems that in our society we accept that teenagers and young adults can pursue their dreams and put aside regular priorities, but when they become full fledged adults they need to essentially accept defeat and just do those things as hobbies while having a “normal” life with a “regular” job.

And maybe for some people that’s true.  But not for me.  Being “famous” is something that I’ve wanted since I was a little kid, so thinking I can just turn that off at some point is silly.  If you really love apples and are passionate about them and think about them every day, and get a taste every now and then and want more, then at what age would you finally decide to stop looking for apples and just be content with oranges?

There are people who get famous much later on in life then where I’m at now. Greg Benson for example is a man in his 40’s who was a nobody until getting famous on YouTube (now with 230,000 subscribers!).  He just recently made a video on the topic of whether or not he’s too old to be doing this kind of thing.

An even better example on YouTube is the 81 year old man who has over 50,000 subscribers.  He was completely unknown in his 70’s and now he’s an online celebrity.

So, I think it just goes to show that you can really do whatever you want at any age. Never think that you’re “too old” to try something or to pursue your dreams.  Never settle for the norm.  As long as you’re happy and you’re achieving some of your goals then just keep on doing what you’re doing.  Persistence really is the key to success and since I’ve been at this for so long, success really just has to be right around the corner for me… right? 

What do you think? Is there an age limit on chasing your dreams?  At what point should something become a hobby instead of a sought after career?

You may have noticed something when it comes to all of the different social media web sites that I’m on.  They all have my name in them.  Twitter.com/JoshRimer, Facebook.com/JoshRimer, YouTube.com/JoshRimer, etc.  I’ve managed to get that name for every site that I’ve wanted to have a profile on so far.  And it’s not like there aren’t other Josh Rimer’s out there.  Just searching in Facebook shows that there are 7 others.  But why do I have the username “JoshRimer” on all of the most popular sites?  Because I make it a priority to get them.

I’m treating my endeavours for getting famous online as a business.  And in any good business you have to brand yourself.  With what I’m doing, I myself, and my name, are my brand.  So I feel it’s important to make efforts to get everything with my name in it before anyone else.  When Facebook allowed people to start picking usernames last month I put it in my calendar and set my alarm to be sure I’d beat out the other 7 guys.  I had thought about choosing something else like “Comedian” or “CanadianActor” or a number of other things, but in the end I think it’s really important to you stay consisent.  Even with this blog I thought about other url’s to use like www.gettingfamousonline.com or www.iamfamousonline.com, but again I decided to keep everything the same.

Today I saw someone tweet about Josh Rimer passing away. I Googled my name and sure enough, a Josh Rimer in Pennsylvania was killed recently while on duty in Afghanistan.  And that may explain why there was a recent spike in people finding my blog through Google using Josh Rimer as their search term.  They were quite possibly looking for news about the Josh Rimer from Pennsylvania and instead found my web site since I’m first on Google for my name.

This is unfortunately a very sad case, but reminds me about why it’s important to have my name connected to everything I do.  If I want to make myself famous online then I need to get my name in front of as many people as I can, in as many different ways as I can, and as often as I can.  And I need to be sure that when they’re looking for me by searching for my name that it’s easy for them to find me.  If you want to be found more often online as well then I recommend you do the same for yourself.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be your own real name that you use, but if you create a distinct username for yourself on one site, try to keep that consistent and use it again on everything else. It will really help get that username into people’s heads and make it easier for them to find you and tell others about you as well.

The fact that my latest YouTube video is just over a month old breaks one of my own rules that I’ll talk about later on about the importance of keeping your online presence regular.  Like bowel movements, dumping videos into YouTube is healthy… for keeping your subscribers happy  (it’s Friday and I’m in an extra silly mood so bear with me).

But, regardless of that, my most recent video did manage to get 10,000 views in it’s first month.  And it wasn’t just luck that got me there.  If you upload videos to YouTube then you know how hard it can be to even break a hundred views in a month sometimes.  But there are some things that you can do to change that.  Let’s take a look at the main things that worked for this video, which I called “The Comfortable Stick”.

First of all, I made a video based on something that was already popular and being talked about. I had seen the “Comfort Wipe” commercial on YouTube (I think in the Most Viewed section of the day) and a couple friends on Facebook had posted it on their profiles.  Those things, all happening on the same day, were clear indicators to me that this was something that was popular and was probably just at the beginning of it’s rise in popularity.

