Create Your Own YouTube, Pray You Can Make Money

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1. Keirnan
   

   April 24th, 2008 at 2:00 pm

   I love this site. It has enabled me to finally give some well deserved exposure to the series of short films about Nitzche I made back in college. Other small enlightenment-philosopher-themed videos have already started to pour in. Kudos on the review.

2. Mark Hendrickson
   

   April 24th, 2008 at 2:02 pm

   And kudos to you too, Keirnan. Except that you misspelled Nietzsche.

3. Michael
   

   April 24th, 2008 at 2:05 pm

   We’ve worked with some of these guys before. They’ve used our database to get a comparable valuation to have some ammo when pitching potential investors.

4. Patrick Hutch
   

   April 24th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

   read the terms of service my brotha, they’re not as altruistic as one might think at first glance. Making money here will require more than prayer, it’ll require an upgrade plan!

   12. Pricing, Starting, ending and billing.
   • 12.1 Price .
   Upgrade plan listed as follow

   *Basic 4 000 views including 500 videos and 1000 blogs for a monthly fee of 9.95$

   *Premium 20 000 views including 2 000 videos and 5 000 blogs for a monthly fee of 49.85$
   extra extension blocs listed as follow

   *Bloc1 10 000 views including 1000 videos and 1000 blogs for a monthly fee of 24.95$

   *Bloc 2 50 000 views including 5 000 videos and 10 000 blogs for a monthly fee of 99.95$

   *Bloc 3 100 000 views including 20 000 videos and unlimited blogs for a monthly fee of 124.95$

5. Ivan
   

   April 24th, 2008 at 2:07 pm

   TC I would have loved it if my xyztube wasn’t taken. Great site but I would say you guys were late on this startup. It has reached critical mass for me already.

6. johng
   

   April 24th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

   “no perceivable revenue source for the owners.”

   Sure there is. Click Upgrade Your Plan: voila. BasicPlan for $9.95/ month; Premium Plan for 49.85 / month

7. johng
   

   April 24th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

   beat me to it, Patrick.

8. Soso Sazesh
   

   April 24th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

   Your crunchbase link leads to shareyourtube, not startyourtube. Also, do you know where they are located within the US?

9. YouYap
   

   April 24th, 2008 at 2:08 pm

   Do you think this is going to get anywhere?
   Youtube is been powered by Google money.

10. Your Daddy
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 2:20 pm

    Brilliant!

11. Chris
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 2:23 pm

    Who’s behind it?

12. YouYap.com
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    Anyone know how i can get on TechCrunch Forums. It not sending registration email confirmation and no way to TechCrunch Forums.

13. Vinay
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 2:45 pm

    Thanks Mark for letting us know about this site. indeed I was searching for a such a service until today. I previous had a small video sharing for sports but couldn’t make it big because - Lack of Resource and Maintenance. this sounds promising..! I am giving it a try and if it goes as planned .. will report back here!

    The site looks great and good service.. hope it stays for long!

    Cheers,
    Vinay

14. Bryan Migliorisi
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 2:52 pm

    @YouYap

    We are experiencing a problem on the forums right now and we are looking into solutions. Lok me up on the forums (Bryan) and drop me an email - you can find my address there - and I will let you know when we get things back to normal.

15. Vinay
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

    Pricing details if you manage to upgrade is listed here http://www.startyourtube.com/pricing.php !! The views and hosted videos are limited though for free.. and annoying ads of their site displayed on your branded site.

    Just changed my name server to reflect my account at this site.. took just 2 minutes to get it done and site is already live! :O !! Thats fast!!

16. Steve
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 2:56 pm

    @14: Get a life you nazi.

    On topic: 4000 views is nothing, I wonder how many will pay for the service.

17. Correction
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

    Typical TechCruch, not doing their homework or even clicking through the site. Users don’t keep 100% of ad revenue (only 60%), it took me two clicks to see this (http://www.startyourtube.com/about.php):

    Site Design
    Upload your logo or picture
    Create a top header on your own
    Choose from various colors schemes
    Use your own domain name
    Advertise and earn get 60% on of ad revenues earned on Your Tube
    Copy/paste ad code feature

    C’mon Mark, geez.

