AdAge.com Investigates YouTube Semi-Pro Producers
If you’re waiting for a poke in the ribs to start producing your own online animated series, a recent article over at adage.com has readied the poking stick. 
Michael Learmonth’s Why YouTube Will Sink or Swim With Obama Girl focuses on the recent surge of “midtail” or “semi-pro” YouTube content. You know these producers – as many of them are fond of the ol’ Flash animation. Mondo Media (who have the 6th most-viewed YouTube channel of all-time), College Humor, SuperNews, JibJab – they all boast significant YouTube audiences, and they’re all bringing in significant ad revenue. Now, when I say “significant,” don’t think Super Bowl bucks. These are (corporate lingo warning) “right-sized” content producers, that eschew big Hollywood production trappings for small teams, and what TubeMogul calls “snack size” content. I’m aware of teams making tens of thousands a month in ad-revenue on YouTube, and I also see the next wave of YouTube stars on the horizon – artists like Some Grey Bloke, nockFORCE, Dan Meth and Mike Parker. They’re all highly prolific, and they understand the power of YouTube. And over at Lineboil.com, we’re following Patrick Boivin, For Tax Reasons and Dan Cardenas.
Becoming a YouTube sensation is no easy task, mind you, and it’s not for everyone. Regular uploads are hard to come by when you’re holding down a steady job, but take inspiration from the links above, and build a concept around constraints. Mandate that your episodes will be 120 seconds or less, limit yourself to only re-occuring characters (reduces need for new character models), or perhaps consider going without dialog – which ensures that your project won’t get held up by lack of voice talent. Then try animating a single scene a night, and you might just find yourself uploading a new episode every two or three weeks…. ya never know….
June 9th, 2009 at 11:03 am
That is a very inspiring article, however, when the author makes the side note:
“(Granted, part of YouTube’s dismal numbers for studio-produced shows are because its TV catalog consists of titles such as “I Dream of Jeannie” and “Fantasy Island,” not current hits such as “30 Rock” and “24.”). ”
He doesn’t really offer a counter-argument to this point. He doesn’t say what “the other part” is. So a lot of the argument he is building has no real basis of fact, at least not here.
June 9th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
i bet he could have said “the entire reason for Youtube’s dismal….” and it would stick. i’d give them time to roll up some real content deals and we’ll see it grow. while hulu has arguable the best comedy shows on their network, there’s plenty of good stuff around – in fact, there’s an ocean of good stuff. i’m sure these deals take a while, but youtube will put up a good fight.
June 9th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Creating Videos and publishing it is as important, once you have a video make sure you publish on youtube, but also on Blinkx. blinkx is the world’s largest video search engine. That means, people use blinkx to search through the entire Web for the videos they want.
And all animators who look forward to get Animation Jobs register on this website it sends Free Leads Alerts once registered – http://www.vendorwiz.com/vendor_regist.aspx
Its a effective and easy way to find Animation Jobs.
June 9th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Great article, especially for me because this is the kind of stuff I’ve been really concerned with lately. I mean I’m not trying to become the next Youtube star or anything, but I do hope to utilize it to get some more people to watch my cartoons regularly. But the last paragraph you’ve written here is the kind of advice I’ve really been looking for. I still don’t really know what I’m going to do about the voice acting in my cartoons because I don’t want that to bring everything else down; the last time I did a voice record was really awkward since I am now more conscious of it. But anyway, this really is great, thanks for posting it.
June 9th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
niko – you’re exactly the artist who is going to stake your claim on youtube. you’re prolific, funny and you’ve got a defined style. don’t beat yourself up – you’re half the way there!
June 9th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
I wonder how much those ad impressions on youtube make. I note Youtube forces ads into things that get alot of views even if the uploader isn’t a “partner”
seems kinda backhanded.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Zekey, you mean the ones that creep up in the lower third of the video while it’s playing? Oooh, I don’t dig that at all. Almost as bad as popup ads.
June 13th, 2009 at 1:30 am
Good article!, myself and Luke Hyde are aiming to make one episode every calender month, making asittingducktv worth subscribing to and I’ve seen my website hits go from 300 a month to 1,000 a month which I’m really happy about!…
I’m going to take your advice and stick to the main character which is Candy The Magic Dinosaur and we are making sub characters like neon boy and griff the dog and also a crazy pirate which is under wraps at the moment but he’s ready to animate in flash!, would love any feedback on episode 1, drop me a line in the youtube comments box!,
Thanks
David Edwards