Stumbling around the Internet looking for possible freelance work, I found a site called Metacafe. Its model is simple. You upload original videos. If enough people watch, you get paid.
And if you show people how to snag free electricity, you make enough to pay for a nice vacation.
Metacafe says it pays $5 for every thousand views a video gets. It has to reach 20,000 views before payment starts. It also must have a rating of 3.00 or higher. Kip "Kipkay" Kedersha has mastered the craft, according to Metacafe's list of top earners:
1. Kipkay - $122,152
2. Liv Films - $55,088
3. fishinglivebait - $45,138
4. massagenerd - $39,196
5. shootingeggs - $30,533
6. Reel Stunts - $29,079
7. jeff3230 - $28,903
8. maverick99 - $26,059
9. spacepaintings - $25,471
10. loup226 - $23,386
Kedersha swears by Metacafe on his website, which also includes his videos since Metacafe does not demand exclusivity.
It's not a way to get rich quick. The video above took 540,000 views to earn Kipkay $2,700. It takes a while to build an audience and you have to have more than one hit to make a decent payday. But once a video catches on, it keeps making you money.
It's another way enterprising people are putting video cameras to profitable use.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Alligator Hearts Garbage Truck
I kid you not.
This was my latest story for zootoo.com. An alligator at a Sarasota attraction called Jungle Gardens lets loose a bellow every time the trash truck makes a pickup at the park.
I didn't even think this was a zootoo-type of story. I sent it to my editor for grins and she wrote back telling me to pursue it.
Best of all, editors made virtually no changes to the text version of the story I submitted and the video version survived completely unscathed.
That means, of course, that if you don't like it, it's entirely my fault.
Feedback on ZooToo.com has been mixed. A lot of people got the humor but some did not. They felt sorry for the lonely gator. Alligators don't need playmates.
Perhaps I should have pointed out that this one came from an alligator farm. If she wasn't at the park, she'd be someone's wallet.
And from the small world department: Les Smith, the anchor who introduced this piece, worked for more than 20 years in Norfolk, Va, including the two years I worked there in the early 1990s. I wonder if he recognized my name as he read it.
This was my latest story for zootoo.com. An alligator at a Sarasota attraction called Jungle Gardens lets loose a bellow every time the trash truck makes a pickup at the park.
I didn't even think this was a zootoo-type of story. I sent it to my editor for grins and she wrote back telling me to pursue it.
Best of all, editors made virtually no changes to the text version of the story I submitted and the video version survived completely unscathed.
That means, of course, that if you don't like it, it's entirely my fault.
Feedback on ZooToo.com has been mixed. A lot of people got the humor but some did not. They felt sorry for the lonely gator. Alligators don't need playmates.
Perhaps I should have pointed out that this one came from an alligator farm. If she wasn't at the park, she'd be someone's wallet.
And from the small world department: Les Smith, the anchor who introduced this piece, worked for more than 20 years in Norfolk, Va, including the two years I worked there in the early 1990s. I wonder if he recognized my name as he read it.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Cable TV Wars
Interesting article in the St. Petersburg Times about how a local cable company is using its local 24-hour news channel as a weapon in its fight against a burgeoning rival.
Bay News 9 appears on Bright House Network in this market. BN9 is still characterized by the same automaton delivery its anchors have used since its founding in 1997.
Its uniformly personality-absent approach makes it the Muzak of local news. It serves as inoffensive background noise for doctors and dentists who don't want to subject waiting patients to game shows, soaps or any of the Judge Judy/Joe/Tom/Dick/Harry shows.
It has fans, gaining an audience in the morning that rivals that of at least two of the broadcast affiliates that do news.
A few years ago, Verizon began offering its cable TV service, called FiOS. Fiber optic cables, Verizon claims, give FiOS superior picture quality and more HD channels than mere cable as well as more bandwidth for Internet customers.
If it weren't for customer service problems, many deriving from Verizon's inability to meet demand, a two year contract (Bright House does not require one), and prices only marginally lower than Bright House's, Verizon might have encroached on more of Bright House's turf than it has.
Times Business Columnist Robert Trigaux theorizes that Bright House's biggest "differentiator," as he calls it, in its effort to fend off Verizon is Bay News 9.
Questions I have are:
How much of Bay News 9's costs are supported by advertising versus how much is subsidized by Bright House because BN9 serves as a differentiator?
How large a market share would Verizon's cable services have to capture before Bright House could no longer afford its own news department?
If I'm Verizon, I don't consider starting my own news channel yet; I try to win customers with picture quality, price and service -- including addressing the concerns mentioned above -- and wait for BN9 to fold.