Now, myself, I really like to do spoofs of things in my videos.  I’m an actor and a comedian and I have good video shooting and editing skills so those work well for me.  Other options could have been to review the commercial, or to record myself make a prank call while trying to order one, or something else along those lines.  But since I knew I wanted to do a parody, I sat down and thought about what I could do to make it even more ridiculous of a product than it already was.

But beyond picking a “hot” video to spoof, I also did what a lot of unsuccessful YouTubers don’t do - I put a lot of time and effort into my video.  As I’m sure you can tell when you watch it, this wasn’t just thrown together haphazardly.  I actually transcribed the original video word for word and wrote out a full shot list of everything they showed as well.   I then altered the script to make it work with my concept and make it funnier, and then planned out my own shots to again make it work best with what I wanted to do.

After all the planning was complete, I had to head out to a second hand store to find some stuff that I needed for costumes and props (although the main props only required me to go searching under the trees along my street).  Then I spent the rest of the beautiful, sunny day shooting the video in my apartment while my friends were at the beach.  I didn’t have anyone to videotape me so it took a while to get the shots right and I had to do most of them multiple times to get them to look like I wanted.  Then I recorded the voiceover a few times and finally began the editing process, which took hours to put the shots together just like the original and add all the graphics and effects.

And finally, after a complete full day of working on the video from early in the morning until late at night, it was finished and ready to be uploaded.  But it’s not like my efforts were done there.  Next came the marketing.  I’ll get into marketing yourself online more in a future post, but the long and short of it is that you have to do it, despite what some people think.  Nothing that I’ve ever done online that’s had any success happened without me spending hours (and usually days) finding ways to spread the word and create hype about it through email, facebook, twitter, news releases, on other blogs, etc.

So, the long and short of it is, I picked a hot topic, I devoted a full day to making the best video I could, and then I spent hours over the following days and weeks getting the word out about it.

I’ll get into even more ways to get your videos more views on YouTube in future posts, but for now here’s The Comfortable Stick for your viewing pleasure… at10,000 views (as I write this) and counting.

I love YouTube. It’s a great way to share videos with people and an amazing resource for anything you could want to watch.  Whether it’s how-to videos, the latest music videos, news segments, comedic sketches, or anything else that strikes your fancy, chances are you can find it quickly and easily on YouTube… and maybe even best of all, for free.

And let’s not forget the obvious reason I’m so deeply in love with my sweet, wonderful YouTube:  It’s the main contributor to my online fame. Two years ago when I opened my YouTube account I thought it was just a temporary way to get myself some exposure and a step toward bigger and better things.  Now I realize what a great tool it is for being able to create my own content and share it with the world in an interactive and engaging way.

And YouTube loves me too. I bring them in viewers when I post the links to my YouTube videos in my blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, and send them out by email.  And when I get media attention on my YouTube videos then they get even more traffic thanks to me.  And more traffic means more money that they can get from advertisers.

So it was only natural that YouTube & I would take the next step in our relationship.  One year ago I became an official YouTube Partner which means that I get a portion of the revenues made by the advertising that appears on or next to my videos on their site.  It’s a win-win because I have more incentive to push people to watch my videos since more people clicking on ads means more money for me (and that also makes me want to continue using their site more for sharing my videos over using other similar sites) and YouTube wins by getting all of the extra traffic I’m sending over.

Now, this isn’t a monogomous relationship.  There are thousands of other YouTube partners out there.  And even you can become one if you meet their requirements.  But YouTube is picky in who they’ll enter into this commitment with, and here’s what they like to see:

• You never use copyrighted material (ie. music or video footage)
• You consistently get thousands of views on each of your videos
• You regularly upload videos and have a high amount of subscribers
• You don’t provide too much “questionable” content.  YouTube has to like your stuff or it’s a no go.

And don’t think that I’m getting rich off this or anything.  In fact, at this point, I’ve spend a lot more on my videos than I’ve ever made off them.  But the amounts that I’m getting do increase each month and eventually if I get really big on YouTube it could actually start to make me a decent amount of income.

In the end though, a good relationship is never about the money anyway. As a partner YouTube also lets me have some special privileges like additional branding options for the look and layout of my channel, adding extra banners and links, and having the featured video on my channel automatically start playing.  All these things help me to do more of what’s really important to me - get noticed on YouTube and become more famous online!

