People Are Flocking to a Social Network That Redistributes 90% of Ad Revenue to Users .

Songwriter Andrew Fromm hit the jackpot when his lyrics became hits for global sensations like the Backstreet Boys, ‘N Sync and a few dozen other artists. But while songwriting once provided him with a more than comfortable lifestyle, the spare change streaming services pay him isn’t even enough for lunch at a Manhattan deli once a month.

While 1.5 million Spotify plays earns Mr. Fromm only $18 in royalties every three months, he’s making more than that daily on Tsu, a social network that actually pays users for their original content, Sebastian Sobczak, founder and CEO of Tsu, told The New York Observer.

On Tsu, users share any original content from artwork and Soundcloud tracks to selfies and videos of their dogs. The company then redistributes 90 percent of its advertising revenue to users in the form of royalties. The more the content is shared and the larger the users’ networks on the platform, the more money gets put into their banks on the site. And the payouts can be big; one million shares could earn a user $1,500, according to Mr. Sobczak.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Since its launch in late October, the invite-only platform has garnered 3.5 million users who are musicians, artists and everyday social media users.

“You’re seeing a very large music community, a very large art community, and you’re seeing kids with their selfies,” Mr. Sobczak said. “We have people that came out of the woodwork and have become mini celebrities on this platform.”

One mother of four named Kimberly Hendersen began making hundreds of dollars every day when a video she posted of her signing her daughter to sleep went viral. Now, she has a record deal lined up, according to the Daily Mail.

While many everyday people are making a little extra cash from engaging in normal social media activities like sharing their photos, this opportunity to cash in on original content has musicians bringing their music to Tsu.

Independent artists like Tiffany Paige and Meresha have released their songs and EPs exclusively on the site. Today, rapper Azizi Gibson (signed to Waka Flocka’s 36Brickhouse label) is releasing his music video for “Misguided” on Tsu. And these musicians aren’t forming partnerships with Tsu; they’re simply opting for a platform more creator-friendly than the Spotifys and Pandoras of the world.

“Social media is 100 percent user generated, but the platform monetizes 100 percent. No content creators make money. Not Disney, not 50 Cent,” Mr. Sobczak said.

It’s true. For example, Pharrell made only $2,700 from 43 million plays of his mega hit “Happy” on Pandora, according to Business Insider. And While Facebook generated $66,000 in only 24 hours from the latest Cinderella trailer, Disney didn’t make a dime, according to Mr. Sobczak.

http://observer.com/2015/04/people-are-flocking-to-a-social-network-that-redistributes-90-of-ad-revenue-to-users/

Paying for YouTube: The next experiment in the TV revolution

Would you pay to watch YouTube videos, uninterrupted by advertising?

That's a question a lot of business analysts — and users — are now pondering, as reports emerge that Google's video-streaming site is in the process of launching an as-yet-unnamed monthly subscription service.  

"Probably not, I don't know if I could justify it," says Michael Senchuk, a music blogger in Edmonton. "But if it was a couple bucks a month, maybe."

• YouTube launches no-ad version for users who pay monthly fee
• TV at 75: How HBO and Netflix are forcing networks to evolve

So far YouTube has declined to confirm specifics, but early reports suggest the cost of the premium service may be $10 a month.  

Whatever the price, the effort will be yet another test of what it takes to get consumers to fork out hard-earned cash for the type of creative content that the internet once offered for free.  

'It's very hard to to go from free to a subscription mode.'- Ramona Pringle

"Netflix has proved people are willing to pay," says Duncan Stewart, a media analyst and trend forecaster with Deloitte Canada. "I'm not suggesting YouTube's success is a foregone conclusion, but I understand why they're trying it."

YouTube is already a global giant, with more than one billion users and $4 billion a year in revenue.

New streaming services

It's not the only content company trying to win over subscribers via the internet. The revolution in how people consume content is ongoing:

• Sony introduced a pay-TV service called Playstation Vue last month in three American cities;
• Dish Network launched Sling TV in January;
• HBO and Showtime are planning stand-alone services;
• Rogers and Shaw have Shomi ($8.99 a month) while Bell has Crave TV ($4 a month);
• There are reports Apple will launch a 25-channel service later this year at a rumoured cost of $20 to $40 a month.