THEN I'd launch my local news product -- if I thought it would differentiate me from any future challengers.
I don't know what that tipping point would be or how close Verizon could be to reaching it but it will be interesting to watch the contest.
(Strangely, Bay News 9 is on channel 6 in Pasco County.)
Bay News 9 appears on Bright House Network in this market. BN9 is still characterized by the same automaton delivery its anchors have used since its founding in 1997.
Its uniformly personality-absent approach makes it the Muzak of local news. It serves as inoffensive background noise for doctors and dentists who don't want to subject waiting patients to game shows, soaps or any of the Judge Judy/Joe/Tom/Dick/Harry shows.
It has fans, gaining an audience in the morning that rivals that of at least two of the broadcast affiliates that do news.
A few years ago, Verizon began offering its cable TV service, called FiOS. Fiber optic cables, Verizon claims, give FiOS superior picture quality and more HD channels than mere cable as well as more bandwidth for Internet customers.
If it weren't for customer service problems, many deriving from Verizon's inability to meet demand, a two year contract (Bright House does not require one), and prices only marginally lower than Bright House's, Verizon might have encroached on more of Bright House's turf than it has.
Times Business Columnist Robert Trigaux theorizes that Bright House's biggest "differentiator," as he calls it, in its effort to fend off Verizon is Bay News 9.
Questions I have are:
How much of Bay News 9's costs are supported by advertising versus how much is subsidized by Bright House because BN9 serves as a differentiator?
How large a market share would Verizon's cable services have to capture before Bright House could no longer afford its own news department?
If I'm Verizon, I don't consider starting my own news channel yet; I try to win customers with picture quality, price and service -- including addressing the concerns mentioned above -- and wait for BN9 to fold.
THEN I'd launch my local news product -- if I thought it would differentiate me from any future challengers.
I don't know what that tipping point would be or how close Verizon could be to reaching it but it will be interesting to watch the contest.
(Strangely, Bay News 9 is on channel 6 in Pasco County.)
Who Knew?
No, not, as United Press International reports, that David Letterman would turn news of his recent marriage into a top ten list.
The news to me was that UPI still exists.
The news to me was that UPI still exists.
Got Time on Your Hands?
You probably don't have as much time to waste as the people who created this. But you only have to waste two-and-a-half minutes to watch it.
Monday, March 23, 2009
NOT a Scam
You've no doubt seen ads claiming that you have money out there somewhere waiting for you to claim it. It could be a tax refund check you never cashed, a deposit for an apartment rental or utility you never got back or a long-forgotten bank account.
If you pay this company to find your missing money, it will probably do what you can do yourself for free: Visit MissingMoney.com.
CBS News reported this morning that this is legitimate. You enter your name and the state where you might have missing assets then a list of potential matches comes up.
Alas, it didn't locate anything for me.
If you pay this company to find your missing money, it will probably do what you can do yourself for free: Visit MissingMoney.com.
CBS News reported this morning that this is legitimate. You enter your name and the state where you might have missing assets then a list of potential matches comes up.
Alas, it didn't locate anything for me.
Police on MySpace
Police spokeswoman Laura McElroy said the page connects the police to people ages 14 to 25 who don't watch the TV news or read the newspaper.
That's from a St. Petersburg Times article about how the Tampa Police have created MySpace pages for itself and some individual officers.
This echoes the challenge that news media face in trying to reach people ages 14 to 25 who don't watch TV news or read the paper. And, although MySpace and Facebook are free, it can't bode well that not just government agencies are bypassing traditional media in trying to reach their audiences.
Too bad for the police. With newsrooms so short-staffed, many stories show up on the air barely re-written from the news releases. This morning one of our local stations called a police dog a "canine deputy" numerous times in a story.
Someone had obviously re-typed that police-speak verbatim without a thought from the news release. Just because someone uses officialese gobbledy-gook doesn't mean newswriters have to repeat it. In fact, a journalist's job is to translate that non-sense into plain language.
That's from a St. Petersburg Times article about how the Tampa Police have created MySpace pages for itself and some individual officers.
This echoes the challenge that news media face in trying to reach people ages 14 to 25 who don't watch TV news or read the paper. And, although MySpace and Facebook are free, it can't bode well that not just government agencies are bypassing traditional media in trying to reach their audiences.
Too bad for the police. With newsrooms so short-staffed, many stories show up on the air barely re-written from the news releases. This morning one of our local stations called a police dog a "canine deputy" numerous times in a story.
