#45, BlogTV Is Coming?

The Morning Is Coming, Waikiki, Hawaii, May ‘08, artistic view.

Let us try to guess if blogtv.com is going to become big in the next year, two, or maybe even sooner. At this time things are rather small and buggy. The stars of today are mainly several YouTube names: HappySlip, LisaNova, thewinekone, CharlesTrippy, DaveDays, SupaDupaFlyGirl, VenetianPrincess, KevJumba, WhatTheBuck, and many other names not yet familiar to my and most likely anybody else’s ears. The live views are about 150-250 for the YouTube crowd and 1-100 for the rest of broadcasters. Yes, they are called the broadcasters on blogtv. Issues are numerous; audio lag, missing audio, co-hosting problems, etc. Things are changing by the minute, and tomorrow some of the issues I am writing about may be solved. The skill level of many broadcasters varies a lot, from pretty good, through a reasonable, to pretty bad. Eventually those things are going to sort out, I hope. How long can you watch someone on blogtv? If the name is totally unknown – maybe five minutes, maybe less. With names more familiar from YouTube, that time may be close to an hour. It is the very first thing that surprised me; I did not believe that I could watch HappySlip for example for almost the full hour. She is perhaps the best of them all at this moment. You go girl!
Why do some YouTubers go to another medium? Some of them already peaked on YouTube and now the only way is down. You may disagree with me but look at the numbers. There are also somewhat smaller names that are most likely trying to expand their audience. This may help, or it may even change their direction altogether. We need to watch to see what happens next.
There is one additional aspect of the blogtv that is worth mentioning. Some people look much better on live TV then in their YouTube videos. This is somewhat surprising, and the video editing part may be responsible for that. Whatever somebody thinks of herself of himself, and edits videos according to that image, is not necessarily what the audience enjoys watching most. Amazing!
OK, so now the big question: Is this going to be big, or is this going to fold? It has potentials, but the live TV is more expensive than the YouTube video production, and ultimately the small guys are not going to last very long, but the big companies, although in smaller numbers, may become the number one user. Will revisit this subject in a year, I promise.

Breakfast: Wakimi salad from Canada, canned makrel fish from Japan, pickled garlic from Poland, multi-grain bread from California with The Laughing Cow cheese spread from Wisconsin. Grapes with seeds, and an organic orange. Lipton tea to drink, from India. No, I would never eat regular garlic in the morning, you are right. But this one is pickled, and smells quite good, unlike the regular one. Let me kiss you now!

Book: Carl Humphries, Piano Workbook, A Complete Course in Technique and Performance, http://www.jawbonepress.com, with CD, ISBN 978-1-906002-03-9. Playing CD with Audacity, http://audacity.sourceforge.net.

#44, 100k Views on YouTube

Beautiful Plumeria, Oahu, Hawaii, June ‘08, artistic view.

Well, a small anniversary of sort. My YouTube videos accumulated over 100,000 views! How important is that? Of course it would be better if that number was 10X or 100X bigger, but 100k is also nice. There is one thing that is a bit surprising to me, however. Most of those views come from just a single video, Hearing Test, other videos are far behind. That is not so good, since I spent only an evening working on that video, and more than several months working on the remaining 40+ videos. Amazing how those things turn out. While most videos last only 2-3 days, with some lasting perhaps weeks, the winning Hearing Test goes on and on and on. No sign of loosing popularity. I know what you think now? Why don’t you make a similar video to that one? Well, almost everything is already there. That is the difficult part. Maybe somehow I will make something in that category, but so far all ideas are not that good. What about shooting videos that nobody watches? How does that feel? Actually, to tell you the truth, it is secondary. I like to do what I do, I can travel a bit almost every weekend, I like to shoot videos outside in nice places, I like to edit, and all of my videos go through plenty of editing. Like to write all music to my videos, and will do so even more and at a higher level in the near future. Can reply to people’s comments, and watch other’s videos. Not everything looks fine, though. The submission part and the initial shock of watching your videos on YouTube that now look and sound much worse than anything you have ever seen up to this moment, this really gets you after a while. So much work vanishes in just a few minutes. And so far there has been no solution to this problem.

On a positive side, I opened an account on Twitter; you can follow me if you wish to do so:
http://twitter.com/Vatsek.

Watching HappySlip on blog.tv tonight, many YouTube faces are popping up over there, on the other network – you might say. Is this a brand new trend? I was surprised to notice that those people look way better on blog.tv than in YouTube videos! Will write a separate blog on just that subject.

Dinner: Chicken soup with big chunks of white meat, brown rice, canned tomatoes, plenty of green vegetables, and Enoki mushrooms. A glass of Carlo Rossi Sangria red wine, and a hot Lipton tea. An orange, and a large peach. Isn't life good? http://www.carlorossi.com, http://www.lipton.com.

Book: Carl Humphries, Piano Workbook, A Complete Course in Technique and Performance, http://www.jawbonepress.com, with CD, ISBN 978-1-906002-03-9.