18. Steve
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

    Oops @14: Sorry Bryan, not for you, it was another post, got deleted.

19. Shafqat
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

    @12 I hear ya. I tried registering for the forum as well, twice. No email back - i figured it went to my spam, but apparently not. Anyone from TC want to take a look?

20. Megan
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

    For whatever reason, it wouldn’t give me a license if I said I was in Canada? Da hell??

21. Mark Hendrickson
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 3:09 pm

    #17 Correction - Hmmm something’s fishy; their press release most definitely claimed 100%:

    “StartYourTube.com has taken the next step in the evolution of video sharing and social networking. StartYourTube.com is giving users full ownership and control of their own custom video and blog sites along with 100 percent control of advertising and revenue.”

22. bflora
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 3:15 pm

    never trust a startup that won’t put names and faces behind it.

23. Andrew
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

    I hate to say it, but this startup sort of looks like garbage. I went through the process of creating an account, and interacting with the administrative interface. It’s bloated and confusing. Seems like a gimmicky piece of trash.. There are certainly better solutions that rock a much more intuitive and less cluttered experience for both the user and the administrator.

    Ew.

24. Leonid S. Knyshov
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 3:46 pm

    Hmm…

    Not too terrible as far as pricing is concerned. I am looking at working with Ooyala for one of my projects (8 cents per hour works out to $160/mo for 2000 hours based on average video size of 6 minutes), but this pricing is far more attractive ($49.95 vs. $160). Unfortunately, they want to have the cake and eat it too (revenue split).

    Hence, Ooyala wins (no revenue split aspirations, ability to deliver a premium ad-free product, and backlot is quite sophisticated).

    However, this article is still inaccurate.

    Here is what my brief review of their site indicates:

    Free level of service - 60/40 revenue split (hi Revver!), ads, 10000 pageview limit.
    Premium level of service - ability to turn off ads, advertising manager (but needs more clarification - are they still aspiring for the 60/40 split, in which case it’s a prototype stage service for us but then we’ll be parting ways).

    In this incarnation, they are not asking for a license to use my content in their marketing. Either some lawyer is asleep at the wheel, or they are actually caring about my rights for a change.

    Overall, we’ll sign up and see what happens. If I can accomplish some of what I planned to do with Ooyala and its siblings, it certainly sounds very attractive.

    Thank you for the very timely article!

25. EH
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 4:18 pm

    Loss-leader as startup idea.

26. Vinay
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 6:06 pm

    @Mark #21

    “100 percent control of advertising and revenue” — doesn’t mean they give you 100% of revenue.. it just means you have complete control.. a mis-leading press release though but you shouldn’t have just depended on the PR. should have browsed around the site!

    Also the title of the post is vague..!! Simple and Sweet.. “YouTube in few clicks” or “Setup your YouTube in few clicks”… the RSS reader was dieing for space to display the title! Lol! Just few cents to spice it up!

    Cheers!

27. Ajay
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 6:42 pm

    this site is really worse
    have u tried it
    i am getting all sorts of porn video and images after registration

28. Same
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 7:17 pm

    This is a spam website. I signed up for it and it said “You told us your Tube will have Adult Content - this is allowed on an affiliate site, ZazzleTube.com but not on StartYourTube.com. Your account has been created there.”. I didnt even choose adult content.

29. Backdoor
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 7:52 pm

    Hey Folks Here’s a really Hot tube site –> http://www.StagTube.com

30. Paul
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 9:46 pm

    I really think they are the Ning of YouTube they have a similar model: freemium distribution and 9,95$ to get rid of the ads and the powered by at the bottom. I think they can grow quickly because they don’t own the content or the site so they are considered as an hosting provider and don’t have the YouTube legal responsibility of the content. Imagine if 30 000 people start their own tube in their basement and put some illegal content it will be tought to control the IP…

31. Ryan
    

    April 24th, 2008 at 10:32 pm

    I just saw an article on them they are from Montreal and they have an interesting track record http://montrealtechwatch.com/2.....r-youtube/ they are backed by Neotech Capital a mix between Y Combinator and Idealab.

