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

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

best
Jean Philippe
CEO at Startyourtube

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

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

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