Richard BF

I just sent the following email to the videoblogging email list, and thought I should give a little more detail here.

Working out ways to making videoblogging pay, is like working out a way to make sitting at home playing dominos pay.

It’s the same with any amateur creative endeavour, in a short period of time, new people end up with an inflated sense of self worth. In our community, its because of a false equation that “we” are the same as big media. i.e. they make content, they make money; I make content, so I should make money.

Perhaps the equation should be: I make content, I don’t make money; they make content, so they shouldn’t make any either.

With more and more free content coming out by the day, perhaps instead of asking how to make money, people should either go and work for a big media content provider (while they still exist), or have a big long rational think about why they’re videoblogging in the first place, and ask the question: what’s so special about me that someone would want to pay me money?

Sounds a little harsh, and is slightly flawed, but the truth hurts. Where’s the money? If there is any now, there’s going to be less and less as time goes on.

As more and more people begin providing content, it will be a buyers’ market, like an extreme buyers’ market. Sure, there are some talented and amusing videobloggers out there, but when it comes to handing over cash, people will just move on to the next free one.

A case in point, is RocketBoom. They provide several minutes per day of content you can pretty much find elsewhere on the web, such as BoingBoing for example, so what’s the attraction? The talent of Amanda, and the script. With countless RocketBoom lookalikes now appearing, we’ll soon see similar if not better daily shows doing similar things. Perhaps this is why RocketBoom is still free, because they know their ride has an expiration date. Although if it were me, I’d probably be charging subscriptions already, and talking to big media to sell it off before the competition moves in.

This is not to say that there’s no future in videoblogging. Videobloggers are learning all about technique, how to edit, how to properly record audio, how to light for video, how to write a good story, the list goes on. Making good professional content takes talent, and a lot of it, and as the amount of content out there expands, good talented technical and creative people will find careers making content for big media. But like anything else, get in early, buyers’ market…

Just don’t expect people to pay you for doing one man band videos and uploading them to the Internet.