Customer Reviews

YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a thorough introduction to creating videos for YouTube, aimed at the absolute beginner. It is especially strong on explaining how to tell a story and on how to behave yourself as part of the YouTube community. The emphasis is on making art, not on making money.

It is not a techie book. There's a long chapter called "99-Cent Film School" that covers the mechanics of creating a video, but it's very basic and deals mostly with the selection of equipment, with some discussion of editing. The book is unusual in that it is not Macintosh-centric: the authors use Windows and claim there's no need to consider Macintosh because Windows is cheaper and has more software.

The authors summarize their position on p. 248 as "Don't watch the media, be the media." This is a good sound bite and gives the flavor of the book, although it is not really accurate since they encourage watching and commenting on the videos of other YouTubers. (Besides, if no one watched the media, would there be any media left?) The authors detest traditional media, especially television, and they detest much of the new media too. This doesn't have much impact on the book, except to cause occasional outbursts of gratuitous nastiness. For example, on p. 244 we read, "Social networking provides websites to people who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a computer." Although there's some truth in this, it is unnecessary to state it here. The isolation from other media also gives the impression that YouTube is its own universe, with no connection to anything else.

The nastiness comes out in concentrated form in the Preface, which attempts to explain "Why You Should Buy This Book" by trashing the competition. Be sure to skip this section of the book! It's not representative of the rest and reading it will turn you off from an otherwise-good book.

There are a number of rough spots that could have been improved by better copy-editing. The book is somewhat rambling. Although it does explain all the YouTube and computer jargon, it may use a term many times before defining it. For example, the term "partner" is used throughout the book but is not explained until Chapter 11. The index is often no help; "partner" is not in the index as such (you have to look under YouTube Partners), and acronyms such as RSS and NLE are not indexed at all.

YouTube URLs are cryptic pseudo-random character strings, and a Very Good Feature of the book is that the authors have placed every URL as a hyperlink on one page on their web site, so you just have to click it. This is not quite as good as feature as it could be, because the cryptic URLs on that page are not annotated other than with a cross-reference number such as "URL 9.3"; if each had a short description or title the page would be easier to navigate and would also be great for browsing.

I am not an YouTube expert but I was expecting more about the "psychological secrets" of making and "distributing" a five star video.The book contains to much information that I could find in the HELP pages of You Tube or in different user manuals.For example ,there are 14 pages about the Vegas Movie Studio (editing software made by Sony) and a whole section (chapter 4) about how to register with YouTube. Also,there are to many details about hardware (cameras, microphones, props).

I have found some of the information I was looking for mostly in Chapter7(Building Your Audience),Chapter 8(The Community:Where Do You Fit In?),Chapter 12(Beyond the 'Tube) and Chapter 113 (Becoming a Success Story).

I think the book might be useful to an absolute beginner who do not have the time to sit in front of his computer and learn online how to start with YouTube.

I know very little about YouTube - or, at least, I did, before reading this. I missed the growth of YouTube as a phenomenon for self-made videographers, and as such only knew the basics: You can upload, you can subscribe, and it's fun. Reading this book got me up to speed instantly: I learned about subscriber etiquette, how to legitimately make better videos and expand my userbase, and most importantly how to keep on having fun doing it. The title is apt: "An Insider's Guide." Alan and Michael have clearly spent a great deal of time inside YouTube, learning its tricks on a very micro level, and distribute them with clear writing and relaxed wit. Highly recommended!

This is the best of the You Tube books, in my opinion, and I am surprised by that fact. I was expecting a purely artistic viewpoint with no technical details and the authors actually start from the beginning, including a condensed You Tube history. They take you through the technical aspects of getting started on You Tube, and actually give you a ninety-nine cent film school chapter on how to shoot a video. Anybody can do it, but observe the You Tube videos with annoying/mismatched music, no music, or characters that drone on endlessly to no point. Here they show you how to avoid doing that. One of the authors has written a very good book that expands on how to shoot an interesting film, $30 Film School, Second Edition, one if its good points being that it doesn't even cost thirty dollars and it is accessible to people whose "day job" is not the art of filmmaking.

What makes this book really stand out is the authors' tips on "climbing the charts" with your quality videos. He talks about everything from tagging to communities on this issue. Finally, the author talks about "Them Tube", the mainstream media, and how it becomes more and more the antithesis of everything that You Tube is about and that makes it a success. With the onset of this latest recession perhaps depression, one thing you can be sure of is that "Them Tube" will become more and more homogenized - more reality TV, less quality films, fewer mainstream filmmakers and their financiers willing to take a chance. You Tube is the answer to that and this book shows you how you can be a part of it.

This is a good, solid, basic guide to youtube. Ignore the hype behind the book, and there is a lot of it. The book is a simple, great basic guide to youtube with a common sense approach to achieving a lively channel. It's not going to work a miracle for you. But nothing will.

In the end, and the book states this explicitly, you have to be likable, cool, and a great communicator to become popular on youtube. This book just gets you started on the right path.

Good book. I liked it very much. I found it to be well organized and well written. Its intended target audience is people who are interested in adding YouTube to their arsenal of Internet Marketing tools and techniques. Included are the following 15 chapters:

1. What is this YouTub of which you speak?
2. Storytelling and directing
3. 99-cent film school: Shooting, editing, & rendering
4. Creating your very own channel
5. Broadcasting yourself: User-generated content
6. Rebroadcasting: Commercial content
7. Building your audience
8. The community: Where do you fit in?
9. Hacking the system: How to cheat (& why you shouldn't)
10. Reaching the world
11. Money money money!
12. Beyond the `Tube
13. Becoming a success story
14. Closing arguments
15. Interviews with other YouTube rock stars

There is not a whole lot I can say about this book that you cannot see for yourself by just looking at the chapter titles. But I felt compelled to post a review for this tome so I can remember reading it and recommend it to my SCORE clients who seek to take full advantage of the Internet in their marketing efforts. 5 stars!