So to my dear, sweet partner, YouTube: thanks for all you do for me and I look forward to continuing our beautiful and mutually beneficial relationship for a long time to come!

My brother and I both picked usernames on Twitter about 6 months ago.  I read blog posts and subscribe to newsletters about trends in the online world and when I started to see how Twitter was getting a lot of mention and really growing in popularity I decided I better grab my name and advised my brother to do the same.  My brother never used his account - he had written one tweet and was following 2 people.  Then a couple months later his account was suddenly suspended.  He emailed Twitter support twice to find out why try to get it fixed so when he did want to use it it would be available to him, but so far he’s still waiting and his account is still suspended.  No idea why and no word for months from Twitter about whether or not it’ll ever be reinstated.

I didn’t get suspended, but I did get slapped with something that’ll be very detrimental to getting found online. Twitter has removed me from their search.  You can’t search for me by name and you can’t search for anything I’ve written.  Apparently they’ve done this because I’ve broken a rule in their “Best Practices” by posting duplicate content (tweeting multiple times about my latest YouTube videos with the same links to them each time). They say this conflicts with a positive Twitter experience and as such I needed to be removed from the search with no chance of being reinstated.  You can read more about it here in the twitter help section.

Why is this so bad?  Well, besides the obvious fact that people who know of me will search for my name and not find me, what’s much worse is that people who search for words and topics that I’m tweeting about won’t see my tweets.  See, Twitter is actually turning into one of the biggest search engines on the internet.  So as long as I’m talking about topical stuff, a lot of the time I’ll show up in people’s searches.  Or at least I would have until they removed me from it. Just posting my blog titles in Twitter for example would have got the attention of people who were searching for things like “getting famous online” or “3D videos on YouTube” or “giving away $100″.

I can understand why Twitter needs to put rules in place and have automated systems to deal with potential problems, but what I can’t understand is why they say it can’t be undone.  I honestly had no idea I was breaking any rules by tweeting multiple times about my videos.  I just wanted to get the attention of more people who might have missed my previous Tweets.  Why didn’t Twitter make a warning system? I would have certainly stopped at that point.  And why now that I’ve been removed, can’t I apply to have my searches reinstated?  At least on YouTube if you break copyright they give you warning before they take any drastic action (well, most of the time anyway) and if they do take measures against you, you can apply to have them removed and everything reinstated.

I guess it just goes to show that you have to be careful with Social Media and realize that it your Social Media profiles don’t really belong to you. Even though you can say it’s your account, it’s on their site, and that means they have total and complete control over it, not you.  I guess I’m lucky Twitter didn’t just suspend my account like they did to my brother.  But as someone who’s on Twitter to get noticed, I have to wonder if I shouldn’t close down the account and start again with a new username so I can get myself and my tweets back into the searches.

What do you think? Is it fair for Twitter to have such stringent rules with no chance of appeal when action is taken against you?  Is being removed from their searches a big enough deal to start a new account?

A couple days ago YouTube very quietly released 3D capabilities on their web site. As I learned when touring Google headquarters on a trip to San Francisco a few months ago, employees get to spend 20% of their time working on their own ideas for projects. And this appears to be the result of one of them.

So, what does this mean for you and me and how can it help us get more exposure online? Well, right now it’s the “new” thing. And jumping on the new thing when it’s still new is often a great way to stand out. The 3D videos are rare (for now anyway), they’re different, and they’re the latest thing. As people hear about it they’ll be searching for 3D videos to see what they look like and test them out. So getting a video of yourself up on YouTube in 3D in the next few days could be a smart move.

But the tricky thing is actually making your video in 3D. How to go about that is another story altogether.   WikiHow shows you how to do it including editing so that you can actually show it on any site as 3D, but with this new feature on YouTube it seems that you just need 2 cameras and the proper angles/techniques.  You can check out an example of a 3D video here.

What do you think? Is the 3D thing cool enough to stick?  Do you think this be become a popular thing for people to do with their videos on YouTube?  Or is it just a silly experiment that will likely disappear before most people even find out it ever existed on the site?

Every Sunday evening at 8pm PST / 10pm EST I host a live show. I’m not talking on a stage in a theatre production or in a bar doing standup.  I’m talking in front of my laptop on a web cam.