Budget-conscious Canadians will need to add up their entertainment costs, especially now that Canada's telecom regulator has ordered that a new pick-and-pay system for cable TV customers be put in place by 2016. 

Ordering from an a la carte menu of services, including Netflix and YouTube plus specialty channels, could end up costing more than the prix fixe of a cable subscription.

Once upon a time the internet was free

Not so long ago, users believed everything on the internet should be free. 

Music, books, video games, television and movies are all industries that have seen their business models blown apart — either by pirates or via legitimate digital companies. And while Netflix, Apple and Amazon have been successful in convincing consumers to pay for online products, others have struggled.  

• CRTC rules cable companies must offer pick-and-pay channels, $25 basic package
• 5 TV streaming gadgets that will let you cut the cord

Canada's largest circulation newspaper, the Toronto Star, attempted to recover revenue lost through falling sales in 2013 by installing a paywall on its website, charging readers who opted for online news.

But a little more than a year later, the paper announced the wall will be coming down. Its digital focus will shift instead to a tablet edition.  

Netflix, which streams the political drama House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey, left, and Michael Kelly, has been successful in getting people to pay. (Netflix/ Associated Press)

"It's very hard to go from free to a subscription model," says Ramona Pringle, creative director of Ryerson University's Transmedia Zone.

"With Netflix, paying has always been the deal. With YouTube, the users are content creators as much as they're content consumers. They're part of the value proposition. That could cause some pushback against paying."

Pringle notes that the bar has been set high by other subscription models. "Netflix's House of Cards has a huge budget, and Amazon'sTransparent won at the Golden Globes."  (Transparent won best comedy and best actor, while House of Cards is both an Emmy and Golden Globes winner.)

More than cat videos

"The stuff that's going to be part of a YouTube paid service will not be kitten videos," predicts Deloitte's Stewart. He expects the service to up its game and to target specific customers.

"There are two types of users," he says.

"Big TV-watchers who want to pay as little as possible to get as much as possible, and real connoisseurs who are willing to pay more for special programming.

"I like to say that subscription television will be craft TV, in the same way we have craft beer. Just like with beer, it tends to be for those who want strong flavours. And those people may consume less, but they'll pay about the same."

Stewart recently analyzed what the world's television watchers pay on an hourly basis for different types of services.

His math was simple — take the billions of hours watched globally and stack that up against the revenues of traditional networks and subscription services.

Consumers pay less when they watch ads

His numbers show that traditional TV with advertising generates just four cents an hour, while Netflix is five times more lucrative at 20 cents an hour.

"Television with advertising tends to be cheaper on a per hour basis than television by subscription," says Stewart.

And he points out that the former president of Bell Media made a similar distinction between types of users in December, when the company launched Crave TV, its Netflix-like add-on for subscribers.  

Kevin Crull noted that 90 per cent of Canadians subscribe to TV services, and suggested cord-cutters aren't true television aficionados.  

"The 10 per cent that aren't TV subscribers, in a general sense, they're not TV lovers," Crull said.

The director of communications for Netflix has little to say about YouTube's effort.  

"If you provide content that people want to watch in a timely fashion and at a reasonable price, they will pay for it," Jonathan Friedland told CBC News.

Consumers will decide what works and what doesn't. As the American writer and internet thinker Clay Shirky observed six years ago, "that is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/paying-for-youtube-the-next-experiment-in-the-tv-revolution-1.3028271

Why Visual Content Will Explode In 2015

Over the past few years, content marketing has seen an explosive growth, and it shows no signs of slowing down. While the Internet abounds in reports and surveys that highlight this trend, I’m going to share with you two very insightful stats related to the boom:

• Content Marketing Institute’s (CMI) latest B2B Content Marketing Report shows that 70% of B2B marketers are creating more content than they did one year ago.
• According to a Forrester Research finding, content volume is growing at a rate of 200% annually.