Someone had obviously re-typed that police-speak verbatim without a thought from the news release. Just because someone uses officialese gobbledy-gook doesn't mean newswriters have to repeat it. In fact, a journalist's job is to translate that non-sense into plain language.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
A Month Late
But I was busy. And lazy. And I forgot.
Here is a video I shot during my trip with my brother Jim to Key West last month. If you're not my brother Jim, you'll probably be bored. Jim, you'll probably be bored too.
Here is a video I shot during my trip with my brother Jim to Key West last month. If you're not my brother Jim, you'll probably be bored. Jim, you'll probably be bored too.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Another Scammer
Seems inventing "facts" to wring a buck out of someone is the American way.
I came home one day recently to find a folded sheet of white paper taped to my front door.
Do you know how Riverview ranks in
For violent crime, it says, "we come in at a 6." For property crime it's a 7. In both cases, according to the flyer, "the U.S. average is 3."
At first glance it looks pretty scary, doesn't it? I could have placed myself in mortal danger simply by reading this thing before going inside!
Which is the idea. "What can I do to make myself safer?" People will ask. So how convenient that the flyer is a pitch to attend a meeting about "our new Neighborhood Watch Program."
It promises that an administrator from our HOA (homeonwers association) will be there as well as a sheriff's deputy.
And, look! Also there will be a security system salesman. He "will demo personal property security options." A photocopy of his card appears in the lower right-hand side of the flyer.
Now the scam alarm is going off. Once that kicks in my brain function follows and I realize that on any evenly-weighted scale from 1 to 10, the average is never 3.
What is five, Alex?
Then a little research showed that the U.S. Census Bureau's American community Survey, while real, does not count crime statistics. That would be the National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the U.S. Justice Department.
So the survey results are fiction. And it looks pretty certain that this whole thing is a ruse designed to lure me into a meeting with a guy who will use high pressure scare tactics to sell me a home security system.
Which, oh by the way, I already have.
If this person had actually contacted our HOA, he might have learned that all of our homes came with a security system included. Whether to pay for a monitoring service was left to each home buyer but the keypad and the rest of the hardware is already in place.
He may be a little disappointed in the turnout of his event. I got home not long after the flyers had been posted to all of our doors. Most were still up.
Until I walked around the neighborhood and peeled them all off.
UPDATE: Our HOA administrator informs me that the flyers were posted by a neighbor. The statistics are still bogus and the flyer still seems fishy but I have deleted the name of the security system salesperson because I don't know what role, if any, he had in the flyer's creation or the event's planning.
I came home one day recently to find a folded sheet of white paper taped to my front door.
Do you know how Riverview ranks in
crime on a scale from 1 (low) to 10
(high) according to the U.S. Census
Bureau's American Community Survey?
For violent crime, it says, "we come in at a 6." For property crime it's a 7. In both cases, according to the flyer, "the U.S. average is 3."
At first glance it looks pretty scary, doesn't it? I could have placed myself in mortal danger simply by reading this thing before going inside!
Which is the idea. "What can I do to make myself safer?" People will ask. So how convenient that the flyer is a pitch to attend a meeting about "our new Neighborhood Watch Program."
It promises that an administrator from our HOA (homeonwers association) will be there as well as a sheriff's deputy.
And, look! Also there will be a security system salesman. He "will demo personal property security options." A photocopy of his card appears in the lower right-hand side of the flyer.
Now the scam alarm is going off. Once that kicks in my brain function follows and I realize that on any evenly-weighted scale from 1 to 10, the average is never 3.
What is five, Alex?
Then a little research showed that the U.S. Census Bureau's American community Survey, while real, does not count crime statistics. That would be the National Crime Victimization Survey, conducted by the U.S. Justice Department.
So the survey results are fiction. And it looks pretty certain that this whole thing is a ruse designed to lure me into a meeting with a guy who will use high pressure scare tactics to sell me a home security system.
Which, oh by the way, I already have.
If this person had actually contacted our HOA, he might have learned that all of our homes came with a security system included. Whether to pay for a monitoring service was left to each home buyer but the keypad and the rest of the hardware is already in place.
He may be a little disappointed in the turnout of his event. I got home not long after the flyers had been posted to all of our doors. Most were still up.
Until I walked around the neighborhood and peeled them all off.
UPDATE: Our HOA administrator informs me that the flyers were posted by a neighbor. The statistics are still bogus and the flyer still seems fishy but I have deleted the name of the security system salesperson because I don't know what role, if any, he had in the flyer's creation or the event's planning.
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