If you’re like me, you probably used to think of web cams as either ways to communicate online with friends & loved ones or as something you pay to watch because there was nudity (and who knows what else) being shown on the other end.

But now sites like BlogTV are making it possible for people like me to have another powerful way to entertain and get exposure online, and most importantly connect with my viewers.

See, one of the things that I love about YouTube is the commenting.  People who watch my videos can essentially “talk” to me one comment at a time and I can reply to their comments and they can reply to each other’s comments.  It’s interactive and one of the things that in my opinion make it way better than a TV show.  But my BlogTV show takes it even further. A chat room full of people can write all the comments they like talking to each other and to me, and I can of course respond and engage with them speaking to them live as it happens.  Real conversations and continuous communication that’s not broken down by hours or days of waiting for a response like it is with YouTube video comments.

Nothing that I’ve done online helps to create connections and foster relationships like my BlogTV show. I only started doing them a couple months ago, but I already have some of my strongest supporters ever come out of it.  People who come every single week to “hang out” with me, chat and be goofy, and just have a good time for an hour (or hour and a half if I really get into it).  :-)  Those people have turned out to be my biggest cheering squad who tell their friends to come check out my show each week as well and help spread the word about what I’m doing.

Luckily for me, Michael Buckley from the super popular What Buck Show on YouTube co-hosted my first BlogTV show with me which really gave me a great start into it with a lot of new viewers.  Yesterday’s show gave me another big boost when the site featured me on their homepage and tweeted about my show in their Twitter feed.  We got up to 150 people watching at one point and a bunch of new people got to see and interact with me live who had never even heard of me before.

Do you have a BlogTV show or a live web cam show with another web site?  Do you have a regular show or just go on whenever the mood strikes you?  Do you like watching other people’s live shows?  Or is this all completely new to you?

I saw the movie Brüno today.  And as sad as this is to say, I can relate to the main character. Not because he’s into fashion or because he’s gay or because he’s just so misunderstood.  But because his goal is to become famous.

Now, I’m using this blog as a tool to show you what I’m learning about how to become famous online, but if you watch Brüno, you can learn a thing from him as well.  According to him, there are really two main things that you need to be famous:  A black baby and being straight.

Luckily here in my blog I’m going to hopefully give you some more practical ideas on things you can do to get more exposure online and get yourself noticed.  But if none of them work for you then maybe you’ll want to try out Brüno’s advice.  Or maybe try both his and mine and see what works best for you.

Speaking of the movie though, I really enjoyed it. Lots of laughing and putting my hands over my face, which always makes for a good time in my books.  Sacha Baron Cohen certainly knows how to push the envelope and get himself and his work a lot of attention because of it.  Oh ya, and gratuitous full frontal male nudity for no reason other than the shock value doesn’t hurt for getting attention either.  Hmm, maybe that’s the one thing that my YouTube videos are missing…

What do you think? Did you like the movie too?  Or are you avoiding it all together?  Is there something else that we can actually learn from Bruno about how to become really famous?

So, as you probably noticed in the top right corner, I’m giving away $100 to one of my newsletter subscribers when I get to 1000 of them.  Why would I do that?

Well, here’s the deal.  You can’t get famous online without a following.  And that following needs to know when to check out your new video or find out about your latest project.  And what’s the best way to keep in touch with the people and let them know about these things?  By email.

You can subscribe to my YouTube videos, but if you’re subscribed to a lot of people or if you don’t check the front page of YouTube very often you’ll likely miss mine.  I can tweet about it on Twitter, but same things apply there.  And again for Facebook status updates or posts.  And unless you really like me or are really interested in how to become famous online, you probably won’t check my blog every single day either and will likely miss some posts.

But with an email list I’m able to actually get in touch with everyone, at once, with a summary of what’s been going on in the blog over the past couple of weeks, or a special event/video coming up that I’m doing, etc.  It’s a simple and effective way to spread the word when I need to.

So that’s why it’s important.  And the money is the incentive to get everyone to do it. Because let’s face it, a lot of sites ask for your email address and unless there’s a good reason for you to do it, you probably won’t.  I’m hoping the chance at $100 is a good enough reason (beyond the obvious of being interested in keeping updated on the information I have to share).  And of course there will be other contests after that one too.  I did afterall start out on YouTube by giving away $1000 (more on that in a future post).