With companies across every industry turning to content as a way to engage a new breed of buyers, we are starting to see a need for maturity and evolution in content marketing. While so many companies are now proclaiming to do content marketing, not everyone is doing it right. There’s less fresh and original content, and more rehashed stuff, which is making the online space reek of that same old regurgitated content.

Clearly, we have reached a point where the work we are doing needs to change.Change how? Various marketing gurus are prescribing various formulas for the coming year. But, I believe that change will be driven by something a handful of astute marketers are already doing: visual content. I think visual content will take center stage in content strategy, making it a critical component in 2015.

Source: Creative Commons

Breaking the Mold with Visual Content

Plain, boring text is passé; visual is in. Science reports that we respond to visual stimulation much better then optical. In the case of reading, our brain decodes visual information 60,000X faster than text. It’s not surprising that YouTube has become the 2nd largest search engine next to Google GOOGL +0.16%. Sites like Pinterest and Instagram have risen to popularity, and storytelling as the most effective branding strategy is gaining momentum. All fingers are pointing at one direction – visual content is growing bigger, and that’s where the future of content marketing is headed.

More YouTube

The rise of video as a brand marketing channel will become bigger and better than ever in 2015. Brands will flock to YouTube. What’s more compelling is that with YouTube, brands have the option of taking their influencer campaigns to a whole new level. By getting people with YouTube clout to feature in their videos, brands are sure to grab more eyeballs than before.

More SlideShare

SlideShare will become your go-to destination for repurposing existing content that you may have created for blogs, eBooks, podcasts, and more. Turning that content into sleek presentations is a great way to breathe new life into them. Not only this, presentations will make visual storytelling so much more interesting, which will have brands spending quite a lot of time on SlideShare, creating and sharing presentations with their consumers.

More Infographics

Content like infographics and data visualizations will become great alternatives to data-rich text. With infographics, you can blast out stats and facts to your audience in fun and creative ways that will keep them engaged in a way that text cannot. These visual and sharable pieces are received well. When given a choice between reading pages of text or an infographic, the infographic is sure to win out.

More Memes and Imagery

These days memes are everywhere in social media. And the trend is only going to get better in 2015. As trending hashtags like: #BreakTheInternet, #AlexFromTarget, and #Bendgate sensationalized the web, memes pushed them over the top and into the category of Internet’s latest obsession. Consumers can’t seem to get enough; so we’re going to see more of these in the coming year.

While we all know these forms of visual content aren’t new, what will be new is seeing more companies utilizing them. If you go to many company websites today, you still find written content primarily. With more options to creatively present information and upcycle older content, brands are going to be giving viewers access to the information they want in the format that they want. I predict that this explosion of visual content will be the next big wave in content marketing.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielnewman/2014/12/23/why-visual-content-will-explode-in-2015/2/

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10 Tips for being Awesome on Camera

Video has become the next big thing in personal branding — just look at the success and popularity of apps like Vine and now Instagram video. But beyond just trying to become the next YouTube sensation, people have transformed it into a great platform for job searches. Video résumés have become a way to grab the attention of potential employers, and video calls via Skype have become the norm for long distance job interviews.

Jared Matthew Weiss had a regular spot on The Today Show, a column in Shape Magazineand has consulted over 800 clients worldwide on how to reach their potential. He foundedOverture, a company that produces short, chic black-and-white videos designed to capture your story and share it with the world. The personal branding expert was kind enough to sit down and share 10 important tips that will help set your personal video apart from others.

How You Look

1. Wear Clothing That Makes You Feel Good About Yourself

Have some fun with your wardrobe and be sure it reflects your personality. Choose comfortable clothing that showcases the real “you.” To make a slightly more formal statement, a suit and tie or blouse and skirt is perfect. Keep jewelry to a minimum. Feeling good about yourself is key. And it will show.

2. Mom Was Right: Sit Up Straight

The camera exaggerates everything because there is nothing to distract the viewer. If your posture is poor, viewers will think you've checked out and lost interest. Your body should convey your energy and intelligence without being stiff and robotic.

