Shyzer.com

Remember the post I made a month ago about viral videos and making money? Of course you do, seeing as how it’s just a few scrolls below this post since I haven’t written much lately. Anyways, it turns out there’s a website called Revver that is offering a service similar to what I proposed. Yet they’re still screwing things up.

Revver allows users to upload their homemade movies to their site, just like somebody can on YouTube. However, Revver sticks a short ad to the end of the video. Any time a visitor clicks the ad, Revver splits the profits 50/50 between themselves and the video’s creator. Sounds like a decent plan, right? Not really. My main problem with the whole self-made and viral video craze sweeping the net is that the content producers are getting hosed in the end result. They create the content, star in it, produce it, and publish it. Yet they don’t see a dime simply because YouTube or some other website hosts the video and puts their ads up, which is a problem in two ways. First, the little man isn’t seeing his fair share of the cut, which both my plan and Revver’s tries to address. However, Revver’s idea is simply to rely on traditional methods of earning money on the Internet - click through advertisements. And this only sets them up for failure.

It’s time companies start realizing that PPC (pay per click) is going the way of the banner ads. They just aren’t effective in some of the major website settings anymore. Sure, there are some cases where they can be effective (hello there, Hey, It’s Free!) but there are also times where it’s as effective as trying to put out a forest fire by spitting on it. (I’m looking at you, Shyzer!)

Think of it this way. In order to induce your visitors into clicking an advertisement, you need to have something relevant to your content. Take my previous examples for instance. With HIF, the site revolves around getting stuff from the Internet for free. That means that in order for me to use PPC ads effectively, there needs to be other freebie related sites on the Internet who want to advertise on sites that have a strong demographic in people who are looking for free stuff. Luckily for me, there are, and thus I can make a few extra dollars by people clicking on the relevant links on my site. But what if I were to put up ads for used cars? Or injury lawyers. Or anything else you can think of that has nothing to do with other sites where you could get free stuff? Well then nobody would click the ads and I wouldn’t make a dime.

So what if I wanted to put ads here on Shyzer? Who would advertise here? Other blogs? Yeah right - who is going to pay money to advertise their blog? And as I proved over the course of last year when I had them up, Google Adsense certainly doesn’t know how to match relevant ads with a blog. They were all over the place, from the best places to buy tires in Columbia to Thai restaurant reviews in Seattle. In fact, I just checked out the predicted Google Ads for this very post (which can be seen if you click the comments link and scroll down.) You know what my results were? The True Iraq (an anti-Iraq war website), Philippines Dating, Stay at Hampton Inn Hotel, and Top Trade Schools. I shit you not. Now how do ANY of those have ANYTHING to do wiht this post? Well, the reason Google has such trouble is simple. There’s no clear demographic here on Shyzer, nor is there any clear topic to match the ads with. Thus, Google just goes crazy and slaps some random ads up, meaning that putting PPC ads here on Shyzer would make as much sense as slapping a flashing banner from 1998 up there next to the logo and expecting it to convert well.

Which is why Revver’s idea is completely in the wrong direction. How are these ads at the end of the videos even relevant to the videos that are being displayed? What if I upload a video every week of my brother and I doing crazy and wacky things around our house? Or of me lip synching a Britney Spears song? Or any other number of random things that people record and then upload to the Internet? What company out there is going to have a appropriate ad? These types of videos being uploaded to media sites are just like blogs - few have any clear and consistent topic and those that do are still within a small window of similar pertinent ads.

And even if you do manage to match up a weekly video about, say, shoe fashion with an ad for NIKE, what are you going to do the next week? Most of these semi-regular videos have fairly high visitor retention numbers, which means the 2nd week and each week thereafter, you are faced with people who have already seen this NIKE ad during the first week. Are they going to click it a 2nd time? A 3rd? How about three months later? So now you have to keep finding not only relevant ads, but NEW relevant ads every time a new video is released! Talk about fun!….

With the way the PPC market is right now, I’m surprised Revver would even build a site around it. Heck, Google just settled a lawsuit regarding fraudulent clicks with their Adsense PPC program and one against Yahoo isn’t far behind. It just seems absurd to me that instead of setting up a system like I proposed, they’d go with PPC and stupid, non-relevant, big corporation ads at the end of viral media. That’s the whole point of viral media!! People creating what they want instead of relying on TV and movies to provide it. So then why would you assume the viewers would want to watch a freaking commercial at the end of the video, even if it’s short? If I’m watching something and once it’s finished, an ad start, I simply turn it off. It’s not rocket science we’re dealing with here.

I’ll give Revver props for realizing content creators would be attracted to a system where they get a piece of the pie. I’ll even go so far as to say that unless some other website starts where they implement an idea similar to mine, Revver will last. But trust me, as soon as that Shyzicorp website launches and people see how much more money they can make simply by ditching the ads at the end of their video and charging a mere penny per video, they’ll flock to that site and Revver will die a quick and painful death.