Utube Followup: They monetized their website (Like I said they should)

Breaking news, Utube has succumbed to the better option (ie: my advice) and monetized their website with a search bar at the top of their homepage. Now you can get instant access to all the wonderful world of poker / dating & xtreme travel.

At least utube have chosen a smart, professional looking & unobtrusive option without losing too much integrity. The search bar only appears on the homepage & search pages. The only problem with this approach is that it appears this type of monetization doesn’t quite cash in on the video traffic they will be recieving. Thereare no video links or other various other video-targeted strategies I would have imagined. For example, if we were searching for a video of the latest internet hype, Chaccaron, the netflix results return a terrible no results page instead of something that may direct me to a video site, any video site. The only other results I get from searching with utube are Poker ads, which are like the scourge of the internet (even if they do pay well).

I think utube has succeeded in the look & feel of their monetizing efforts, but the execution will leave a lot to be desired. At the end of the day if they leave it like this, they wont make nearly as much money as I predicted they could.

UTube, YouTube & Missed Opportunities

It has come to my attention the company who owns utube.com is sueing YouTube!

From here via drmike:

YouTube is being sued by an industrial equipment maker whose domain name is Utube.com. Universal Tube and Rollform Equipment said it has been deluged by confused video searchers causing numerous crashes of its site and costing it business. The company’s site once drew a steady 1,500 unique users monthly, Utube said, but that figure has soared to some 2 million per month in recent weeks.

This almost makes me extremely angry. I honestly dont know what UTube are thinking here. Something tells me they heard Google bought YouTube out for billions of dollars and somehow they saw dollar signs in their own eyes. It’s not hard to see how this could happen, they just don’t know how truly stupid they are – for a number of reasons.

1. Sueing Google for this is… well… Stupid.

Do I really need to explain how big Google is. But it’s not just theie size that’s a worry. Try the fact that they are complete and utter experts in the web AND technology AND law. If you are suing for something like this, I’d almost compare this with trying to sue Russia. No matter how good UTube’s their argument is, Google will get out of this quite easily.

2. Monetising Your Website means money… lots of it.

I don’t think UTube realise how much cash they would make if they did the following 3 simple steps:

• Moved their corporate website to utubellc.com or something
  (Keep in mind they can still keep their emails on utube.com and also even place a banner to redirect existing clients to their new website)
• Place their website on a domain sponsor page
  or actually develop a small video/media website with ads.
  or even place a one page website with a carefully chose ppc (pay per click) or affiliate program

They could make so much damn money.

For instance…. they are claiming to have 2,000,000 visitors a month. Now lets say they found & utilised a targeted video advertising campaign that gave them 10 cents a click. Keep in mind this is a very very conservative number considering I have basic websites on Google Adsense that can earn up to $1 dollar a click.

Ok now lets just say that conservatively 25% of users clicked through. This all depends on how well the ad is targeted & integrated into the website. I personally believe you could achieve 75% with the right advertising but for now lets say 25%.

Based on the above very conservative calculations, utube.com could make $50,000 in the first month. Not to mention traffic could (and WILL) grow, you could (and WILL be able to) find a better affiliate program in time. This is so scalable as well, for instance 50cents/click at 50% click through at the current rate would mean 10 times this amount: $500,000. This is half a million dollars a month if they play their cards right.

Now I don’t know how large this company is, but honestly how important is a website on a particular domain for a TUBING company. I mean c’mon! An extra 6 million dollars/year revenue is nothing to sneeze at. Especially for just being in the right place at the right time. Not to mention I highly doubt they could settle this at court for any amount near the potential yearly income.

Also don’t forget this will solve their problem with bandwidth issues yet they can still have a reputable website & their email addresses need not change.

Conclusion

I think the best way to look at this would be to compare it to having a Fish & Chip shop on a quiet area of town. Then all of a sudden that part of town gets extremely busy & everyone in the town all of a sudden needs Gummi Bears, and you get lots of people coming into the Fish & Chip store asking for Gummi Bears because you now have the best location in town. You have the option to move out of the busy suburb & keep your current store (being able to convert it into a Gummi bear store or at least refer people to a good gummi bear store for kickbacks). What would you do? What… would you do?

What about non-contextual advertising & how to capture bad attention

…and the power of unexpected advertising.

Google makes so much money from “contextual advertising.” This basically means they serve (somewhat) relevant advertisements to users based on what they are searching for or looking at on other websites. This was a good idea at the time of conception and it’s proved to be extremely successful & profitable for Google and a lot of their advertisers.

But, Is “Related Content” enough?

Many have speculated over Google’s ability to make money in the future & if contextual advertising is enough to sustain the company. I often though these concerns weren’t very valid with Google being an 800 pound gorilla who is completely dominating online search & online advertising. I mean lets face it, it’s their cashcow and they don’t have a another similar sized income stream to fall back on.

