I hit 10K subscribers on YouTube!
From my Comedy YouTube channel
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Watch my other parodies!»YouTube spends $100 Million – cute kittens left out in the cold
written by Josh Rimer on November 2nd, 2011
So, it turns out the rumors were true. Back in March I wrote a blog post about YouTube paying out millions to celebrities in order to get them to create their own channels on the site. It’s now been confirmed that an incredible $100 million has been spread out over a number of high (and not so high) profile Hollywood personalities so they can create their own high quality content on YouTube.
YouTube is of course doing this to elevate the quality of content available on the website. It’s no secret that much of the world still think of amateur home videos such as cute kittens, laughing babies, and webcam lip-syncing when they think of YouTube originals. Having people like Madonna, Jay-Z, and Tony Hawk producing funded content is definitely a step in a more advertiser friendly direction.
According to YouTube’s blog, the first of these new original channels will appear on their website starting very shortly and the rest will continue to come out over the next few months. It’ll be interesting to see how they do, but I really can’t see it not working out for the most part. These people already come with a built-in audience. It’s not like the money is being put into new up-and-comers who will hopefully have an idea that sticks. People like Ashton Kutcher and Shaquille O’Neal (also on the list of recipients) could make videos of themselves sneezing and still get an incredible amount of views and advertisers.
As for my original concern about the possibility of them making it harder for the rest of us non-celebs to get seen on YouTube, I guess that’s still to be determined, but at this point I’m happy to support whatever will bring more viewers onto the platform. It does feel like a big part of YouTube is dying considering the roots of the website and how it used to be just people like you and me on it, but it’s now the second largest search engine and a real force on the internet, so we certainly can’t expect it to stay how it was back in the day when it was just a fun little website run by a couple guys from Paypal… now can we?
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already many good videos are blocked because of copyright stuff and music-rights and i´m afraid that this -if not solved- will create imense frustration in the community.
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It is interesting to know that Youtube is luring celebrities in this way. How great it is to become a celebrity now a days. I wish I was a celebrity and get such lucrative offers
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They have a lot of money to spare.. Compared to the income they’re getting, it’s just spare change.
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Wow, $100 mil?!? That sounds crazy. But probably smart of them to be honest. People love celebrities, and this will give people a specific reason to check YouTube regularly. It feels like a move in the direction of FilmOn and other such sites, but coming from YouTube gives it a lot more credibility. I too share your concerns about the effects on regular people like us, but we’ll see!
Dang, that’s a lot of money! I agree that it does feel like YouTube is selling out a bit, but I don’t think this will necessarily have a negative impact on the user uploaded content. The celebrity channels will attract new viewers to the site, which means even more people who will potentially see your video. And if viewers subscribe to a celebrity channel that means they are going to continue returning on a regular basis, which means they are more likely to stay and watch user uploaded content once they are done watching the celebrities.