I’m not going to base my retirement fund around the business model. ;}

I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of the entertaining ones making good money and jumping off their YouTube success into other ventures. I’m seen a few people I had on my favorites, singers, getting record deals. One I was watching just announced working on a TV shows based off his YouTube “stardom”. Some of them have websites or are setting up sites to drive some of that traffic too. Most people go to YouTube to be entertained. There’s money in it, some are still figuring the possibilities.

As far as video, Google and the SERPS. I don’t see much changing at all. They have a link to video on the home page, they might push it more. But making a video isn’t going to shoot you to page 1. If they do something, here’s what more likely to happen.

When Froogle first came out, many people were worried about Froogle results in the main results. What did they do?

Product search results for newegg cpu fan
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-07,GGLD:en&q=newegg+cpu+fan

They might have
Video search results for……………… where they have the product search results now.

The main serps aren’t changing much. There are good sites, authority sites on the first page. They’re not going to lose their spots because someone decided to make a video.

I don’t know. I’ve seen a lot of the entertaining ones making good money and jumping off their YouTube success into other ventures. I’m seen a few people I had on my favorites, singers, getting record deals. One I was watching just announced working on a TV shows based off his YouTube “stardom”. Some of them have websites or are setting up sites to drive some of that traffic too. Most people go to YouTube to be entertained. There’s money in it, some are still figuring the possibilities.

As far as video, Google and the SERPS. I don’t see much changing at all. They have a link to video on the home page, they might push it more. But making a video isn’t going to shoot you to page 1. If they do something, here’s what more likely to happen.

When Froogle first came out, many people were worried about Froogle results in the main results. What did they do?

Product search results for newegg cpu fan
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=t&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-07,GGLD:en&q=newegg+cpu+fan

They might have
Video search results for……………… where they have the product search results now.

The main serps aren’t changing much. There are good sites, authority sites on the first page. They’re not going to lose their spots because someone decided to make a video.

Although I typically like to benchmark myself against the top, rather than the median.

Anyway, it seems with these social things that the trivial and frivolous stuff tends to win out most of the time, and it’s mastering the trivial which’ll get you the traffic.

I think some weird, offbeat thing is going to beat out an info type video any day of the week (talking about immediate monetization). The info type video will probably yield more in the long term, especially if it leads to consulting or other type of high value gigs.

In the case of a “magic trick revealed”, I think that supports Jim’s thesis that “The people who will make money on YouTube will be the people who create videos that solve problems, not entertain.”

Granted, that’s a mix of problem solving and entertainment.

I certainly agree that video is the future – I’ve been tinkering with it a lot for the past year. ;-)

Shawn: Have you checked out Metacafe.com? Some of the guys are banking about $800 a week from their videos. Some of the “magic trick revealed” videos have racked up $14k or more.

A number of the video sites which aggregate Youtube vids are using an algorithmn to split google adsense revenue.

Video is the future, it’s just a matter of embedding affiliate links using some of the technology you highlight over at affiliatetip, or using it as a branding opportunity to springboard to something bigger.

@Shawn… Yeah. Like I said, no stars are going to get super rich from Youtube. Maybe from the attention of being found, but not from a paycheck from Youtube.

But to make videos on YouTube the basis for a success plan is pretty flawed.

Maybe a clip show will pay “stars” $500 a clip here and there – nothing to retire on.

Like everything else, whether a paperback book, or a youtube clip, or a webmasterradio clip gives you the leverage to make it to mass media depends on your media strategy.

I can think of at least a dozen ways to parlay a popular video series.

Those guys at AskANinja.com can get a feature film done easily if they chose to go at it that way.