3. Watch Your Body Language — Everyone Else Will

Weiss speaks from personal experience on this one. Throughout his first live television segment he was unaware of the fact that he was impulsively rubbing his leg to calm his nerves. Find a good place for your hands so they aren’t distracting to viewers.

4. Smile With Your Eyes

A warm and genuine smile does wonders for coming across as sincere and confident. But flashing those pearly whites is only part of the key to smiling. The eyes can dictate whether a smile is real or forced. In this case, crow’s feet can be a good thing.

How You Sound

5. Use Your Natural Voice.

While some of us admit to practicing our news anchor voices, leave that “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America” voice at home. Be yourself and speak to the camera like it was your best friend. Not only is it more natural, but it’s what people expect. You want your video to reflect who you are, not Brian Williams.

6. It’s How You Say It

You know what you’re talking about. So focus on how you deliver the goods. Pacing matters. If you rush through your spiel, you throw away your credibility. The message you deliver is: what I’m saying doesn’t really matter. Your choice of words is also key. Simple and clear beats a multisyllabic mouthful any day. Enunciate and avoid slang at all costs. Shakespeare didn’t write “ta be or not ta be, dude.”

How To Prepare

7. Look At The Camera As You Would Your Dog

Don’t be afraid of the lens — it won’t bite or even lick you. Just look into it with the love you’d give a welcoming pet at the end of the day. Don’t look around; darting eyes scream, “I’m nervous and desperately searching for the exit!” Blink naturally; excessive blinking signals a lack of sincerity. Don’t be afraid of flubs, either. That’s why we have editors.

8. Keep It Moist

Dry mouth is the enemy of talking. Get that frog out of your throat with a sip of water. Taking a water break can also be a way to step away from the camera and calm your nerves. And keep your lips moist with something other than your tongue!

9. Chill

Don’t go in front of a camera full of nerves and sweaty palms. Do whatever is necessary to help you relax — stretch, do jumping jacks, listen to music, go into the bathroom to talk to yourself. Sit in front of the camera only when you’re feeling calm, cool and collected. It will add to your confidence.

10. Breathing Is Good

Not only is it essential for life, but breathing is necessary to be awesome on camera. Take deep breaths before you go live, and continue to breathe easily when the camera’s on. If you find yourself breathing or talking too quickly, it’s time for a break.

Unless you are portraying a character or alter ego, it’s important to be yourself while on camera. This is especially true if you are using the video to market yourself. Allow you and your personality to flourish and embrace the moving frames.

http://mashable.com/2013/07/27/camera-tips/

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How to Make $300000 A month on Youtube

YouTube sent Torontonian Evan Fong this YouTube bag when he broke 10-million subscribers on the video site. (Evan Fong/Instagram)

Twenty-two-year-old Toronto native Evan Fong is about to crack the Top 25 list for most YouTube subscribers, passing Ellen DeGeneres and Justin Bieber.

And he'll do it by playing video games.

Approaching 11 million subscribers and two billion views, Fong's YouTube channelVanossGaming is part of a massive trend: a subculture of young people are tuning out of TV and are instead going online to watch other people play and talk over video games.

A source with knowledge of YouTube's payment structure estimated Fong could be making in the neighbourhood of US$300,000 a month from his videos.

"If you're really into gaming there's not really anything on TV," says Fong, who typically gets between four to 14 million views for his content daily.

"Viewers really like the authentic type of content from regular people just playing games because they can relate to that.

"And I think that's a huge reason why people prefer to watch YouTube videos. It really is a totally different experience and it's something you can't find on TV."

In a typical VanossGaming video, Fong and a group of friends chat, laugh and make jokes over gameplay from popular titles such as Grand Theft Auto V or Call of Duty: World at War.

The trend was recently lampooned in a South Park episode, which featured Swedish YouTuber Felix Kjellberg, who uses the alias PewDiePie online. Kjellberg has the most-viewed channel on all of YouTube.

When something is targeted by South Park you know it's a very big deal culturally, says Joshua Cohen, founder of the industry news outletTubefilter.com.