Have you signed up yet? Remember, you can unsubscribe at any time and your email address will never be shared with anyone.  And no, it won’t be monolopy money that I’m giving away.

Ok, so there’s some debate about whether or not anyone should ever say they have fans until they’re a big time celebrity.  And I get it.  I see people say on YouTube or in their blogs say they have fans and it often makes me cringe at how egotistical it sounds.

But what would you call someone who watches all of your videos, favorites them and comments on them saying how much they like you, comes to all of your live BlogTV shows, tells all of their friends about you (who then add you on Facebook and tell you so), shares your videos on Facebook and Twitter, and gets excited when you acknowledge them?  There are people who “can’t believe” Josh Rimer watched their video and commented on it.  I have people sending me gifts in the mail, offering to help me out with anything I might need, etc.   If I can’t call those people fans then I don’t know what a fan would be!

What do you think? At what point is it ok to say you have fans?  Or should it just never be said unless you’re living in Hollywood and getting over a million bucks for your next gig?

I had an interesting conversation with a standup comedian from LA who was in town on tour.  My best friend actually grew up with him so we all went for drinks afterwards.

Ian Bagg has been pursuing his dream of being a big actor/comedian for 15 years.  And he’s done pretty well.  He makes a living at it and travels around the world doing standup.  He gets TV appearances, interviews stars, and has a following.

We got into a discussion on YouTube on whether or not being an actor online was actually legitimate.  Chris’ conclusion was no.  YouTube to him was a place where anyone with a webcam or digital camera felt they could take a short cut and just try to get famous for nothing.  He saw it as a place for lazy people with no talent to showcase themselves.

And he’s not alone.  The majority of people don’t really understand or see the full potential of YouTube and the way many of us use it.  Sure, there’s a ton of crap.  But you don’t have to watch that stuff.  In fact, it’s mostly hard to find.  With hundreds of thousands of videos added every single day, it’s usually the most viewed videos that are watched, and they’re usually most viewed for a reason.  I mainly watch videos of users that I’m subscribed to or videos that my friends share on facebook or twitter.  I’m subscribed to people who produce consistently good videos.  People who are really entertaining to watch and put work into their videos.  People who could quite possibly be on TV or in Movies if they didn’t live in some remote city with a day job and a life they enjoy.

YouTube and sites like it are really their own industry. And getting seen or creating a following on there is no easy task.  Every minute 10 hours of video is uploaded to the site. That’s a lot of competition.  If you produce crap, you’ll be lucky to break the double digits on your view count.  People won’t watch your videos and won’t come back to your channel (profile) again.  You can’t just put up a video of your family vacation and get famous.  It takes work, creativity, and talent to get noticed, get subscribers, and create regular quality content that people will come back for.  There are plenty of people on YouTube who are great actors, but haven’t been able to become a movie star.  That doesn’t mean they aren’t worth watching or they’re cheating the system.

I used to think like Ian. I resisted opening an account on YouTube for a long time.  Then when I finally did I just planned for it to be temporary - just a way to get noticed by people in TV land.  Now I realize that it’s completely different than TV and movies and something that to me is even more exciting. A way to get viewers and fans from all over the world who can easily share my content with their friends and can interact with me.  TV and movies don’t offer that.  And I even make some money at it now!  More about that in a future post.

So I’ve completely shifted my thinking from using YouTube as a way to get more into the Film & TV industry to being something separate and valid on it’s own within the bigger scope of the online video industry.  And if you’re good at it you’ll stand out from the rest and even make a successful career out of it, just like with TV and movie actors.

What do you think? Can you call yourself a successful actor if you’re doing it online?  Or do you think it really is just a small stepping stone to the TV and Movie industry, which is the only really legitimate place to be an actor (outside of live theatre)?

If you know anything about me, you know that I’m really into YouTube. Both as a past time for watching all kinds of stuff, and also as a tool to get myself seen and known.

When I joined YouTube in 2007 it was because I had seen news stories about people being getting big breaks by being found on YouTube.  From a role in a movie, to a recurring role in a TV show, to getting a record deal.  I wanted in on that so opened an account, uploaded my demo reel, and then did my first made-for-YouTube video (which is to this day still my most viewed one).