32. Raja Devanathan
    

    April 25th, 2008 at 5:26 am

    Whichever way you look at it, this provides more avenues for illegal (TV shows etc) to spring up onto the internet. Part of the problem is that many countries lag behind USA tv show time slots, which means more and more people are turning into sites such as this to see tv shows, and movies which would otherwise they would have to wait until ages. http://www.mrfeedback.net

33. Sean Morrow (From StartYourTube)
    

    April 25th, 2008 at 7:19 am

    Over 500 Tubes created overnight – Thanks Tech Crunch!

    We’re really happy to see the dialogue going back and forth between members of the TC community.

    We’ve noticed some confusion around the advertising model and wanted to clear it up. In fact, users have complete control over what revenue model they would like to choose (and therefore how much they earn). A completely free Tube entitles the Tuber to 60% of the ad impressions on his or her Tube. If you upgrade to either of the membership levels (Basic, $9.95 or Premium, $49.95), you earn from 100% of the advertising impressions.

    In all cases, the Tube owner (you) chooses which ad network he wants to use. If you upgrade, you can also choose not to show ads and use the space for what you choose.

    We provide a platform where Tube owners can decide exactly when they want to upgrade – for some Tubers, that happens after they have enough traffic (and ad revenue) to support the upgrade cost. Other Tubers upgrade immediately because of other benefits like larger disc storage space or removing the “Powered by” mention. Companies, for instance, can integrate the Tube into their own website and they wouldn’t necessarily want that mention.

    I’m hoping that helps to clear things up. If you have other thoughts, comments or questions, contact us and we’ll be happy to respond! (http://www.startyourtube.com/contact.php)

    Sean Morrow,
    Vice President, Marketing, StartYourTube.com
    StartYourTube is supported by the Neotech Ventures Innovation Hatchery
    http://www.NeotechVentures.com

34. Wahid
    

    April 25th, 2008 at 9:55 am

    Bonsoir Sean Morrow,

    Congratulation, StartYourTube’s business model will work great from a financial point of view. Your startup will make more money than YouTube simply because your earnings depend on subscriptions and from the 40% advertising revenues which your subscribers generate.

    I like the fact that even free network creators earn money with their video site on your platform by giving them 60% of the generated ad revenues on their site. I don’t get anything from Ning when I run a free social network there.

    What I like most on your and Ning’s business model is that you don’t get any legal problems because of the content hosted on your servers as you are just a webhost which also provides widgets for its members. So in case there is illegal content on your servers, then the owner of that video site gets the legal problems.

    This is one reason why I turned off the video functionality of my social network on Ning. I just cannot control who uploads content that is either illegal or which is violating other companies licenses and copyrights. Also I cannot know what content is illegal and what content is violating copyrights. I don’t know all the songs and videos of the world which are free and which are not free.

    By giving even your free members part of the advertising revenues you automatically get their real identity. So in case there is illegal content on the video network of your subscriber and the subscriber did not reveal his identity on his site and the law enforcement contacts you, you can easily email the subscriber’s bank account and his name and address to police.

    With other words: You pocket the money (40% of ad revenues) and you keep that money even when it turns out that it was generated on a network of your subscriber who has content which violates copyrights and other licenses.

    So you are not only on the save side from a legal perspective, but also from the financial side.

    Also your company benefits from Ning’s first mover status: Ning is already worth half a billion dollar mainly because the founder could convince investors that his business model will work great. Your company StartYourTube.com saves the money to employ such an expensive guy like Marc Andreesen and at the same time it can easily know its valuation by considering at how much Ning is valued with how many free and paid subscribers and networks.

    YouTube will continue to exist and earn some money with ads placed in users’ videos, but YouTube will not make nearly as much money as StartYourTube will make in a year or in two years.