"It's a very good testament to how viewing habits have changed for younger generations, what's appealing to them and what makes sense for them to watch," Cohen says.

"Gamers have developed one of the most massive and ardent fan bases in the world on YouTube. It's pretty impressive."

Never expected success on YouTube

Fong dropped out of university in his second year as his YouTube channel began exploding in popularity. He says he never expected to get paid to play video games.

He launched his channel back in 2011 but didn't spend much time on it at first. He was focused on playing junior hockey and chasing a U.S. scholarship.

"In the early days I remember maybe 1,000 views was something that would be off the charts for me," Fong recalls.

"It took, I would say, about a good year and a half (to start becoming popular). It started really slow and I didn't take it really seriously. It wasn't something that I strived to do to the best of my ability like I do now."

When his hockey dreams didn't pan out he went to school full-time. His parents were understandably concerned as his YouTube channel stole more and more time from his university studies.

"It was something they weren't always fully supportive of. Even though there's a lot of potential for somebody starting a YouTube channel it's obviously not a guaranteed path. They just basically wanted to make sure I was still taking school seriously," Fong says.

"But I was very conservative. I never wanted to stop university and risk that opportunity. So what I did was I made sure I was successful enough on YouTube before I (dropped out). I probably stopped school a lot later than most full-time YouTubers did."

While his channel's growth is still meteoric, Fung is level-headed enough to know it could stall — or crash — at any time.

"Anything on the Internet can blow up and go away," he says.

"You're only as good as your last video on YouTube."

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How To Find The Right YouTube Influencers For Your Brand

Editor’s note: Polina Haryacha is a Senior Brand Manager at My.com, where she focuses on strategic brand development for video games.

Earned media is stealing the show. According to Nielsen, 84 percent of consumers say they trust peer recommendations above all other sources of advertising. According to McKinsey and Deloitte, marketing-inspired word-of-mouth generates more than twice the sales of paid advertising, while people referred by loyal customers have a 37 percent higher retention rate.

So what does earned media have to do with YouTube? It’s all about the Influencers. YouTube Influencers are more popular among U.S. teens than mainstream celebrities. And with 100 hours of video uploaded per minute and 6 billion hours of viewership per month, that means YouTube is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to marketing your message.

The secret is certainly out. Companies around the world are recognizing the advantages of leveraging YouTube Influencers and their marketing power. For example, Activision, a major video game publisher, decided to lean in to YouTube Influencers and gained 

outstanding results. Influencers’ videos about “Call of Duty” have been viewed 9.7 billion 

times to date, which is nearly 20 times the number of views for videos on the brand’s own media platforms.

Here are a few ways you can identify and connect with YouTube Influencers to partner on your next brand campaign.

Multi-Channel Networks

There are talent management agencies that will recruit YouTube Influencers and help set up a brand campaign. The most popular networks are Maker Studios, Fullscreen and Machinima. These companies reach out to their network of YouTube channels, find available talent, help to target the best Influencers for your brand, and make deals on your behalf.

They come back to you with a list of Influencers and proposed campaign concepts and project costs, which include the talent compensation and agency fees. Sometimes you will find that agencies are the only way to connect with desirable talent, as channel owners won’t get back to you directly (this is especially true for larger channels). The drawback is that often agencies do not deeply understand the nature and specific needs of your brand and simply offer partnerships with popular channels, which are not always your best bet.

Influencer Exchange Platforms

Another solution for reaching out to Influencers is using platforms that act as a virtual marketplace for connecting brands and Influencers. They are very similar to outsourcing platforms like Elance or oDesk, where people can submit projects and get proposals from freelancers. For example, self-service tool FameBit allows brands to outline their expectations for campaigns and receive proposals directly from YouTubers.

FameBit’s limitation is that there is no way to filter talent from one long list of proposals to easily find the channel with the best focus and momentum for your brand. They also have brands sign a six-month exclusivity agreement, restricting a company from entering into any deal with the Influencer to create promotional media content.

On the plus side, FameBit includes each channel’s audience age and geographic coverage data, which is critical data when trying to find the right channel for your brand.

