iJustine and AT&T Get Lost On the Internets

Image via Wikipedia

Hey, have you been watching that new webseries, “Lost in America” starring YouTube sensation iJustine? Well, neither has anybody else.

“After two weeks, the series had generated just 31,000 views across YouTube, MySpace and four other sites, according to web video distribution firm Tubemogul. The only reason they racked up that many is that iJustine posted episodes one and six on her blog, bringing in 20,000 of that total.” (via)

There are plenty of reasons why their numbers could be so low but, after watching just one episode, it becomes pretty clear the reason is that the series is a not very entertaining infomercial:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plvTrcZa7P4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

iJustine Shills for iPhone. Or Does She? And Does it Matter?

iJustine, who rose to microfame as one of the earlier “life-bloggers” out there, has just posted a video documenting the damage done to her first-gen iPhone.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QldbS98QGs&hl=en]

Oddly, there doesn’t seem to be some huge dust-up in the blogosphere over whether or not this is an authentic ode or a sponsored shill.

Nearly none of the comments on her site even seem concerned.

Conclusions? Pending.

(via)

10 Reasons Why Carson Daly’s “The Really Big Internet Show” Will FAIL

I’ve heard that blog posts with lists tend to do really well so I thought I’d try one out.  I’ll let you know if the rumors are true.

According to Variety:

“[Caron] Daly and Madison Road will launch in July “The Really Big Internet Show,” a daily five-minute webcast that will feature the day’s most talked-about original online videos. Justine Ezarik, an Internet vid star who goes by the name iJustine, will host.”

So, here are my 10 Reasons Why Carson Daly’s “The Really Big Internet Show” Will FAIL (and one of them isn’t “Carson Daly”).

10.  Why would I watch clips of viral videos instead of just watching the clips themselves?

9.  Why would I bother waiting a whole 5 minutes to find out which videos they’re going to show when we all know the list will be hotlinked on the same page?

8.  The target audience for a show like this will have already seen every video they mention.  If they haven’t seen it, it probably isn’t a legitimate “hit.”

7.  You know this is going to be ad supported in some way while the videos it talks about will likely not be.  Which would you rather watch?

6.  Even though everyone likes funny little clips they can pass around to friends and mention at parties nobody cares about them enough to watch a show ABOUT them.

5.  iJustine is totally cute and has a great presence but what she has to say about silly videos isn’t going to be “must-see TV”.

4.  Sure, it’s only going to be 5 minutes long but 5 minutes can be forever online.

3.  This show brings absolutely nothing new to the table.

2.  G4’s Attack of the Show already has a relatively successful podcast/site called Around the Net that covers this ground and has the faithful following that Daly’s show wants.

1.  Daily shows are brutal to produce and anything short of massive early success will lead to a quick burnout from all parties concerned.

Web Indies Still Looking for the Money

There are a couple of posts out there this week that look at just what, if any, money independent web content producers are making.

Over on Gawker they talk to Yuri Baranovsky, the writer for Break a Leg, an original web comedy produced by the guys at For Your Imagination.

“Here’s how it all breaks down: with over 2 million views on YouTube, we’ve received roughly $1,600 from their Partner Program. We also over half a million views at YouTube competitor Blip.tv, worth a whopping $100. Finally another competitor MetaCafe featured us on their front page and with nearly 100,000 views, we made $500 – which is great, except the only way you’ll ever get that many views is if you win a contest (like us) or your show is primarily about how round and pretty the female breast is. Plus a year later, MetaCafe still hasn’t paid us.”

At first glance that seems like very little money for so many views and it is, kind of.  The thing is, these are cumulative numbers for multiple episodes.  Before real money can be made these shows need to be getting at least 500,000 per episode.  At least that puts them into the low-end cable numbers.

Over on TVWeek they compare early-adopter and cash-success story Ask-A-Ninja, high-end vloggers BeetTV and life-caster iJustine.

The short story is $100,000/month for Ninja, $15,000/month for BeetTV and $1000/month for iJustine.  Each of these projects has a different set of costs so it is not clear how much they are actually putting in their pockets.

Any way you cut it, the web content game is not a get-rich quick scheme.  However, there is tons of opportunity out there and we’re only seeing the beginning in terms of people trying to tap the market.

Does Live Video Matter?

SAI has some numbers on the users and viewers of the many free live-streaming options that have been popping up and sucking up VC rather rapidly.

Turns out the numbers are quite equaling the investment, yet.

“The biggest site, LiveVideo, had 1.13 million unique viewers in February, according to Nielsen’s VideoCensus. That’s enough to earn it 49th on Nielsen’s list of top video sites — and to beat Sony’s Crackle (nee Grouper). But it drops off dramatically from there.

Second-place streamer uStream, supposedly a Microsoft buyout candidate, ranks 142nd among the top video sites. That puts it between iVillage Network (141st) and one above Atom Films (143rd), in terms of unique viewers of video. And Justintv, the supposedly redhot home of iJustine? Just 82,000 unique viewers, Nielsen says — enough to earn it #369.”

This isn’t especially surprising to anyone who has spent time watching the average live-stream.  Like most of the videos on YouTube, it isn’t that interesting.  And, unlike the video’s on YouTube, these “broadcasts” never really end.

Sure, there are some exceptions and it is here that we will begin to see some growth.  The first issue is figuring out what NEEDS to be live.  Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.  Think how few things are actually live on TV.

The news. Morning shows. Sporting events. SNL.  That’s about it aside from the rare stunt programming.  As the tech gets better and the streams get more clear sports will be a big part of the live-streaming world – look how well CBS did with their live NCAA games.  I’ve even heard anecdotal reports of people “broadcasting” sporting events of their own tv, via webcam, to the web for those who can’t get it in their region.