This book is absolutely fantastic. Just buy it, right now. If you're reading this to see if this book will be worth your time, stop right here and just buy the book.

I bought this thinking it will help me figure out how to use YouTube as a marketing tool for my video business, but I got a whole lot more than I anticipated.

This book pretty much covers EVERYTHING a beginner filmmaker needs to know. Even an experienced filmmaker should read this. It really covers everything they teach you AND DON'T teach you in film school. Not only that, it's a fun read. The two authors sprinkle humor throughout the entire guide. There are hard statistics and seemingly boring factoids, but they are all told with humor.

YES, a lot of the YouTube information is dated and doesn't apply to how YouTube functions right now, but there are core ideas expressed in this book that are truly valuable. I almost cried in chapter 14, when one of the authors tells a story about his daughter. I love this book. It's not just a guide on YouTube, it's an uplifting and motivational guide for your life.

First I learned things from this book so it is worth it if you can afford to buy it; I can't so I borrowed it from the library. So, my complaint is that there are so many links embedded in the text. Really, I don't like to sit at my computer and read a book. I'm at my computer enough. It's not like all the links are to resources such as [...]. A lot of the links are to his friends' videos. He'll mention a technique and then say "here look at it in action at so-and-so's YouTube video." It seems like he's promoting a lot of people on YouTube, which is fine too, but if I'm going to get through the book within a decent time frame (everyone considers their time valuable), then I can't go watch every video you give me a link to...it would take too long to get through the book. Not only that, but in every chapter, it seems he's mentioning one of his other books. Someone just bought your YouTube book, and now the author is already hinting / pushing you to buy his other one or two? It's like advertising built in to his book, and he himself says that there is so much money to be made in advertising (he even puts it in italic).

That said, I did learn some important things that will help me out. I'd share what I learned with you, but what each person learns in a book is based on what you don't know or don't consider important. So, to discover what is important for you, you'll have to read the book!

One thing that this book does not point out is that you must be a naturally creative person in order to succeed on YouTube. You have to offer something fresh and new, and it does take money to start out (not a lot, but some). Probably not everyone has a digital camera and a microphone and the $70 some odd dollars it costs to buy the software to edit the video...not to mention a computer fast enough and with enough memory to handle large video files.

So say for example you want to "make it" on YouTube, if you are not a creative person, you basically have to find another way to gain subscribers. He doesn't mention any of the other ways to do this. I can tell you one of those ways: share information with others. Personally I upload some of the same product reviews I upload to amazon up to YouTube, and guess what? My three most viewed videos are the same ones I uploaded to Amazon! (Thanks Amazon for the idea!) I guess the authors approach to YouTube is the only one he considers doable. Now I realize I will not be high on the charts for just uploading reviews of cell phones, but it's at least a place to start until I can make new videos that do catch more attention.

So, to recap, I like the book, but I like to read away from the computer where it's comfortable. (I'm at the computer enough, so I like to "escape" to other places away from the PC.) There is a lot of great information in the book with some shameless self-promotion as well as promotion of other YouTubers. I don't want to take the time to view every clip he gives a link to because I want to get to the "meat" of the information as quickly as possible. So, I skip the links that are not to critical information or sources. And, the author does not state that in order to be at the high top of the charts, you have to have a certain personality or at least be a good enough actor/actress to fake it. And, he does not give additional ways that a video can get lots of views, such as to offer product reviews, which is a way of sharing information.

So, it's worthwhile, but you'll have to buy it if you can't devote the time it takes to view all the URLs at your computer. I guess it'd be easier if you have a laptop.

If you are a new YouTube user, trying to learn the ropes of video sharing online, YouTube: An Insider's Gudie To Climbing the Charts has enough material to get you through the basics. It discusses the critical bases of storytelling, directing, shooting, editing and rendering. You are walked through the process of setting up your very own YouTube channel and how to build an audience for it while you make sure you keep your content accessible and legal (you don't want to find your videos removed or your channel shut down for copyright infringement). You are introduced to ways in which you can monetize your videos (if that's your thing) and the broad world of online video beyond YouTube.

Overall, this is not an ideal starting point for beginners but it has enough references to help someone who is a fast learner to get started. Though advanced users may find most of the content already familiar, there are a ton of tips and hints that are bound to become a treasure of wisdom regardless of how long you've been publishing on YouTube. Most of the intermediate-level readers, who may have done a video or two, but want to get to the next level, will find the book to be an extremely wealthy read.

When I picked this one up I could not help but think, "Why? Why would anyone want to be really good at Youtube?" This book gives any marketer more than enough answers.

The authors are not only adepts at YouTube, they have a good background in film and film studies. This combination has allowed the creation of a very pragmatic, hands on guide that really does lead you through how to achieve the goal in the title. Very readable and moves right along, so it is not a heavy tome by any measure.

On another level the book provides some insight on the user generated content space and just how compelling it is. The linked examples in the book are very useful in a study of this space. You see how Youtube has been able to generate such a strong and growing user base. No wonder that the analysts say that Google is losing millions on just the hosting alone for YouTube. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and for how long. Any marketer will gain a lot from this book.