There are other similar platforms, such as Reelio, Grapevine and Influicity but most are still in beta.

Reaching Out Directly

Brands can also connect with Influencers directly on YouTube. The majority of YouTube talents publish their business email in the channel’s “About” section. The default “Send Message” is also available. Here are some general recommendations for an intro email:

1. Demonstrate sincere interest and understanding of the channel and its audience.
2. Explain why you feel that your brand would be a good fit for the channel and how it will benefit the channel’s audience.
3. Do your research and offer something valuable to the Influencer. Depending on the stage and focus of the channel, talent may seek quality exclusive content; more exposure outside their channel (i.e. cross-promotion on your brand`s channels); consistent content updates (i.e. a series of video content), which can lead to a mutually beneficial long-term partnership; and deeper audience engagement (i.e. any interactive campaigns, contests, giveaways etc.).

If you don’t hear back from the channel owner, make sure you follow up and reach out via other sources, such as Facebook or Twitter. YouTube talents receive a ton of emails daily, and an email can easily go unnoticed or get lost in a spam folder.

Identifying the Right Talent

The most challenging element of any of these methods is to correctly identify the talent that best suits your brand and campaign goals. Studying Influencers on YouTube is extremely time-consuming and provides limited insight into the channels. Vital data like demographics, content popularity outside the channel, etc. is inaccessible. Further, there’s no convenient way to measure potential for conversion. However, there are tools that can make the selection process faster and more efficient.

OpenSlate analyzes YouTube API, social media, and media campaigns’ performance data to measure a channel’s performance. They compute all of this data and calculate scores for the following categories:

• Engagement — how actively an audience interacts with channel’s content;
• Consistency — how consistently is the channel delivering meaningful content;
• Influence — whether a channel stimulates action and audience growth; how content is shared outside the channel; and whether viewers turning into subscribers;
• Slate Score — calculated based on momentum and all the above scores.

OpenSlate also allows you to filter channels by category, geography, subject matter and level of brand safety. They reveal a channel’s demographic data and offer a keyword search and side-by-side channel comparison. As of today, OpenSlate stores data on more than 220,000 channels. However one drawback is that they do not allow you to export data outside of the platform.

Tubular is similar to OpenSlate. However they differ in the following ways: they operate with data from more than 2 million YouTube Influencers; allow data to be exported; provide a channel’s contact details and network affiliation; and provide additional info about channel’s other social media engagement.

Tubular calculates and assigns an “Influencer Score” based on a custom formula using APIs from YouTube, Twitter, web crawls and other publicly available data sources. Tubular also features another useful score called Engagement per View, similar to OpenSlate’s Engagement score.

Measuring Results

Once you find the right YouTube Influencers, you need to plan performance evaluations, set KPIs and put tracking in place. Here are some tips on which metrics you should you be measuring and how.

Campaign CPA and CPC. To measure clicks and conversions, you need to first generate tracking links. Next, you should ask the Influencer to use your tracking link within video descriptions and video annotations. For the video description, you want the link to look clean, so it is recommended to short branded links that can be generated with Bit.ly or similar tools.

Share and Share Rate. Tools like Tubular or VideoIQ can give you an idea of how popular a video is outside of YouTube itself. You can also measure the efficiency of each social media network by dividing the number of shares by the total engaged views and then multiply by 100.

Velocity. Besides the number of views, you can find more insight about video performance on a YouTube video page. Click “More – Statistics” beneath the video. There, you will find data about the video’s popularity and trending, how many times the video was shared, and how many viewers subscribed to the channel. All of these stats will help you understand how strongly your brand resonates with the channel’s audience and whether you should run more campaigns with this particular Influencer.