    I feel very strongly that with the launch of companies like Ning and StartYourTube Web 3.0 has begun.

    If StartYourTube executes well and ensures excellent customer service towards its network creators like Ning does, then you no longer need to worry about the catastrophic financial situation in America. Ning and StartYourTube will even benefit from a bad economy because people will turn to social networks and video sites and want to make money there. We have learned that from eBay in the past.

    Ning and StartYourTube will become the eBay of social networks. Ning’s and StartYourTube’s blog about networks on their platform will get the status that Techcrunch has. Network creators would want to be presented in that blog and being mentioned there will generate lots of page impressions with the consequence that the number of new members increases exponentially.

    Facebook will continue to exist, but it will not be worth as much as it is currently, namely 15 billion dollar. Mark Zuckerberg should have cashed in before Facebook’s valuation goes down.

    The Web 2.0 social network Facebook will have to be compared with the pioneers of the Web 3.0 social network platform providers Ning and StartYourCompany. By next year the old Marc (Andreesen) will have proven the young Mark (Zuckerberg) that he has built a money generator whereas Zuckerberg has built a Zuckerberg (=German name, stands for sugar mountain) and sugar melts. Sugar is a molecule made from hydrogen, oxygen and carbon, the molecules are bound together by hydrogen bonds and low force van der Waals forces. So with little energy its possible to melt the sucrose (~191°C). Ning’s and StartYourCompany’s van der Waals forces are strong as each member who creates a social network creates and attracts more members and these members are active.

    Yes, Facebook, Orkut, Friendster & all the others have millions of members. But what do the members really get? A number telling them how much page impressions their profile have generated. Friendship requests. Free widgets from third-party companies. Thanks, but this is nothing for me. That’s even nothing for these Web 2.0 social networks like Facebook because they don’t make sufficient money to cover the costs. These platforms exist because Zuckerberg & Co. could sell numbers worth nothing to investors for a lot of money. It’s the same trick like in the late 90s when Dotcoms without a working business model went public and with the money they generated in the stock market they financed their costs. This game only worked until the stock markets collapsed and their stocks turned into penny stocks. Their money machine stopped to exist. These companies had to learn that money has to be generated by selling products and services and that without that they won’t exist. Selling numbers (like how many members their social network has) to investors only works as long as investors think they could sell their shares to another company for a higher price. This won’t work anymore. We can see that in the housing market in USA. People bought houses at a high price because the prices went up for a long time. The prices went up because this was a game. Now people have lost their houses because they are less worth than the price they agreed to pay. The banks took over their houses and thereby the banks have lost as much money as never before in the history of economics. That ha the effect that there won’t be investors who would continue to pour money into Web 2.0 companies like Facebook. Facebook doesn’t and won’t make enough money to cover its costs or to justify its astronomical valuation. Social networking platforms are the same like houses in the offline world. It will be interesting to observe that on the one side people lose their houses because they cannot pay them anymore, on the other side Web 2.0 social networking websites like Facebook lose active members. The profiles of many members may continue to exist, but the members won’t be active on such websites anymore simply because they don’t make money there. It’s the money, stupid!

    eBay never suffered financially, it was profitable from the start of operation simply because its members were making money on the platform.

    Ning and StartYourCompany make money from the start as well. These Web 3.0 companies will make more money once all the members from Facebook, Orkut, Friendster and Co. create their own social network on their platform. I call it the “swarm effect”. How much money do you pay when you go out with your friends? The price that you pay to Ning per month is what you pay for an hour with your friends in a pub. So you won’t mind paying US$25,- per month. Considering the weak dollar towards other currencies like the Euro this monthly fee is not worth mentioning for users outside of USA. There are over 100 million members on other social networks like Facebook, Orkut, Friendster. Those who are active and even those who are less active, but still take a look at other people’s profiles from time to time because they have friends there will create their own social network and personalize it by paying the monthly fees to Ning. They can see how much money they are making with their social network and as soon as they notice that they make more money than what they pay for their social network to Ning, they will become enthusiastic. They will understand that for the first time they can make money instantly through social networking.

