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Onstage, Online, and Making Money
A New York Times article today looks at performers "on the fringes of the entertainment industry" who are increasingly using online video sites as sideline jobs to provide supplementary income. The article says "Ask a Ninja" creator Kent Nichols earned more than $20,000 last year by posting clips on Revver.
The piece looks at the different sites that offer payment -- or revenue sharing -- with users who post video clips, including Revver, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Brightcove, DivX Stage6, and Cruxy. Increasingly, videos that go "viral" can earn their makers serious cash, and get noticed by mainstream outlets.
Just as Hollywood moguls have yet to find an infallible formula for producing a blockbuster, Internet video producers still don’t know why some clips “go viral,” sent by e-mail from person to person and incorporated into blog entries, and others languish, seen only by the auteur’s dorm mates.
“A video has to grab you by the neck in about five seconds — otherwise people lose interest,” [Metacafe founder Arik Czerniak said]. “The maximum length is about 90 seconds.”
An acrobatics demonstration in which Joe Eigo, a Canadian martial-arts expert, executes flips and high-kicks like a character from a video game, has chalked up $25,000 worth of views for him.
