YouTubular Conversations

Each YouTube “account” is a channel… and while YouTube has engaged in prior promotions they have recently dropped some big bucks to draw attention to two of it’s most popular “mega” stars — Tyler Oakley and Lilly Singh — together they have about 14 million subscribers. It was reported by NewMediaRockStars.com that the campaign will feature, “commercials, billboards, bus ads, magazine print pieces and more.”

An illuminated Billboard featuring Tyler Oakley.

Singh whose channel features her original character oriented comedy, plus celebrity interviews and more… uses the tagline, “Give Life Character” while Oakley’s uses, “Dare To BE You.” You can reportage on these efforts here, here and here.

I find the campaign interesting on many levels. First it gives two of its’ most unique and talented stars a real spotlight. It also helps spike demand for two channels that are in high demand; if you will a test to see how much farther they can grow in popularity.

I think this effort  helps attract new YouTubers.. by letting any would be creator know how far YouTube will go to support their stars. It also rewards the fans of these two channels… when they see YouTubers they really appreciate getting the mega star treatment it has to make the fans feel rewarded for their fandom.

Even for me, i’ve been talking about Oakley on FIR for years… but I wonder if “anyone” really knows who is is. After this campaign I’d think a lot more people will have taken notice. It’s also worth noting that YouTube is on a global expansion and highlighting a star like Singh has to help as they try to expand in South Asia (for example).

The post YouTube AMPs Spending to Promote Mega Stars Oakley and Singh – YC Episode 10 (news) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Today I spoke with two of the researchers who made headlines earlier this week in the Financial Times. In Episode 8, I reported how this research demonstrates that YouTube is great at detecting view fraud within its system but not as good at detecting associated ad fraud; the two are out of sync and “reported” at different rates.

I spoke with Mohamed Ahmed and Roberto Gonzalez of NEC today (Sept 24, 2015), two of the seven authors of this report. Their pre-published paper can be found here (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1507.08874v1.pdf). They provided additional background and insight into their work. This research started as the master’s thesis of lead author Miriam Marceal.

YouTubular Conversations

Our extended conversation is easy to understand and aimed at the marketers and communicators. We covered the methods used and the insights gleaned while they probed the YouTube ecosystem. An ecosystem which is largely a “black box” to researchers, YouTubers, and advertisers. This work is notable and interesting and is part of a larger effort to quantify and understand the ad tech environment that more and more of our online lives depend upon.

On Sept 22nd, 2015 I reached out to YouTube via Twitter asking them to make someone available to respond to the research but have had no reply.

Miriam Marciel NEC Labs Europe miriam.marciel @neclab.eu

Ruben Cuevas Universidad Carlos III de Madrid rcuevas @it.uc3m.es

Albert Banchs IMDEA Networks Institute Universidad Carlos III de Madrid albert.banchs @imdea.org

Roberto Gonzalez NEC Labs Europe Roberto.Gonzalez @neclab.eu

Stefano Traverso Politecnico di Torino stefano.traverso @polito.it

Mohamed Ahmed NEC Labs Europe Mohamed.Ahmed @neclab.eu

Arturo Azcorra IMDEA Networks Institute Universidad Carlos III de Madrid arturo.azcorra @imdea.org

The post How to Figure Out Just How Much YouTube Ad Fraud is Costing You – YC EP 9 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Robert Cookson, Digital Media Correspondent reported (gated) in the Financial Times (Sept. 22, 2015) that, “Google has been charging marketers for advertisements it places on YouTube even when the video platform’s fraud-detection systems identify that a “viewer” is a robot rather than a human being.”

Cookson’s reportage is sourced from on a research paper published July 31, 2015 by a group of seven European researchers. Their key finding when looking at several different video portals was paraphrased by Cookson, “Google’s core advertising engine charged the researchers for the bot visits even though YouTube was clearly able to identify them as fake.”

The research concludes, “In summary, we conclude that YouTube uses a seemingly permissive detection mechanism to discount fake monetized views. This exposes advertisers to… burden the risk of fraud. [While] Conversely, the public view counter is much more discriminative, demonstrating that YouTube has effective means to identify fake views.”

The channel/network that receives the fake views is also penalized, “YouTube severely penalizes the uploader of the video by suspending her Adsense account, preventing the uploader from monetizing any of the videos associated to the suspended account…” even when some of them were legitimate.

Cookson noted that Google desired to contact the researchers. “Google said it would contact them to discuss the findings. It said it took ‘invalid traffic very seriously’ and that it had invested significantly in the technology and staff that ‘keep this out of our systems. The vast majority of invalid traffic is filtered from our systems before advertisers are ever charged.’ ”

Miriam Marciel NEC Labs Europe miriam.marciel @neclab.eu

Ruben Cuevas Universidad Carlos III de Madrid rcuevas @it.uc3m.es

Albert Banchs IMDEA Networks Institute Universidad Carlos III de Madrid albert.banchs @imdea.org

Roberto Gonzalez NEC Labs Europe Roberto.Gonzalez @neclab.eu

Stefano Traverso Politecnico di Torino stefano.traverso @polito.it

Mohamed Ahmed NEC Labs Europe Mohamed.Ahmed @neclab.eu

Arturo Azcorra IMDEA Networks Institute Universidad Carlos III de Madrid arturo.azcorra @imdea.org

The post Research: YouTube Profits from Fake Ad Views – YC Episode 8 (News) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Like fans watching sports, kids watch other people play video games. Like fans watching sports, it is often someone who might be a professional or at least a gifted amateur.

Logo for YouTube Gaming circa 2015

Like televised sports there is play by play and color commentary… typically provided by the person who is playing the game… which can be very interesting since you gain some insight into what they are doing, thinking or planning.

Google’s previously available gaming platform allowed desktop gamers to live stream their games, and allowed any users with a web browser to watch both pre-recorded and live gaming.

There are 100’s of games out there and the quality of the “game play” varies by title and by skill of the player. Last week I reported on how popular YouTuber TDM uses Minecraft to create videos that are really mini stories or mini movies; entertaining while showing off gaming prowess.

Ryan Wyatt (YouTube’s head of global gaming content, dateline Sept 17 Tokyo) announced support for creating live streamed games from mobile devices. With Mr. Wyatt’s announcement gamers looking to show off in real time (live streaming) can now do so from a mobile Android device (and soon IOS).

Photo of Ryan Wyatt

This comes on the heels of other mobile streaming announcements in the past few months including services like Blab, Periscope and Meerkat. The services are analogous other than one offers video from a camera whereas the offers video recorded from a device’s screen.

It will be interesting to see if companies and brands start to including live streaming games, including mobile gaming within their content strategy. It will also be interesting to see how the gaming competition between Twitch and YouTube plays out; Twitch wins or YouTube wins.

The post YouTube scratches a Twitch and Goes Mobile — YC Ep 7 (news) appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.

Channels like children need many years to grow-up. Channels that seemingly do “pop overnight” can take years and years to really build up momentum. In the last 10 months, The Str3am has build up some “steam” with more than 1,800 subscribers and 52k views.

Although the channel was created in 2010, Alex has put out regular videos since August of 2014. But the channel started to gain traction 8 months ago when Alex released a Collab with Davey Wavey. In a Collab, two or more “creators” use the same equipment, and make unique videos on similar themes.. in this case two videos, one released on a “new” channel and the other on a popular one.

The video released on Str3am’s channel has been seen more than 6k times; by way of a comparison  the video Older Gays vs. Younger Gays that Davey released on his “Raw” channel has received more than 360k views.

A picture of DJ Str3am at his day job

At the present time Alex’s channel has helped him build up his business in his local market. This is by itself an interesting case study. Today like any “creators” DJs are hired because they can attract an audience. It is easy to see that in 2-3 years Alex’s dream of a more global brand could come to fruition; he could certainly increase his presence along the Eastern Seaboard of the US, and in popular gay tourist meccas like Las Vegas and San Francisco.

I have highlighted Alex’s channel because it helps demonstrate the power of a single well placed Collab. Other channels have engaged in dozens and even hundreds of Collabs. Alex reports a Collab typically converts 1% (or less) of the viewer to subscribers. Alex’s day job is as a research scientist.

Davey’s Raw channel at the time this is being published has 340,885 subscribers and more than 47 Million views. Together his three channels have nearly 1 Million subscribers and over 300 Million views.

Main Channel

Sound Cloud

The post The Power of Collab – Scientist & DJ Alexander Str3am – YC Episode 6 appeared first on FIR Podcast Network.