Enska 2013
Youtube
Making videos for YouTube – for three years a pastime for millions of Web surfers – is now a way to make a living.
One year after YouTube, the online video powerhouse invited members to become “partners” and added advertising to their videos, the most successful users are earning six-figure incomes from the Web site. For some, like Michael Buckley, the self-taught host of a celebrity chat show, filming videos is now a full-time job.
Buckley quit his day job in September after his online profits had greatly surpassed his salary as an administrative assistant for a music promotion company. His thrice-a-week online show “is silly”, he said, but it has helped him escape his credit- card debt.
Buckley, 33, was the part-time host of a weekly show on a Connecticut public access channel in the summer of 2006 when his cousin started posting snippets of the show on YouTube. The comical rants about celebrities attracted online viewers, and before long Buckley was tailoring his segments, called “What the Buck?” for the Web. Buckley knew that the show was “only going to go so far on public access.”
“But on YouTube,” he said, ”I ́ve had 100 million views. It ́s crazy.”
All he needed was a $2,000 Canon camera, a $6 piece of fabric for a backdrop and a pair of work lights from Home Depot. Buckley is an example of the Internet ́s democratizing effect on publishing. Sites like YouTube allow anyone with a high-speed connection to find a fan following, simply by posting material and promoting it online.
Granted, building an audience online takes time. “I was spending 40 hours a week on YouTube for over a year before I made a dime,” Buckley said – but, at least in some cases, it is paying off.
Buckley is one of the original members of YouTube ́s partner program, which now includes thousands of participants, from basement video makers to big media companies. YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, places advertisements within and around the partner videos and splits the revenues with the creators.
As his traffic and revenues grew, Buckley had “so many opportunities online that I couldn ́t work anymore.” He quit his job at Live Nation, the music promoter, to focus full-time on the Web show.
There is a symmetry to Buckley ́s story. Some so-called Internet celebrities view YouTube as a stepping stone to television. But Buckley started on TV and found fame on YouTube. “I feel YouTube is my home”, he said. “I think the biggest mistake that any of us Internet personalities can make is establish ourselves on the Internet and then abandon it”.
Some of the partners are major media companies; the ones with the most video views include Universal Music Group, Sony, CBS and Warner Brothers. But individual users are now able to compete alongside them. Buckley, who did not even have high-speed Internet access two years ago, said his YouTube hobby had changed his financial life.
“I didn ́t start it to make money,” he said, “but what a lovely surprise.”
