NYT Sees Gold in YouTube’s Hills (wow, bad metaphore…)

The NYT has a splashy piece about people making “real” money posting videos on YouTube.

Actually, it’s about one guy making real money, sort of through YouTube and a lot of other outlets.

“What the Buck” is the YouTube show profiled and it is the one most often trotted out to show how great the YouTube partnership program can be for independent video creators.

The only problem with the article is that makes it seem like what Michael Buckley has done is something that is/could become common on YouTube but that’s just not the case.  The vast majority of semi-pro video makers simply don’t put the sort of time, energy and commitment into their work and thus, do not get much in the way of rev-share from YouTube.

It takes a staggering combination of artistic vision and hard work to make a go of it online, to break through all the noise and to actually produce a consistent product that keeps viewers coming back.

While there is nothing especially wrong with the NYT piece, I think it falls short of communicating how impressive it is for Buckley to have done so well.

Related articles by Zemanta

• YouTube videos pulling in serious money
• Maybe You Can Quit Your Day Job By Making YouTube Videos
• ‘What the Buck?’ Creator Inks Deal With HBO

1 Comment

• 

  By Danny BLoom, December 14, 2008 @ 2:43 am

  Sir
  that front page story by Brian Stelter from Maryland journo school, shades of jason Blair?, just joking, is that story a faked story. ? Just asking. did the editors of the NYTimes check to make sure Buckley REALLY has pauyments of 20,000 bucks a month, 100,000 bucks a year, in his bank account. did they see the receipts. I smell a rat here. i think this story was a highly embellished faked story…show me the money receipts…..i say

  I wrote to the times and they are looking into this now

  don’t be fooled by novice reporters doing front page stories. i might be wrong. i often am. but check it out first…

Other Links to this Post

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment