In need of a product in need of an audience.
November 7, 2010 6:10 PM Subscribe
I'd like to start generating short-format, informative, internet-facing video as a weekend hobby. But what's likely to gain an audience? Also, any advice?
I'm tired of just consuming internet content and I'd like to finally make it a two-way street. I'm fairly savvy on internet culture and have the urge to produce something relatively non-fiction. I'm not looking for a revenue stream, just something an internet audience would actually want to watch for a few minutes at a time, produced 1-4 times a month, likely on Youtube.
Me: IT, consumer electronics, video games, and some college journalism courses before I switched majors. You know, stereotypical-for-my-demographic stuff.
I have some ideas on style, format, and tone, but are there any gaping voids out there in terms of subject matter?
I'm tired of just consuming internet content and I'd like to finally make it a two-way street. I'm fairly savvy on internet culture and have the urge to produce something relatively non-fiction. I'm not looking for a revenue stream, just something an internet audience would actually want to watch for a few minutes at a time, produced 1-4 times a month, likely on Youtube.
Me: IT, consumer electronics, video games, and some college journalism courses before I switched majors. You know, stereotypical-for-my-demographic stuff.
I have some ideas on style, format, and tone, but are there any gaping voids out there in terms of subject matter?
Focus grouping content is how the networks make TV. Don't do that. If you aren't passionate enough about something to make the video with no regard for how many views you get, don't bother making it in the first place. You aren't going to enjoy it, and your viewers won't either.
posted by COD at 6:53 PM on November 7, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by COD at 6:53 PM on November 7, 2010 [2 favorites]
I have to agree with the first two commenters here: You should generate content about a topic you're interested in, rather than trying to find a topic you think other people might be interested in. This is especially true for an amateur effort where you don't care about earning money. Not only will it start to feel like an onerous obligation more quickly (and be more likely to lead to burnout), it seems hard to know what kind of content to create if it's not a subject you already care about.
Do it for yourself, not for others. If you wind up building an audience, that's great. But like a billion other bloggers out there, you gotta start with the expectation that you're going to be the only person who ever sees this stuff, so it should matter to you, personally. In other words, if you build it, they might come - but that shouldn't be the goal, just a nice side benefit.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 8:06 PM on November 7, 2010
Do it for yourself, not for others. If you wind up building an audience, that's great. But like a billion other bloggers out there, you gotta start with the expectation that you're going to be the only person who ever sees this stuff, so it should matter to you, personally. In other words, if you build it, they might come - but that shouldn't be the goal, just a nice side benefit.
posted by Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell at 8:06 PM on November 7, 2010
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FYI, my best-viewed video (almost 25,000 views) is a tour of an apartment I had in Tokyo. It was filmed exclusively to show my friends and family back home where I was living, and it's really nothing but a tour of a tiny apartment, including the bathroom and the silverware drawer. You just never know what people will find interesting.
posted by xingcat at 6:44 PM on November 7, 2010