    On eBay members can only make money by selling goods. On Ning and StartYourTube members will be able to make money through online entertainment.

    The e-commerce market will benefit a lot as the online entertainment market is huge, but in the past it was only served by big media companies who pocketed all the money. Now because of Ning and StartYourTube members can easily and quickly make money by entertaining people on their own social network. Each social network on Ning and StartYourTube will be like the page on eBay where you sell something. Here the difference is that you entertain your members to make money. That’s social and fun.

    eBay is exciting because of the auction format, but as soon as your product is sold, the game is over. The guy who bought your stuff won’t see you again in most cases. That’s an inefficiency which Ning has solved with its service. Once you have won a member on your social network, you can keep him. It’s up to you how active you want your members to be. If you entertain your members well, then they will stay active. If you don’t, then at least the profiles, pictures, videos and other content of your members stay on your social network. You can regard your social network as your personal rich-content gallery then. If there is good content, your social network will continue to make money even if the members are not active because you can monetize the content by yourself through other means.

    Where can I send my cheque and get a few percent of your soon-to-be multibillion dollar company, Sean Morrow? If your company would be listed in the stock market, I would pour 40% of my money (because you like to get 40% only ;-)) into your company, and 60% into Ning.

    At least in a year or two I can claim that I was the first person on Techcrunch to have forecasted that StartYourTube and Ning will become a multimillion dollar companies and why it will benefit so much.

    Please change the name StartYourTube into someting else. I can help you in finding te right name if you want. Your money-generator doesn’t need to be linked to the money-burner YouTube because of the name you have chosen.

    Au revoir to Montreal,

    Wahid

35. john
    

    April 25th, 2008 at 10:19 am

    google reader doesn’t link to the original site, and even links in the blog post stay within the google domain. annoying! i think its b/c i was on a mobile phone, but i made it over here …

36. Jeff McCord
    

    April 25th, 2008 at 11:14 am

    This site was HORRIBLE! I am so angry that I just created my own “tube” channel!!! I want it deleted and now I can’t.

    Horrible user interface, horrible architecture, horrrible!!!!!!!!!!

37. jean philippe Gousse (from startyourtube)
    

    April 25th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

    Sorry Jeff that you found it horrible, we are constantly working in improving our service. All you have to do to cancel it is to log in using the Update Profile image and click on the cancel button.

    best
    Jean Philippe
    CEO at Startyourtube

38. Joe Lopp
    

    April 26th, 2008 at 12:20 am

    Anyone got the balls to “startyourownpornchannel.com” ?

    Too late Youtube has already got there first! Again, I am thrawted! Drat!

39. Tal
    

    April 26th, 2008 at 7:39 am

    also check http://www.imcandy.com

    Videos with a unique structure; They share video creators with 30% of video-ads cost.

40. Z-Portal.uni.cc
    

    April 26th, 2008 at 11:18 am

    I signed up and tried to set my domain and MX record to my domain and MX server, but it won’t save!

41. Balls
    

    April 26th, 2008 at 9:03 pm

    Hi Joe Lopp,
    I got balls Mann, I just started my own channel http://www.StagTube.com
    Enjoy boys! :0

42. luis
    

    April 27th, 2008 at 1:15 am

    Wahid
    Talking about sites like ning. Maybe you would like to try http://www.rsitez.com. We don’t have Marc Andreesen to raise $44M but we still manage to have a powerful software that allow network creators to keep all the money from Ads for a fee of $29/month (reasonable right?). Let me know if you want a demo or just go to the site to check it out. We love to have all the money Ning has to create a lot more of cool features but for now we are happy to continue a good alternative and making happy to customers that don’t go with big pockets ning…

43. Mo
    

    April 28th, 2008 at 3:20 pm

    Interesting concept - they provide a list of countries to select from, but like Megan @20 said - won’t work in Canada. Why not just eliminate the list?!