As I went through the process, making dozens of videos, I began to realize something strange - some people who would comment on every video, add them to their favorites, and share them with their friends.  They seemed to love anything I put up on the site and strangest of all, got really excited when I acknowledged them.  “OMG, Josh Rimer just commented on my video!”

I began to shift my thinking from using YouTube as a tool to get discovered to being something much better than that.  A platform to share my own content and with instant feedback from viewers.  I could showcase whatever I wanted and interact with my audience.  And it was a worldwide audience, not just local people with cable television who were up at 1:30am.

And then I began to get noticed in public and approached by people asking if I was “Josh Rimer from YouTube”. They knew my full name - that didn’t even happen with my TV show.

So am I famous on YouTube?  Well, to some.  I’m currently the #73 most subscribed to Comedian of all time in Canada.  Being in the top 100 is pretty cool.  It still means there are 72 people ahead of me, but I’m sure ahead of a whole lot more than that!

What do you think? How many subscribers do you need to have on YouTube before you’re considered famous?  Or how many views on your videos before you can claim to have any fame from the site?

How do you measure fame in general? When you think of the word “famous” you probably think of big time celebrities.  The people in LA who are in movies and on television, who the paparazzi follow and couldn’t go to the grocery store without being asked for an autograph.  Not to mention rolling in the dough.

But is it really that black and white? No, definitely not.  I used to work on a local morning TV show and I would say that the hosts were famous in that city.  Anywhere else they’d be nobodies, but there we’d walk down the street for lunch and you’d almost always either see someone stare and point or come up to them and share something about what they thought of the hosts or the show.  Movie stars? No. Rich? Heck, no. Famous?  Well, if you’re well known in your community and people you don’t know are constantly recognizing you, then I’d say yes.

Myself, I’d say I’m not as famous as even those morning show hosts, but am I more famous than the average person?  Definitely.  Do I get recognized on the street?  Yes.  Often?  No.  Do I have fans?  Yes.  Many?  No  (I’ll get more into “fans” in a future post). Have I been on TV and in movies?  Yes.  Anything you’d have seen.  Really doubt it.

Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the things that I’ve done offline so far that add to the level of fame that I currently have, however small it may be…

1. - Co-hosted a TV show with my brother that aired at 1:30am Friday nights for 6 months on a TV station that was shown throughout the province of Alberta, where I lived at the time.
2. - That same TV show was picked up by a national specialty channel where it aired for almost 3 years.
3. - That same show was also shown in Australia and the Netherlands when the specialty channel expanded to those countries.
4. - I’ve had non-speaking roles in commercials for a couple of large retailers.
5. - I’ve been an extra in TV shows and movies.
6. - I’ve had lead roles in a number of short films.
7. - I’ve made a living as a theatre actor doing all kinds of shows and teaching kids acting classes.

So, nothing overly amazing there, but certainly more than the average person.  And now with YouTube thousands of people are watching me online every month.  Every now and then someone will come up to me on the street or in a business and ask me if I’m the guy from that TV show, or the guy from YouTube.

What do you think? Does what I’ve achieved so far count as some level of fame?  Or do I still have a long way to go before I can be considered at all famous?

So, I’m sure I’ll get a lot of people commenting on how I think I’m famous, but I’m not, or asking what makes me think I’m an authority on being famous.  Well, I don’t actually claim to be either necessarily.

What this blog is about is tracking the different things I’m doing to become famous online. I don’t claim to be there yet and I don’t know all of the secrets yet or I would be!  But I do spend a lot of time researching and experimenting and finding all kinds of things that do and don’t work to help get me noticed.

I’m hoping that by keeping track of those things here in this blog you’ll be able to see what some of the best strategies are for getting seen and getting known online.  Maybe you’re an actor like me and you want to discovered on YouTube.  Maybe you’re a business owner and you want to get more exposure for your company.  Or maybe you just want to see if this guy can really do it! Whatever the reason, I hope to enlighten and entertain as you follow along on my journey to stardom!

Hi and welcome to the first entry on my blog!

I’m really excited to get going with this new tool of mine that will allow me to share my experiences with you and give you some insight into what I’m doing to become famous online and how you can do it too.

If you’d like to get some more information about me and why I started this blog just head on over to the About page.

I plan to blog every day so please check in often and add this blog to your rss reader!  And of course be sure to subscribe to my newsletter as that’ll get you entered into draws and be eligible for prizes.

Thanks and talk to ya soon!

Josh