By strategically selecting and connecting with the right YouTube Influencer, brands have the opportunity to tap into an engaged fan base that’s growing at an unprecedented rate. Stay on top of emerging industry trends and tools to ensure you are able to leverage new marketing opportunities like this one before your competition does.

http://techcrunch.com/2014/12/31/how-to-find-the-right-youtube-influencers-for-your-brand/

YouTube’s 10 most profitable channels of 2014

There is a handful of YouTube stars making serious bank. Some are the usual celebrities, like Taylor Swift. But, according to analytics startup OpenSlate, which estimates YouTube earnings based on a formula of total monthly views and subscriptions, some of the YouTube rich are not the usual entertainment elite. DC Toys Collector, for instance, snagged an astonishing 154 million views for a first-person perspective video of an anonymous female playing with Disney toys.

We asked Openslate to send us a list of the top 10 earners of 2014. Here they are, in order (figures based on ads served, excludes other paid business and endorsement deals):

1. DisneyCollector BR (Monthly Views: 379,932,270; Estimated Annual Earning: $4,860,207.60)

DisneyCollectorBR is quite possibly the most unusual channel I’ve seen. It’s just videos of women’s hands unboxing and playing with toys.

2. TaylorSwiftVEVO (341711430 views; $4,110,788.52 earnings)

Pop queen Taylor Swift is raking in some serious YouTube dough. “Blank Spaces,” which was released just a month ago, already has over 250 million views.

3. PewDiePie (323,333,040 views; $3,998,530.32 earnings)

Swedish video game commentator PewDiePie has become a Youtube case study. His satirical take on the defunct Flappy Bird game snagged 25 million views.

4. littlebabybum (270,031,260 views; $3,462,340.80 earnings)

The Little Baby Bum channel is a compilation of pastel-colored children’s nursery rhymes. A 54 minute video, starting with Wheels on the Bus, has roughly 250 million views. This is all kinds of fascinating. Kids love watching things over and over (and over) again. It appears that the ownership model of previous generations seriously undercut the amount of money that could be made. As a kid, I’d watch some movies dozens of time. But I always owned the VHS tape, so the company made a fixed amount.

5. emimusic (254,617,170 views; $3,063,044.52 earnings)

Music label giant EMI is riding high off its portfolio of artistic giants. Check out this blast from the past, MC Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This.”

6. getmovies (225,495,870 views; $2,712,715.32 earnings)

This channel is the home of Russian children’s programming, including Masha and the Bear, a cartoon that follows in the hallowed tradition of a mischievous child and a fuzzy sidekick. An episode about porridge has over 350 million views. Who’da thunk it?

7. movieclipsTRAILERS (218,276,340 views; $2,746,876.80 earnings)

Who doesn’t love a good movie trailer? At 218 million views, very few people, evidently. This channel’s dedication to official trailers gets a whole lot of page views on the hard work of other content producers. The new Star Wars trailer alone snagged 50 million views.

8. SpinninRec (200,102,550 views; $2,516,189.52 earnings)

Have you recently popped a molly, are draped in fur, and are alone near your computer? Then this dance mix channel is for you. The electronic empire hosts music videos of household names, including Martin Garrix’s “Animals” — a video of what is basically people rhythmically licking each other behind breakdancers. It snagged a mere 440 million views.

9. WWE (189,586,350 views; $2,350,169.28 earnings)

Do you wish soap operas had more shirtless actors pile-driving one another? Then you’re probably a fan of WWE. And, judging by the page views, there are a lot of professional wrestling fans. Enjoy their most popular video below — a match of 41 people in Speedos tossing each other around a wrestling ring.

10. stampylonghead (188,905,230 views; $2,373,518.64 earnings)

Stampy is a giggly pixelated avatar that uploads daily Minecraft videos. In Stampy’s most popular video, you can watch the hero eat a virtual cake and thank one of his fans named Boo Boo Chicken. Re-read that last sentence a few times and maybe, by the 1,000th time, it’ll make sense.

To put this all in perspective, the most popular New York Times video of all time, Obama’s 2012 victory speech, got less than 10 million views. I don’t think any established publisher in their right mind could have predicted that toy unboxing and pixelated cakes would earn more than the most venerable news brands. So, it’s clear that YouTube can support content — but it’s much much different than anyone could have anticipated.

http://venturebeat.com/2015/01/02/youtubes-10-most-profitable-channels-of-2014-were-um-not-what-i-expected/