Enough about Big G though, what about YOU!

I don’t know about you but I quite like stumbling upon things I don’t know existed and various things I would not normally find out about. I mean cmon, that’s what advertising is all about isn’t it?

So lets explore different methods of getting to people. Like setting up a fake youtube user called lonelygirl15 and making random videos and decieving the viewers that it is a real girl out there somewhere… yeah.. right. Interesting example though. It’s a slippery slope when you start tricking your users though.

Different is Better than “Better”

Seth has it right when he says:

When you make something that works a little better, you're playing the same game, just keeping up with the status quo. When you make something different, on the other hand, you're trying to change the game.

Instead of creating something just that little bit better, why not try an innovate? Why not do something no one else is doing? It will be a lot more fulfilling for yourself and your business.

A new Google PageRank update?

It seems today (April 6) that Google has done another PageRank update across the board. Naturally I went over to Matt Cutt's blog to see if there was a post about anything but left with an April Fools joke that he is moving to Yahoo. The next stop for me is naturally SitePoint and it seems it's true. Google has updated their pagerank.

The changes

This site has only been up a few months and I have gone from PR0 to a PR6, which is fantastic. This also seems to be the case with a few other SitePoint users. What seems strange though, is Google seems to be giving blogs and real content based and organically linked websites higher priority now more than ever. I mean a PR6 is quite a high PR especially for a new site so I don't see why it would be any other way. Previously, to get such a PageRank you would have to be linked by multiple PR7's (I think I have one PR6 link and a lot of lower ones).

What will the "Internet Marketing" industry do?

This really is going to be quite a shock for a lot of "internet marketers" who have built their websites up with link farms and link exchanges because it just goes to show these really aren't going to make a dent in the future for rankings. They've been saying this for a long time now but I think with this last Google update it's really proved itself.

On the other hand…

Some are saying it's either a hoax or pagerank is bouncing around. This blog doesn't have a load of traffic at all which leads me to consider these points.

Nonetheless, I am happy

UPDATE: A few others are actually posting their experiences on the latest post on Matt's blog. One even said his rank went from 0 to 8 unexpectedly with 6 backlinks. Strange.

Your Beta Better Be Brilliant

This is a letter to all companies creating new and innovative software and releasing it to the public. I just have to make this clear.

I happen to be very interested in new and innovative technology and in particular, software. Although I think the whole “Web2.0″ bandwagon is a lot of hot air, it is still pushing a lot of people to create better applications for users in more ways than we knew possible. This in turn creates a greater user experience for users and the web a better place for people to be.

The Web2.0 Bubble has only really started but look at the competition

It is just getting ridiculous the amount of Web2.0 companies out there and even worse is the fact that 99% of them are in “Beta” phase or even less. Now fair enough if being in Beta is one of the traits of Web2.0 due to the fact you can change your application at any time and adapt and move and evolve.

This however, can be your downfall if you don’t play it right.

So what are all of these companies doing wrong?

To put it simply; it’s one thing to gather input from users and model your application based on their feedback, it’s another thing to do this at the users expense by exposing them to something that’s just not quite right.

That dont impressa me much.

The real reason why I am writing this is because – on numerous occasions recently – I have come back to re-download or re-signup to a service that I have used before in Beta stage. The reason I came back is because I know I have used it and I know it can get the job done the quickest way possible. Upon first use of these products they really didnt impress me much. But wait! All of a sudden I am using them again and I rediscover how great they are plus they are stable and are just generally impressive.

I’ll let you in on a little secret. People don’t want to do what they have to do or use what they have to use… they want to be amazed by something, they want to be engaged by something. For those who disagree with me, you just don’t know it yet.

Developers, you need to ask yourself…

By letting people in on our beta is there a chance of destroying initial interest in our product?

Is it better to do demos and screencasts etc until the date when we can release something substatial and impressive.?

What can we do (marketing wise) to innovate and keep people interested instead of exposing some buggy software.

The Bottom Line

If someone sees something impressive, they will use it, they will continue using it and they will rave about it. People are getting smarter on the internet and if you disappoint them with your initial offerings, it is definately a bad marketing move on your part. Even in such a fast paced world you still need to sit back and work out the best way to do these things.

WikiPedia’s Influence

You will most likely know that if you post up good content on the internet that it will be well recieved by readers. You may also know that if you are one of the first to do this (and if you do this regularly) you will recieve first option on gaining a link from anyone and everyone who subsequently writes about this topic. This can get you a lot of traffic to your web site. Then there’s getting a link from wikipedia. The results are amazing.

Seth Godin posts about how much traffic he gained from recieving a prominent link on a WikiPedia article. Seth, for those who don’t know is one of the leading marketing guys out there these days so it’s not hard to see why his popularity will gain exponentially.